A’s fans feel recent trades, ticket prices ‘might be the last straw’

MESA, Arizona — Oakland resident Noël Grandrath was standing in the beer line at Hohokam Stadium, attending the first spring training game of 2022, when she spotted A’s president Dave Kaval walking nearby.

Wearing a Matt Chapman jersey with the name and number covered by black tape, Grandrath glanced at Kaval from afar and issued a faint plea: “Keep your promises, dude.”

Grandrath and many other fans are fed up with the A’s latest teardown. This week the team traded Chapman and two other 2021 All-Stars, Matt Olson and Chris Bassitt, in a cost-savings sweep that likely hasn’t seen its end.

Life as an A’s fan was in plain view last Saturday. A fan fest organized by the fans rather than by the team was crashed by the trade of Bassitt. The news struck minutes after a raffle in which a hat and ball autographed by Bassitt were awarded. Even the presence of special guests — Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf and A’s mascot Stomper were among the crowd of 200 — couldn’t blunt the pain of that irony.

Alex Espinosa, proprietor of “The Rickey Henderson of Blogs” website, captured some fan sentiment in the aftermath of the trade. One commenter summed up the situation perfectly: “I’m sad but I’m not surprised. I’ve been an A’s fan for a long time, so I’m used to it.”

Every A’s era has ended with a painful teardown. Only the names have changed. It started with Catfish Hunter, Reggie Jackson and the “Mustache Gang” of the 1970s. Then came Rickey Henderson, followed by Jose Canseco, Mark McGwire, Dennis Eckersley and Dave Stewart. Followed by Jason Giambi, Miguel Tejada, Tim Hudson, Mark Mulder, Barry Zito. On and on it goes. Sonny Gray, Yoenis Cespedes, Josh Donaldson and so many others leading up to Chapman, Olson and Bassitt.

“At this point, I think fans are pretty numb to it,” Espinosa said. “This is how it’s been for the past two decades. But it still stings.”

Team ownership, led by John Fisher, hasn’t done anything to soften the latest blow. Fans are facing a massive increase in ticket prices. In a thread of tweets this week, one fan wrote that his view-level tickets had gone from $399 per seat in 2019 to $888 this season. Another wrote that his two seats in Section 225 had gone from $2,950 in 2019 to $6,500 this season. A third wrote that their Section 119 seat jumped from $711 to $1,587.

The kicker at the end of most of those tweets? Most fans said they didn’t renew for 2022.

“If they kept the band together, it’d be one thing, like, ‘Oh sweet, we have a chance to win this year,’” Espinosa said. “But the fact that they’re tearing down the roster at the same time they’re increasing ticket prices just doesn’t make much sense to them — it doesn’t make much sense to me.”

The trades have even stung the most vocal of A’s supporters: former pitcher and A’s broadcaster Dallas Braden. The popular left-hander posted a video after Olson was traded, interrupting his defense of the trade by screaming curse words.

Braden indicated at the end of the rant that he will be sticking with the team. But fans at Friday’s game were less certain of their plans.

Patrick Guyer came down from Sacramento for his 11-year-old son’s baseball tournament and wanted to catch his favorite team’s spring opener with his three children. He grew up an A’s fan, starting during the Giambi-Tejada years, and has been raising his kids to be fans, too — even when their favorite players get traded away.

“It can be disappointing, at times,” Guyer said. “Part of it is, you want to be attached, but then you don’t, because you’re going to lose the players.”

His eldest son’s favorite player is Olson, who he’ll now support in Atlanta. While they make it to around four or five games in Oakland a season, Guyer said these moves make him question his fandom.

“It’s kind of frustrating,” he said. “Like, why can’t we keep the players and pay them? We have an owner who has a lot of money. Why can’t we keep the players and pay for them and try to get a World Series?”

Grandrath shares the same frustration. She first became an A’s fan in the 1970s, enjoying the teams who won three World Series crowns in a row even though she was living in Chicago. She moved to Oakland in 1986 and followed the team from up close ever since, including becoming a full season ticket holder in 2010.

Grandrath already has her season tickets for 2022, but she isn’t even sure if she’ll stick around past this year because of the ticket price hike and the removal of the A’s Access benefits program season ticket holders used to get.

“I might not after this,” Grandrath said. “This might be the last straw.”

One thing is certain: many fans won’t follow the team to Las Vegas, the location Kaval and the A’s have targeted as a potential new home if the Howard Terminal stadium proposal falls through in Oakland.

“I would just enjoy baseball, and not be following the Las Vegas A’s,” Guyer said.

“I love the A’s, I love Oakland, but if they don’t stay in Oakland ...” Grandrath said, completing her thought with a waving goodbye motion.