On April 27, as the Sacramento River Cats faced off against the Las Vegas Aviators at Sutter Health Park, the square beyond the right field wall was filled with a sea of green.
It wasn’t the landscaping’s fault.
Hundreds of A’s fans wearing kelly green “SELL” shirts and Oakland gear gathered on the banks of the Sacramento River to send a message. The fan revolt that has cast a shadow over the team for more than a year does not stop after the team’s games. Move north for more than three years of marriage with the franchise and California’s capital.
“We cannot simply think that just because we are an hour away we will stop protesting the move,” said Jorge Leon, founder of the Oakland 68s, an Athletics League fan group. , said a few days before the game featuring the Giants in Triple-A. They will soon be sharing a house with the A’s.
“Whether it’s Oakland, Las Vegas or Sacramento, we’re going to find a way to make our voices heard.”
The Athletics have a deal with owner John Fisher and Kings and River Cats owner Vivek Ranadive to be home at 14,000-seat Sutter Health Park until at least 2027, when Las Vegas Stadium is built. As a result, he will leave Oakland and move to Sacramento after the 2024 season.
Fisher has made few public appearances over the past year, either in the Bay Area or at the Oakland Coliseum, as fan anger has intensified. Fans have made his name and likeness into a symbol of protest, making signs and flags with harsh words and his face. In late April, a few hours before the first pitch, a sign reading “Fisher Out” appeared on a tailgate in the parking lot of Sutter Health Park.
Brian Johansen, co-founder of Last Dive Bar, an Oakland apparel company that has helped organize six fan protests over the past year, said the demonstrations at the ballpark will be taken to a new level. They say it’s just a matter of time.
As the relocation reaches its climax, Johansen said it may be time to expand the protest movement outside of the A’s organization, potentially including Ranadive’s Kings, Fisher’s San Jose Earthquakes, and others. Or he said he might target his family’s clothing company, Gap. And like Fisher, Ranadive should expect to meet and hear from A’s fans whenever he makes a public appearance, Johansen added.
Fisher has borne the brunt of fan ire for countless stadium failures and little investment in the team on the field, not to mention the collapsing Coliseum.
Ranadive, who has been touted as the savior of the Kings franchise in his adopted hometown of Sacramento after offering a helping hand to Fisher, is now drawing ire.
“Vivek [Ranadive] is a hypocrite,” said A’s fan Gabriel Hernandez. “He claims to be about community and about helping people. [Sacramento] King, but we’re experiencing the same thing here. He’s trying to step in to be the savior of John Fisher, not the savior of the fans here in Oakland.”
Ranadive did not respond to requests for comment from the Post.
What Dave Peters, also known as “Bleacher Dave” for his appearances beyond the walls of the Coliseum, will miss most is that tight-knit Oakland community.
“This is a family,” Peters said shortly after making the two-hour-plus Amtrak journey from Oakland to Sacramento. “Some of the people in this Mr. A community have known each other for decades. And that’s being stripped away from us.”
Ten years ago, the Sacramento Kings put an end to their own relocation scare after years of rumors about moves to Seattle, Anaheim, Virginia Beach, etc.
With the help of his passionate fan base, Ranadive bought the team from the disgraced Malouf family in 2013 and kept the franchise in Sacramento with a new downtown arena, making it a lifelong fixture in a city with only one professional sports team. I bought trust.
Ranadive’s move to the Athletics may be both an advantage for Fisher and a ploy to put a future Major League Baseball team in Sacramento, as he said at the press conference announcing the Athletics move.
“If we can prove that there is a market here. [and] “We can make the team successful. We are ready to acquire a new franchise,” Ranadive said.
It remains unclear where the Athletics will play in 2025 after failing to reach an agreement with the city of Oakland to lease the Coliseum, with the Aviators’ Triple-A stadiums in Sacramento, Salt Lake City and Las Vegas being rumored.
But it wasn’t until Ranadive signed a rent-free deal that Fisher found Wanderer A’s home.
Ranadive and Sacramento will now undergo a three-year tryout as two-sport cities, but that comes at a price. If Mr. Ranadive was aiming to win over people who are furious at what his favored baseball team has caused in the process, it appears he is falling short of that goal.
“He was supposed to be the patron saint of keeping the Kings ‘rooted in Sacramento,'” Johansen said. “Now he’s here trying to kick another team out of its community that’s been around for over 50 years. Why does one community mean more than another?”
Johansen, who participated in a “reverse boycott” at the Coliseum last June, a tailgate boycott on opening day this season, and several other fan demonstrations over the past year, says this is definitely just the beginning of a rocky relationship. He said no. Between frustrated A’s fans and Sacramento.
Between chants of “Sell the team” from the crowd just beyond the wall in the right-field seats, Johansen said the April 27 protest was a no-brainer in the Central Valley as long as the Athletics were based in Sacramento. He said it was one of the many protests that have spread to the United States.
“We present Vivek,” Johansen said. “We won’t leave easily.”
