Is Oakland really a baseball town?

By Jock O’Connell

With a key vote by the San Francisco Bay Conservation & Development Commission on the fate of Howard Terminal coming up on June 30, I thought someone should raise an impertinent question: Do the Oakland A’s really want to stay in Oakland?

A’s president Dave Kaval and the city’s mayor both like to say that the A’s are “Rooted in Oakland.” Of course, the A’s previously had roots elsewhere. As a charter member of Major League Baseball, the Athletics were rooted in Philadelphia from 1901 to 1955, when the franchise pulled up those roots and replanted itself in Kansas City. They stayed rooted there for just thirteen years, during which time they routinely traded their top players to wealthier clubs. (Sound familiar?) They then put down new roots in Alameda County.

Now, in the most recent manifestation of the team’s itinerant DNA, the franchise’s owner (a billionaire, don’t you know) is threatening to replant the team’s roots in the Nevada desert unless Oakland’s City Council accedes to a list of demands involving a new stadium and a massive real estate development next door to the Port of Oakland.

Problem is that, as much as Oakland’s mayor may feel passionately about keeping the A’s in Oakland, A’s rooters have been much less enthusiastic about the team. Specifically, and measurably, attendance at the team’s home games hardly measures up to the overbearing rhetorical support the franchise gets from Bay Area sportscasters who, probably more than anyone else, have a vested interest in keeping the ballclub from moving to a less hospitable climate.

What’s puzzling is why Oakland A’s owner John Fisher wants to build a stadium on the Oakland waterfront that can accommodate 34,000 spectators when the team routinely draws crowds measured in four digits. Last year, for example, average attendance at whatever the Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum is called these days was just 8,767. Only the Miami Marlins suffered a higher level of fan indifference.

Total attendance at A’s home games last year numbered 701,430. That’s actually fewer than the 869,703 fans the old Philadelphia Athletics drew at Shibe Park in 1925. More people (726,639) showed up to watch the A’s play in Kansas City’s Municipal Stadium in 1967, the year before the team decamped for Oakland.

Through the A’s first thirty-four home games, average homefield attendance has been 8,449. Let that sink in: Of the thirty Major League Baseball teams, the Oakland A’s have drawn the fewest spectators. The biggest crowd so far this year came out on June 3 to see the A’s host the Boston Red Sox. 17,852 spectators saw that game. Impressive? Not exactly. What’s been Oakland’s peak turnout this season was actually less than the average home attendance of twenty-two other MLB teams.

There are a couple of schools of thought explaining the team’s pathetic attendance numbers. One is management’s penchant for raising ticket prices after disappointing fans by trading away rising stars before the players are in a position to demand a salary commensurate with their talents.

The alternate explanation, the dodge favored by Fisher and Kaval, is that the Coliseum is a substandard relic that repels fans.

That blame-the-infrastructure excuse is sheer flimflam. Forget that the Coliseum is infinitely more accessible via freeway, BART, and even Amtrak than the proposed wrong-side-of-the-tracks waterfront facility Fisher and Kaval are pushing. Forget that their favored location does not offer the acres of supervised parking that the Coliseum features. Forget about tailgate parties before the game. Forget about a short walk to your seat.

But to listen to Kaval and his supporters, the Coliseum is just too old and antiquated to attract many fans. Clearly, that’s why a team playing in a quirky 110-year-old ballpark in Boston -- with hundreds of seats offering views obstructed by the 26 support poles that hold up the upper deck -- drew 2.5 times as many fans per game last year as did the A’s.

Maybe that’s because Boston’s a baseball town and Oakland isn’t. Or, much more likely, it’s because -- unlike the skinflint who owns the A’s -- the proprietor of the Red Sox is willing to pay the price of putting a competitive team on the field.

For those keeping score at home, the A’s now vie with the Baltimore Orioles for having the lowest payroll in baseball. They got there by stripping their lineup of its most promising players and slashing an already meager payroll. Not surprisingly, the team’s 23-46 win-loss record is the very worst in Major League Baseball.

Seriously now, does anyone really think that a nifty new waterfront stadium will prompt Fisher and Kaval to give Oakland fans a team worth watching? Their proposed ballpark is simply a lure to get public approval of the massive real estate development that will surround it. Once it becomes evident that Fisher and Kaval are not going to invest in the ball club, fans will have little reason to risk crossing the tracks, and attendance will regress to current levels.

Let’s be clear: A new ballpark is not about baseball or the interests of local fans. And it’s definitely not in the interests of the neighboring Port of Oakland, an infinitely more vital economic asset than a sports franchise. Instead, it’s about all those condominiums, hotel rooms, shops and restaurants that will earn a billionaire further billions. As for baseball, if the A’s play more than five seasons in the waterfront stadium Fisher and Kaval want to build, it may only be because they sold the team.

Disclaimer: The views expressed in Jock’s commentaries are his own and may not reflect the positions of the Pacific Merchant Shipping Association.