Cursing John Fisher, Oakland A’s fans hold out hope their team stays put

OAKLAND – Alternating chants of “sell the team” and “(expletive) John Fisher” — in reference to the Oakland A’s owner — filled the air Tuesday afternoon as over a thousand amped-up fans in green and gold gathered for a pregame tailgate in the Coliseum’s south parking lot hours before their favorite team’s game against the Tampa Bay Rays.

The event, part of a ‘Reverse Boycott’ organized solely by A’s fans to demonstrate their love for the team, began with a few dozen people arriving more than 3½ hours before the first pitch. Members of the Oakland 68s fan group gave away hundreds of green T-shirts that read “Sell,” and after an hour, the assembled crowd swelled to several hundred people.

The Coliseum parking lot, which is usually mostly empty for weekday home games, also rapidly filled up, providing something of a festive atmosphere for ardent followers of the team — and serving as a reminder that the Bay Area remains passionate about the A’s.

“We do it to keep the A’s in Oakland,” said Oakland 68s member Jorge Leon, one of the organizers of the event. “That’s the whole end goal, to try to put pressure and maintain that pressure on John Fisher and MLB to sell the A’s to a local ownership group that can be part of the community.”

But there was also some sense of despair – at least by a few fans who have been keenly following the actions of Nevada lawmakers in recent days.

Tuesday, the Nevada state senate voted 13-8 to approve the proposal by the A’s to build a ballpark on the Las Vegas Strip on the site of the Tropicana Hotel & Casino. The estimated cost of the 30,000-seat stadium is $1.5 billion, with $380 million of that price tag funded by the public.

The Nevada Assembly will pick up discussions on the bill on Wednesday at 11 a.m.

With that knowledge, there was a feeling that despite whatever happened Tuesday, the A’s wouldn’t be long for the East Bay without some miracle.

“It might not amount to a hill of beans,” said Sean O’Halloran, a longtime A’s fan who flew in from Australia for the event. “But at the end of the day, ownership will do what ownership does and they’ve shown in the last 20 years that they don’t really care what the fans think. They will do what they do regardless.”

“I definitely want to make sure that we exhaust all of our options and make sure that the team can stay,” said Hercules resident Robert Boeri, 60, who has been coming to A’s games since he was 13. “But it’s not looking very good.”

Boeri usually attends a dozen or so A’s games per season but hasn’t been to a game since the organization announced in April they had a binding agreement to purchase a 49-acre plot of land just north of Allegiant Stadium. A’s ownership shifted their focus to the Tropicana site last month.

“I didn’t want to give away money to John Fisher,” Boeri said. “But I think this is a good sacrifice to have a chance to be with a crowd of people that have the same cause as me right now.”

The fans that gathered for the tailgate wanted to send a message to Fisher and MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred that Oakland remains passionate about the A’s.

“One man can decide that he can make more money somewhere else and take (the team) away, but he can’t take this,” said an emotional Hal Gordon, more affectionately known at the Coliseum as, the ‘Hot Dog Guy.’

“No matter where this (team) goes, if somehow by a miracle they stay, or there’s an expansion team in five years, this community is going to still be around and still be strong. Tonight is to tell people in New York and the rest of the country that we are a community that matters, but it’s also for us as well. This is gonna be so much fun.”

“We don’t live here, but we love this town and the history of this town, and the A’s are such an integral part,” said Christy Jourdan, 57, of West Sacramento, as tears began to roll down under her sunglasses. “I’ve been coming to A’s games since I was little. (Fisher) will destroy such a rich legacy.”

More “sell the team” and “let’s go Oakland” chants began about 30 minutes before the game started and continued as Shintaro Fujinami threw the first pitch of Tuesday’s game. Their passion was obvious, as Tuesday’s crowd of close to 27,759 was the largest for an A’s game this season.

“I care about our Northern California economy. That’s a big piece of it,” Jourdan said. “And that is where I would hope that a person like Fisher could find some loyalty within his tiny little Grinch heart and want to reinvest in the place that gave him so much.”

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