Salty words on a rock which tell A’s story
It’s a large rock, a boulder really, near the base of a steep hill in Oakland’s Montclair District, layered with dozens of painted messages, for a birthday or maybe a graduation — feel good stuff.
Feel good stuff, congratulatory. Now the congratulatory has become accusatory.
Or worse, downright vicious.
Oakland is about to have its last major league sporting franchise hijacked off to Las Vegas, and some of the people who are incensed feel helpless and have resorted to angry words in green and yellow on the boulder.
“Liar. Cheater. Fraud,” the list reads. “Manfred. Kaval. Fisher. The 3 stooges.”
The references, as if anyone in sports or the East Bay isn’t aware, are to MLB commissioner Rob Manfred, A’s president Dave Kaval and A’s owner John Fisher.
Unless one of those three or their operatives stop by the boulder with buckets of enamel from Kelly-Moore in the wee small hours — the rock usually is painted after midnight — the unpleasant descriptions may last longer in Oakland than the Athletics.
Maybe the only problem with the naming of people responsible for the seemingly inevitable departure of the A’s is that not all the guilty were included.
The former and current mayors of Oakland, while giving lip service to the Hey-our-little-town-can’t-compete-against-the-casinos, didn’t show many initiatives.
And as we warned the reason Fisher reportedly is worth a couple billion dollars is because he has no interest in using any of that fortune to finance a new baseball stadium.
Not that the majority of those wealthy enough to list a sports team among their assets are any different.
We keep hearing from those in charge that the teams belong to the fans, and those in charge are merely caretakers. The rest of us should take care not to fall for so much nonsense.
For the owners, sports are constructed on finance, which is acceptable if, as in the case of Los Angels Rams owner Stan Kroenke, you are willing to bankroll a stadium.
Often all a fan can offer is loyalty, without which our games wouldn’t exist. There was no more loyal a fan base than that of the Oakland Raiders who stuck out their tongues and took off for Las Vegas.
Just as the A’s are in the process of doing.
The entire Athletics situation appears conspiratorial, a plot borrowed from the 1989 film “Major League,” in which a former showgirl out of — where else? — Las Vegas inherits the Cleveland Indians, purposely allows them to lose games and fans then move to another city.
Well, the A’s started reducing their roster by trading or failing to re-sign the stars who brought the spectators and won games. They are en route to the worst record in a century. The only item, or person, they lack is the inimitable Bob Uecker, whose portrayal — “Just a little bit outside” — was worthy of an Oscar if not the Hall of Fame.
All this doesn’t keep the Athletics in Oakland, however. Neither do the salty words about the three individuals painted on the boulder in the Montclair district.
Unfortunately.