The Athletics’ relocation to Las Vegas is progressing full speed ahead, but fans in Oakland have not given up the fight to keep their team from leaving.
During Tuesday’s game against the Rays, nearly 28,000 fans showed up as part of a “reverse boycott,” with many wearing shirts or waving signs urging owner John Fisher to sell the team. It was the best-attended home game for the A’s this season, with a larger attendance than the team’s five previous Tuesday home games combined.
The night was a strong show of support from A’s fans under adverse conditions, and it also likely was a cathartic experience as they grapple with their beloved franchise’s likely departure. For commissioner Rob Manfred, though, it seemed more like the butt of a joke.
When asked about the reverse boycott, Manfred couldn’t help but offer a dismissive comment at the fan turnout, going out of his way to describe it as “almost an average Major League Baseball crowd in the facility for one night.” Unsurprisingly, that quote rubbed plenty of people throughout the game the wrong way, including former A’s pitcher Brandon McCarthy.
McCarthy, who made 43 starts for Oakland from 2011 to ’12, took Manfred to task over his comment via Twitter, calling the commissioner’s comments “f—ing pathetic.”
“How is this not disqualifying?” McCarthy wrote. “This toad is the steward of a glorious sport, dripping with history and he feels entitled to mock fans who are making their voices heard as he sits by and caters to hiding billionaires? Why do we accept this in our culture?”
With Nevada governor Joe Lombardo signing a bill that approved public funding for the team’s new Las Vegas stadium, it appears there’s nothing to stand in the way of the team’s move to the desert. McCarthy summed up his thoughts on Manfred by commending the atmosphere at the Oakland Coliseum during the reverse boycott game.
“That’s real atmosphere. It meant something to people,” McCarthy wrote. “[Manfred] doesn’t see any of that. Manfred has no time for anything real. Good baseball, bad baseball, real emotion, manufactured emotion … whatever. Means zilch to him.”
