If you were to wake up one morning and read that one of Philadelphia’s sports teams were leaving for another city, how would you react?
Oakland has been dealing with this exact situation for several years now. In 2019, the NFL’s Raiders played their final season at Oakland Coliseum (pictured above), and they relocated to Las Vegas’s Allegiant Stadium for the 2020 season. That same year, the NBA’s Warriors moved across the Bay Bridge to San Francisco’s Chase Center from Oakland Arena – then known as Oracle Arena – following their loss to the Toronto Raptors in the NBA Finals.
Very soon, Major League Baseball’s Athletics (commonly known as the A’s) will be following suit. MLB and A’s owner John Fisher have announced plans for the team to leave the Coliseum at the end of this coming season and play in a new ballpark in Las Vegas in 2028, with unclear plans for 2025-2027.
Professional sports culture in Oakland is now in the final stages of being erased completely. Baseball has been the city’s last hope ever since the Raiders’ departure. Yes, there are still plenty of other teams in the Bay Area for fans to root for, but Oakland has had their own identity – their own place within sports culture – separate from other cities in the Bay Area, such as San Francisco and San Jose. Now, though, that is dangerously close to being erased entirely, being quelled, if you will. Before that happens, though, let’s take a look back at what the A’s have meant to Oakland.
The A’s have had many enthralling moments in Oakland. They have won four World Series titles during their time in Northern California, including three consecutive championships from 1972-1974. That three-peat of the 1970s saw the A’s prevail in the maximum seven games in both ‘72 and ‘73, over the Reds and Mets, respectively. This era of Oakland baseball featured starting pitchers Vida Blue, Rollie Fingers, and Catfish Hunter, as well as postseason hero (and Cheltenham High School alumnus) Reggie Jackson.
To capture their fourth World Series title, the A’s triumphed over their Bay Area rivals, the San Francisco Giants, in four games in 1989. That last title was the second of three straight appearances in the World Series, sandwiched between defeats to the Dodgers and Reds in 1988 and 1990, respectively. Some notable players from these playoff runs included power hitters Jose Canseco and Mark McGwire (collectively known as the “Bash Brothers”), base-stealing phenom Rickey Henderson, and relief pitcher Dennis Eckersley.
In the early-2000s, the A’s were frequent playoff contenders, finishing either first or second in the American League West division every year from 2000-2006. This was known as the “Moneyball” era, a time in which the A’s were consistently winning games despite maintaining a low payroll. Perhaps the Athletics’ best season during that stretch was the 2002 campaign, where they won 20 consecutive games from August to September, totaling 103 wins by season’s end. These years were headlined by a trio of starting pitchers – Tim Hudson, Mark Mulder, and Barry Zito – dubbed the “Big Three,” and American League MVP Award winners Jason Giambi and Miguel Tejada.
The Moneyball era ultimately changed baseball as a whole, as the A’s were not just consistently finding ways to win on a tight budget, but they were doing so while forcing other teams to reevaluate how they were playing the game. Then-A’s general manager Billy Beane began to utilize sabermetrics – a more mathematical approach to sports statistics and roster construction – to get the best out of players who otherwise may not have been utilized as much.
Today, the use of advanced analytics such as sabermetrics has become commonplace within MLB and professional sports as a whole. While Beane and the Athletics did not invent the idea of using such statistics to win games, they certainly helped to popularize it.
Later on, the A’s had some more success between 2012 and 2020, appearing in the postseason six times under manager Bob Melvin. However, this all came to a halt around the 2021-22 off-season, when the team began to sell off some of its more prominent stars. Between 2021 and 2023, standout players like Matt Olson, Matt Chapman, Mark Canha, Chris Bassitt, and Sean Murphy all left the A’s either through trades or free agency. These roster moves led to one of the most hopeless two-year stretches in franchise history, as the Athletics finished a combined 110-214 from 2022-2023.
With that came continually decreasing attendance figures, quelling over a half-century of memories made by fans and players alike while celebrating the highs and lows of the Green and Gold and Oakland’s place within professional sports culture as a whole.
Gone are the days when Oakland had a strong presence within sports culture. The height of the Moneyball era and the thrills of October baseball in the city are now nothing but a distant memory. The Athletics may still exist as a professional sports team, but their success as a low-spending contender has been left behind.
What happens next for the A’s? Where will they play once their lease agreement with Oakland Coliseum ends after this coming season? Who will Oakland fans root for once the A’s leave town?
Imagine if a team like the Phillies did this – if their owner, John Middleton, decided to move the team elsewhere for whatever reason. How would that affect Philadelphia as a whole? How would they move past the loss of their beloved baseball team, a team that has played in the city since 1883?
While it may be hard to predict what an exact response would sound like, one thing is for certain: this situation is devastating.
Featured image by Matt Dodd.
