It was a prior generation when The Oakland Athletics were the most
dominant team in Major League Baseball. From 1988 to 1992, The Athletics
won The American League Western Division Titles, three AL Pennants and
one World Series Title. They were led by ” the bash brothers” of Mark
McGwire, Jose Canseco, and Dave Parker along with Hall of Fame closer
Dennis Eckersley. After dumping salaries in the mid 90s, The A’s were
back at it again by 2000 as they made four consecutive playoff
appearances.
“Moneyball” was in effect as Athletics general manager Billy Beane
learned at the feet of current New York Mets general manager Sandy
Alderson and sabermetrics was born.
The Athletics were able to produce All-Stars in the form of Jason
Giambi, Miguel Tejada, and pitchers Barry Zito and Tim Hudson, but once
contract time came around all of these players left. The Silicon Valley
Region is controlled by The San Francisco Giants who are making it tough
on The A’s. The Athletics want to move to San Jose and build a new
ballpark where they can thrive, but The Giants are blocking home plate.
The A’s have called The Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum home since
1968, but recently they have consistently ranked near the bottom of MLB
home attendance. Out of 30 MLB teams, The A’s are currently 28th in
attendance which is an improvement from last season when they were 30th.
The Athletics are helped out when The Giants or The Boston Red Sox or
New York Yankees visit as they have large fan bases that fill up the
seats.
The Coliseum has always been notorious for having a large foul
territory area which keeps fans far away from the action. Oakland is
currently the only MLB team to share a stadium with a National Football
League team. When The Raiders returned to Oakland in 1995, former
Raiders Al Davis was allowed to put in suites which have forever changed
the landscape of the stadium.
Now The A’s play in a stadium that can seat over 60,000 but they
refuse to open up the upper level which makes their home capacity
roughly 35,000. With Oakland struggling to draw 20,000 fans for each
home game they are now forced to field a team that is a MLB version of
The Bad News Bears. The average fan will not be familiar with names such
as Tyson Ross or Seth Smith, but this has become the norm in Oakland.
Beane consistently takes players that other teams do not want or
overlook as the majority of The Athletics core players were either
acquired by trades or they are journeyman that are clinging on to a MLB
career.
The Athletics are the fourth team that outfielder Coco Crisp has
played for as he has seen his fair share of ups and downs during his MLB
tenure which included him winning a World Series Title with The Red Sox
in 2007. Outfielder Jose Reddick came over in a trade that sent closer
Andrew Bailey to Boston in the off-season. Reddick currently has a 17
home runs and could potentially be The Athletics only representative at
next month’s All-Star Game in Kansas City. This is the deck that Beane
has to deal with as he continuously trades players once they are
eligible to hit the free-agent market in order to get some value in
return.
A possibility for The A’s could be to renovate The Oakland Coliseum.
Since Davis’ death last October, his son Mark has taken over the team’s
operations. Since that time Davis has flirted with the notion of moving
The Raiders back to Los Angeles or sharing the cost of a new stadium in
Santa Clara with The San Francisco 49ers. If The Raiders were to leave
The Coliseum, maybe The Athletics and city officials in Oakland could
work out a deal on renovating their current stadium. Stadium renovation
has worked in baseball for The Kansas City Royals and The Los Angeles
Angels. The Royals will get a chance to show off the recently renovated
Kauffman Stadium during The All-Star Game and they have a fresh buzz
around the team with exciting prospects such as outfielder Eric Hosmer.
The Angels turned their stadium into a baseball only complex once The
Rams left Los Angeles for St. Louis in 1995. Since renovating Angels
Stadium, The Angels have been one of the better teams in baseball while
winning The World Series in 2002.
It would really be nice to once again see The A’s become
competitive. With an organization full of Hall of Famers such as Reggie
Jackson, Rollie Fingers, and Rickey Henderson, The Athletics fans
deserve a better fate. Oakland won three consecutive World Series
Championships in the 70s, but what could’ve been if Jackson, Joe Rudi,
and Vida Blue were not traded by former Athletics owner Charlie Finley
who could not afford the looming large salaries brought on by impending
free agency in 1976? What would have been in the 2000s if Beane was able
to keep Hudson, Giambi and Tejada, or with the current team if Bailey
wasn’t traded to Boston or if starting pitcher Gio Gonzalez wasn’t
shipped to The Washington Nationals? Fans of The Athletics are tired of
seeing players come and go as if it is a college team. If this process
of relying on sabremetrics continues, people will continue to forget
about the rich history of The A’s that includes nine World Series
Titles. This a far cry for a team with that much hardware.
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