Oakland Athletics owner John Fisher finally addressed the team’s proposed relocation to… somewhere in an open letter to A’s fans this week. As the beloved franchise prepares to end its time in the Bay Area with the season coming to a close, Fisher broke his silence towards the fans he will leave behind.
In the letter, Fisher claimed that he “tried” to keep the team in Oakland and apologized for ripping the team out of the city, saying that he was “genuinely sorry.”
Years of actions by Fisher and the true lack of effort to invest any money towards thriving in Oakland certainly leaves those words ringing hollow. And that was the point made by former SportsCenter anchor Larry Beil, the sports director at ABC7 in the Bay Area.
On the Tuesday night newscast, Beil ripped apart Fisher’s letter. Literally! It began with Beil calling the letter “a great work of fiction” and then moved to him systematically offering his view of what really happened in Oakland. Finally, Beil took the letter and tore it into several tiny pieces, a symbolic gesture that spoke for all A’s fans and Bay Area natives.
Larry Beil of KGO (Bay Area’s ABC affiliate) read “a great work of fiction,” AKA John Fisher’s letter to Oakland A’s fans.
Then strongly reacted to it.
Well worth the time.
(H/T @LastDiveBar)pic.twitter.com/JJmyDVuKyY
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) September 24, 2024
Among Beil’s strongest criticisms of Fisher is his lack of spending, his poor planning, and his refusal to do interviews or face A’s fans publicly, instead hiding behind his canned statement.
“John, you tried five different extremely flawed stadium proposals. You never got even close to a shovel in the ground. Yes, Oakland politics is often a mess, I will give you that. But John, you surround yourself with incompetent yes men. And because you were born into a billionaire family, apparently never learned you have to spend money to make money.”
“John, you’re a serial penny pincher. You’ve destroyed your family’s great name and legacy because of your cheapness.”
“John, we’ve been trying to interview you for years. But you always choose to remain invisible. Unless you’re begging politicians for public funding. And then you’re out in front in Las Vegas.”
There are few things more pathetic and infuriating in sports than a billionaire owner trying to feign compassion to fans that he has been ripping the heart out of and playing volleyball with for years. Fisher would have been better off remaining silent and letting A’s fans mourn their loss in peace.
This actually isn’t the first time Beil has had a viral rant aimed at Fisher either, as he laid into the owner last week as well
Just saw this and a few days but standing ovation here to Larry Beil for trashing John Fisher and calling out the absurdity of the A’s move to Sacramento which is now up in the air. pic.twitter.com/1xB8syVSdd
— Ben Koo (@bkoo) September 17, 2024
Beil noted that the glimmer of hope for A’s fans is that Fisher might fail in his stadium plans in Las Vegas, which is far from a certainty at this point, and be forced to sell the team to a local ownership group who could keep the team in Oakland. Of course, that would mean Major League Baseball getting involved and doing the right thing too. While that may seem like more of a Hail Mary hope and a prayer than anything else, John Fisher’s ownership of the Oakland Athletics has been marked by failure at nearly every step of the way. So why should that stop now.
