What does John Fisher have on MLB? It must be something gigantic, because the pathetic and reprehensible events that continue to occur regarding the embattled Oakland A's franchise have devolved past mere painfulness though "cruel & unusual" and are now approaching "genocidal" in nature.
Worst of all is the absurd brinksmanship that has to come to pass regarding the A's whereabouts in 2025, which threatens to make the team into the permanent laughingstock of professional sports. Rob Manfred, baseball's version of the Emperor Nero, keeps fiddling with the zipper on his trousers (nothing to see there, folks!) while a franchise burns to the ground for no good reason...
...except for what Fisher must be holding over the heads of his billionaire brethren.
We will be joining what we expect will be a large contingent of activists and A's fans whose plans for 2024 call for a strategic series of "anti-boycotts" geared to remind MLB that a relatively benign owner in charge of the A's could still salvage this lunatic turn of events. Imagine 25,000 people night after night coming to the Oakland Mausoleum, their garb of protest concealed while entering Ground Zero, then unleashing a green sea of "Sell the Team" shirts in the fifth inning of each game while chanting "SELL THE TEAM" at the top of their lungs.
Fisher would take the extra $$ and run, of course, but the point would be made: Oakland is still a viable major league venue for baseball, and the scurrilous nonsense that has been visited upon the team and the city is nothing more that the rat-poisoned behavior of robber-baron billionaires who are nothing more of less than ruthless corporate predators.
This is the time for unabashed activism in Oakland and around MLB. Demonstrations echoing the "SELL THE TEAM!" performances should be scheduled to occur at all of the A's road games in 2024, to drive the point home that this is a national issue, not just a regional squabble.
It is time for the public to rise up and do its utmost to remove John Fisher from MLB once and for all. It might not succeed, but the effort must be made. Baseball should be saved for Oakland and the citizens of Las Vegas should be spared from taking on a team whose owner is a veritable pariah.
