At least one former Oakland A’s player was unimpressed with how MLB commissioner Rob Manfred is handling the team’s current relocation drama.
Brandon McCarthy, whose 13-year MLB career included two years with the A’s from 2011-12, fired off a tweet concerning Manfred’s recent comments about fans’ “reverse boycott” – in which he called the Oakland crowd “almost an average Major League Baseball crowd.”
“This is f–king pathetic,” McCarthy tweeted. “How is this not disqualifying? This toad is the steward of a glorious sport, dripping with history and he feels entitled to mock fans who are making their voices heard as he sits by and caters to hiding billionaires? Why do we accept this in our culture?”
Amid a 19-52 season in Oakland – which looked even worse before a recent seven-game win streak – attendance has crumbled at the Oakland Coliseum, with only an average of around 9,000 fans attending an average game.
Fans have become fed up with the team’s low spending (only $61 million total allocated on their payroll this year) and their plans to relocate the team to Las Vegas, with the team recently getting $380 million of public funding to build a new stadium on the Strip.
Earlier this week, fans organized a “reverse boycott” – where, instead of ignoring the team, fans showed up to the stadium in droves, chanting for owner John Fisher to “sell the team.”
Manfred, when asked about the reverse boycott, had an answer that many in baseball were unimpressed by.
“I mean, it was great,” Manfred said. “It is great to see what is this year almost an average Major League Baseball crowd in the facility for one night. That’s a great thing.”
Some slammed his comments as tone-deaf, with fans already upset about how Manfred is facilitating the team’s move.
McCarthy is not the only famous voice to support the reverse boycott – Billie Joe Armstrong, frontman for the band Green Day and longtime A’s fan, also supported the fans.
Still, The Athletic wrote that despite the protests, the team’s move to Vegas has been “all but” decided – thanks to Manfred.
