On Sunday, the Oakland Athletics played their last game representing Oakland. Many fans blame John Fisher ’83, the team’s owner.
“Everybody [in Oakland] pretty much has a sense that John Fisher basically screwed the city and gaslighted people for years,” Don Hazen ’69 said in an interview with The Daily Princetonian. “The fan base is really loyal, and they’ve been furious with Fisher for a long time.”
Fisher purchased a majority stake in the team in 2005. He’s ardently resisted calls to step aside since the start of the 2023 MLB season after proposing to move the team out of Oakland, which has been its home since 1968. For now, the A’s will move to Sutter Health Park, a minor league stadium in Sacramento, for at least the next three seasons. The long-term plan is to move to Las Vegas, with a $1.5 billion new stadium slated to be finished in 2028.
“I think he’s cheap, and I think he’s a little bit delusional to think that he’ll get enough money to build a new stadium in Las Vegas,” Ken Boese ’82 told the ‘Prince.’
Throughout the last season in Oakland, chants and posters of “sell the team” permeated throughout A’s games.
Nancy Hendrickson ’82 and Laura Curtis ’82 went to the final game at the Colosseum on Thursday, Sept. 26 with classmate Tom Kerbs ’81.
From left to right Steve Cohen, Nancy Hendrickson ’82, Laura Curtis ’82 and Tom Kerbs ’81 at the final A's game at the Oakland Coliseum.
Photo courtesy of Nancy Hendrickson.
“At this last game, they jacked up the prices,” Hendrickson said. “They ran out of hot dogs in the third inning. Other parts of the stadium ran out of beer before the game started. I think he was really afraid that there was going to be a riot. There were snipers that we could see on the tower behind us in case something broke out.”
“And really, that wasn’t the tone at all,” she continued. “People were sad. People were chanting that they wanted him to sell.”
Others boycotted going to games after the move was announced.
“I would not [go to a game],” David Lewis ’83 told the ‘Prince.’ “I would not support this ownership in any way after the decisions that they’ve made.”
Some fans believe that there was a route for the team to stay in Oakland.
“There was nothing wrong with the Oakland A’s that a little maintenance on the Coliseum and perhaps a better strategy for retaining great talent could not have cured,” Catherine Fisk ’83 said in an interview with the ‘Prince.’ “But having systematically disinvested in the aid in Oakland for reasons of greed, or precisely because Fisher wanted to leave Oakland — which historically has been a predominantly black and middle class town — it seemed to me that he deliberately tried to drive down attendance in Oakland.”
“I think it’s really sad,” Kian Petlin ’28, a Bay Area native, said in an interview with the ‘Prince.’ “I would often take [Bay Area Public Transportation system] BART to the games, and it was always a great experience growing up. I have a lot of memories from that stadium, and I know a lot of Bay Area sports fans feel the same way.”
“It was always my experience, just like catching the BART there, and then crossing across the bridge to get to the game,” said Hector Cueva ’26, another student from the area. “Even if the team wasn’t that good, it was just fun to just go to the Colosseum. I think not having a team to go to sucks, and not having that experience does take away a little bit from my home experience.”
The A’s are the third professional sports team to leave Oakland in five years after the Golden State Warriors moved to San Francisco in 2019 and the Oakland Raiders moved to Las Vegas in 2020. That string of lost sports teams is hitting Oakland residents especially hard.
“When I first heard about it, I was like, ‘another f---ing one?’” Kevin Go ’25 told the ‘Prince.’ “It just seems like in the East Bay, everyone’s sort of abandoning us.”
“The challenge is that he inherits two previous moves … literally from the same parking lot. That makes it really tough,” Phil Dworsky ’83 told the ‘Prince.’ “Like it or not, John Fisher inherits this abandonment. And so people are kind of ready to kill when they talk about moving the A’s out.”
Some fans noted the irony of the A’s slogan, “Rooted in Oakland.”
“I just drove past the Coliseum last night; they’ve taken that sign down,” Fisk said. “They obviously decided they weren’t rooted in Oakland after all.”
“It’s a great loss to the community,” Ed Elkin ’65 said to the ‘Prince.’ “A baseball team, you know, it’s more symbolic than anything else. People from all over Northern California come to A’s baseball games. It’s one of the things that would attract people to Oakland.”
“To have one more loss at a time where maintaining economic and cultural stability is really important is just, in my opinion, most unfortunate,” Elkin continued. “I don’t mean to be morbid, but it’s like another nail in the coffin.”
At Princeton, Fisher was a member of the Varsity Squash team, the Cap and Gown Club, and the parody a capella group Offbeats.
“He’s very precise, and as a gatherer, he’s no longer a part of the family business … I could imagine him being very precise, like someone in finance with money,” shared Peter Bentel ’83, who knew Fisher as an acquaintance during undergrad and high school.
Fisher did not respond to multiple requests for comment from the ‘Prince,’ as he has done with Oakland news outlets.
In an open letter to fans before the final game in Oakland, he wrote: “I know there is great disappointment, even bitterness. Though I wish I could speak to each one of you individually, I can tell you this from the heart: we tried. Staying in Oakland was our goal, it was our mission, and we failed to achieve it. And for that I am genuinely sorry.”
Hendrickson evoked the Princeton informal motto, “In the nation’s service and the service of humanity,” when contemplating Fisher’s decision.
“It didn’t really feel like Princeton in the community’s service,” she said.
Charlie Roth is a senior News editor, assistant Data editor, education director, and Sports contributor for the ‘Prince.’
Please send any corrections to corrections[at]dailyprincetonian.com.
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