Written by: Jacob Nevis
I am now 21, and I’m visiting my grandparents in California for the summer. My family has already moved to northern Georgia, and my dad is now an Atlanta Braves fan, even though I never thought I would see the day when he would give up the Oakland A’s. My grandfather, on the other hand, is still a diehard fan and suggests we go to a game to see them take on the Braves.
So we did. My youngest brother and I decided to tag along with them. When we arrived, the parking lot looked like a ghost town. I had seen more cars parked at a high school football game compared to that parking lot. Since the Braves didn’t visit Oakland very often, more than half of the fans around seemed to be Braves fans. Once we arrived inside the stadium, it felt like there wasn’t even a baseball game happening that day. A lot of the concession stands were closed, and there weren’t a lot of workers like you would normally see at a ballgame.
Reminiscent to when I went to the game when I was 10 years old, we decided to sit near the same spot on the third base line. Once we got down to our seats, I noticed something in the once-rowdy right field. Signs were being set up for everyone in the stadium to see. Some of the signs read “Sell the team,” along with “Boycott Gap.” During the game, I noticed that the stadium was nearly empty, and it looked like there were only about 1,500 people in attendance. As the game rolled on, “Sell the team” chants could be heard making their way from the fans. The A’s lost the game, and it was probably the worst game I’d attended up to that point. The magic of the Oakland A’s and their fans had disappeared.
The future of the team is quite dark and dim. The team will be leaving Oakland to head north to the capital of California, where they will be playing in Sacramento until 2028. In 2028, however, the team will relocate to their new permanent home in Nevada and become the Las Vegas Athletics. While some fans in Oakland may abandon their support for the team, many fans, including me, will continue to support the team that made us fall in love with the sport of baseball. I have a hope that the team I fell in love with will break the cycle and lead its fans back to the promised land and win another World Series.
