The Athletics Are An Abomination

SAN FRANCISCO — On Wednesday night I attended a Major League Baseball game for the first time since the final game the Athletics played in the Oakland Coliseum. I have all but stopped paying attention to the sport, less in active protest than as a casualty of no longer being able to pay like nine dollars to be inside of a major-league ballpark (OK, fine, “major-league” “ballpark”) within 30 minutes, though the existence of the geographically unmoored Athletics is omnidirectionally repulsive. It was an existence I was confronted with, as my friend Adam wanted to go to a Giants game, and it just so happened that the one game that fit both of our schedules was Giants–A’s. Fine.

Of the many ways the Athletics are currently giving me low-grade psychic damage, the primary one is that they did not disappear when they left Oakland. They remain a pitching, hitting symbol of team owner John Fisher’s blithe cruelty toward the Town and the malignant indifference of commissioner Rob Manfred and MLB. When I see the team’s logo, I think of the people who loved the Oakland Athletics, the dozens of crying fans I saw at that last game, the guy who brought a photo of his dead cousin to the game because baseball was something they always shared.

On Wednesday night, the stadium was packed with tons of A’s fans, as well as plenty of split-logo hats and 1989 World Series gear. It was a strange experience, seeing the masses animated by a sense of denial and nostalgia, proudly wearing their green and gold as if the Oakland Athletics still existed. It’s like wearing a dead guy’s clothes to watch him be reanimated, Frankenstein-style. It was sad. The loudest cheer of the night was for the displayed final score of Mexico’s 3-0 World Cup win over Czechia.