Ehab Elsobky has many memories of being an Oakland Athletics fan, from the exhilarating players that carried the baseball team to the 1989 World Series championship, to watching games unfold with his father in the stands.
But with the Athletics’ move to Las Vegas now approved by Major League Baseball’s team owners, all Elsobky is feeling is pain.
“What’s really sad about it is all of our memories are going to be gone,” he told The Athletic Ummah.
“Going to that stadium, riding [the Bay Area Rapid Transit], tailgating, sitting with family, everything between innings, the people working there, you know, the concessions — everything is going to be gone.”
Last week, MLB team owners voted on whether to approve relocating the Oakland Athletics baseball team to Las Vegas.
A 75 per cent vote was necessary for approval of Athletics owner John Fisher’s plan, which was endorsed by MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred. In the end, all 30 team owners signed off on the move.
The Athletics’ move to Las Vegas will be just the second relocation in the last 50 years of MLB history, and the first since the Montreal Expos moved to Washington, D.C., in 2005.
It’s also the third relocation in franchise history and their first since they moved to Oakland from Kansas City in 1968.
“This is a terrible day for fans in Oakland,” Manfred said in a press conference. “I understand that and that’s why we’ve always had a policy of doing everything humanly possible to avoid a relocation and truly believe we did that in this case.”
“I think it’s beyond debate that the status quo in Oakland was untenable.”
Although losing the team “hurts,” Elsobsky says this was an inevitable outcome.
“This was just kind of like the nail in the coffin. We could see the writing a little over a year ago and especially this summer,” he said.
Nevertheless, the relocation has him seriously considering quitting the sport.
“I’m done being a baseball fan,” he said. “I’m not going to be a [San Francisco] Giants fan. I’m done. I’m not going to follow it. I’m not going to listen to it.”
“I don’t even know what I might do with my gear. … It’s just going to be a memory. I’m always going to be resentful.”
A pro team run like Triple-A
In a media release forwarded to The Athletic Ummah, Athletics Managing Partner and Owner John Fisher said the team made “sincere efforts” to keep the Athletics in Oakland.
But when asked about Fisher’s comments, Elsobsky said he doesn’t buy it.
“The problem with the Oakland Athletics is the fact that the ownership group that bought them, I don’t think they were 100 per cent into the team as far as fielding a good team on the field,” he said.
“When you see how that stadium was run … how everything was falling apart, they weren’t pumping money into this, They were not taking care of it.”
Ehab Elsobky, A’s fan
According to Elsobky, the ownership group treated the Athletics like a “fixer-upper” — a team that could be bought relatively cheap compared to other franchises, and then flipped for profit after it’s cleaned up.
“But you have to pump money into them to make money out of them,” he said. “And these guys, they bought a team and they never really injected anything into them.”
Part of this can be seen in the team’s payroll, in which the Athletics consistently rank among the lowest. In 2023, they had the lowest payroll out of all 30 MLB teams; and in 2024, they had the third-lowest payroll.
Furthermore, Elsobky says the Athletics have been managed like a Triple-A minor league team that doesn’t try to keep talent for themselves, but rather feeds them to other franchises for a profit.
Some of the players Elsobsky cites are 2014 third base MVP Josh Donaldson, 2021 Silver Slugger and Gold Glove finalist Matt Olson, and 2021 Gold Glove winner Matt Chapman — all of whom were traded to other teams after career-defining seasons.
“We always have these superstars that we grow and … then we can never refine them,” he said. “So we end up trading them and then restocking, then rebuilding and then tearing down and rebuilding and tearing down.”
A crumbling coliseum
However, Elsobsky says one of the biggest examples of the ownership’s lack of care for the Athletics is the team’s “old and decrepit” stadium, the Oakland Coliseum.
“When you see how that stadium was run … how everything was falling apart, they weren’t pumping money into this, They were not taking care of it,” he said.
The stadium has been the Athletics’ home since they relocated to Oakland in 1968. Once considered state-of-the-art, the stadium is now described as an eyesore.
The facilities within the stadium have also been lambasted by home and away fans. Among the complaints documented by the Athletics are feces from feral cats, a moth infestation, mould, broken seats and plumbing and water leaks.
The state of the stadium is so horrendous that it’s no wonder the Athletics have been trying to find a new home since 2005, when then-owner Lewis Wolff made the first official proposal for a new ballpark in Oakland.
That plan fell through after several owners of the land proposed for the new ballpark decided not to sell. This was the first in a string of ballpark proposals that would fall flat, due to abandonment or rejection.
It looked like the team had finally found a new home on Nov. 28, 2018, when they announced they would be building a new 34,000-seat ballpark at Howard Terminal, one of six marine terminals at the Port of Oakland.
The project included a $1 billion privately financed ballpark and another $12 billion in private investment for residential and commercial space in the waterfront neighbourhood.
But by 2021, the MLB was so “concerned” with the lack of progress over the new stadium that they suggested the Athletics relocate to another city.
“The Oakland Coliseum site is not a viable option for the future vision of baseball,” an MLB statement from 2021 read.
“The Athletics need a new ballpark to remain competitive, so it is now in our best interest to also consider other markets.”
Although the Athletics claimed that the stadium was still Plan A, the writing seemed to be on the wall. On April 19, 2023, the Athletics purchased land in Las Vegas. A month later, they replaced that location with a deal to build a stadium on the Tropicana hotel site along the Las Vegas Strip.
By June 15, Nevada Governor Joe Lombardo signed an MLB stadium funding bill into law after it was approved by the Nevada Legislature, and the Athletics officially announced they would begin the relocation process.
Although there were plenty of Bay Area proposals, Elsobky argues that the fact that the ownership group chose a $1.5 billion project in Las Vegas over the Howard Terminal project shows they weren’t negotiating in good faith.
This is a sentiment that was echoed by Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao in April, shortly after the team bought land in Las Vegas.
“It is clear to me that the A’s have no intention of staying in Oakland and have simply been using this process to try to extract a better deal out of Las Vegas,” her statement read in part.
“I am not interested in continuing to play that game — the fans and our residents deserve better.”
A warning for sports fans
Although the Athletics’ move is as good as complete, their current lease at Oakland Coliseum doesn’t expire until 2024. Furthermore, their Las Vegas stadium won’t be ready until 2028, so they’ll have to find a temporary home until then.
That could very well be a place in the Bay Area, maybe even the Coliseum. But even if the team remains in Oakland until 2028, you won’t catch Elsobky at any of the games.
“To be honest with you, I don’t want to give this ownership group a penny,” he said.
He hopes his Athletics serve as a warning to other sports fans to never let management get away with anything less than the best service.
“When you spend money on these teams … you’re investing your livelihood, you’re investing your mind, you’re investing your soul and your emotions in it,” he said.
“Don’t let anybody play with that because … when the ownership decides to use a narrative against you and steal something from you, you’re left out high and dry.”
Headline image credit: Suzanna Mitchell/MLB Photos via Getty Images