Padecky: A’s have become Oakland’s headache

When a professional sports team leaves a city, like the Oakland A’s, how does it impact the region?

Oops. I’m sorry. Did I say A’s? I meant the Oakland Raiders. Or was it the Golden State Warriors? Feels like an evacuation. Oakland rests on sagging landfill and people are throwing forearms at each other to get out of town before it sinks into The Bay.

Of course for some people having a pro sports team in their city is not as nearly important as building another freeway off-ramp. After all, the exit would provide much needed relief from traffic congestion. The A’s? Some people can’t even spell “A’s”.

Doesn’t help that no matter what team played in town Oakland always has been the unwanted and much maligned step brother to San Francisco. This old dart still inflicts emotional pain: When taking the Bay Bridge, one has to pay to enter San Francisco but it’s free passage east to Oakland.

So how to gauge the impact of a team on a city? The quick answer may be the most impressive: A 2015 KGO-TV video of the parade crowd in Oakland as the Warriors celebrated their first NBA title in 40 years. Police estimated the crowd to be a million fans and that would appear to be exaggeration until the helicopter video scanned the area. Yep, that’s what a million people crammed into a sardine can looks like.

As a comparison Saul Perlmutter, a physics professor at UC Berkeley, won the 2011 Nobel Prize for Physics for working with a team that discovered the accelerating expansion of the universe. To be fair Mr. Perlmutter’s work had a global impact, a significant achievement that has extended beyond that year.

But also, to be fair, a million people didn’t show up in 90-degree mid-day heat to honor Mr. Perlmutter.

A professional athlete, a musician and a movie actor provide what Mr. Perlmutter can not, with all due respect. Escape. Entertainment. Suspended reality, eagerly sought after these days. Sitting in the stands fans don’t look around them and determine the political affiliation of the person seated next to them. Nor does the color of their skin have anymore influence on them than the shape of a someone’s ear.

They are brothers and sisters united, however temporarily, on the scene in front of them. The object of their attention and affection is so personal, they call them by their first name, even though the athlete doesn’t know them from a coat hanger. This bond bridges race, color and creed. Nowhere else in American society are such otherwise conflicting and potential volatile differences so benignly resolved.

Unless a chowderhead decides to drink while sitting in the middle of a Raider crowd dressed in Kansas City Chiefs colors. If that happens, take your kids for a walk around the concourse. Or buy a raincoat.

Team owners play those fan affections like a violin. They hold cities captive, using The Affection Card while waiting for the blank check. Fans deserve better, so goes the pitch. Fans deserve a better stadium, better food, better atmosphere, better seats, and especially in Oakland’s case, better plumbing.

However, nowhere is it mentioned A’s fans deserve better owners.

You have read the previous sentence before. When it comes to taking a roll call of ownership that has treated the baseball team like it was perennial fire sale, it’s a wonder the A’s have lasted this long in Oakland. Walter Haas and his son gave Oakland something special in the ‘80s only to have cheapened and tarnished to the point the current team now seems more like a headache than an attraction.

A headache for this reason: The best team to have ever played baseball in the Bay Area seems like a lifetime and 100 Advils ago. The team of Canseco, McGwire, Stew, the Eck, Rickey and the rest remind us of what was.

The 2022 A’s remind us of what is. The team with the worst record in baseball plays in front of the smallest crowds in baseball. The owner who doesn’t speak publicly and we are glad he doesn’t, John Fisher, has the temerity to hold the city of Oakland and the county of Alameda hostage.

With a roster so depleted it may not be talented enough to win the Pacific Coast League championship. Yet, so says A’s ownership through back channels, better put us at the Howard Terminal site with a new stadium or this ragamuffin roster is going to Las Vegas.

The A’s announced 15 months ago it began looking at Vegas. At different times the A’s were gone. Then they were not. Then they were seriously thinking about it. Then they hoped Oakland loved them. Then they were discouraged Oakland wasn’t.

Then A’s management wondered whether the city and county officials were competent to put this off. Last February news reports revealed the Raiders left the city and the county in debt to the tune of $189,726,358. The city had given the Raiders a loan and, as the unpaid interest mounted, the football team somehow snuck in a clause that they could default anytime on the loan payment without penalty.

The Raiders went to Vegas and the city and the county now are on the hook for almost $190 million. Oops. Imagine the blushing. Imagine, further, why the city may not want to hand Fisher even a hamburger to make the relocation happen. Imagine Fisher wondering if they have enough money to afford that hamburger.

The mix of incompetency, bravado, disinterest and financial mismanagement is enough for an A’s fan to set the hair on fire and go screaming into the night, searching for video from the 1989 season.

This situation has answered the question: What impact does a professional sports team have on a community? Immense. It can make megamillionaires go cheap to make more money and then cry about it. It can make cities entrusted with the financial health of its inhabitants suddenly become celebrity awestruck abandoning common sense and sixth-grade math.

Oakland’s not the only example of a city slapping mud on its image and the wrist of its accountants because of a sports team. However, considering the magnitude of loss, Oakland is the leader in the clubhouse. In fact it’s not even a competition.

To comment write to bobpadecky@gmail.com.