{"id":1255649,"date":"2023-04-24T13:10:12","date_gmt":"2023-04-24T17:10:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/rob-manfred-sorry-for-as-fans-over-team-move-says-owner-john-fisher-isnt-to-blame\/1255649\/"},"modified":"2023-04-24T13:10:12","modified_gmt":"2023-04-24T17:10:12","slug":"rob-manfred-sorry-for-as-fans-over-team-move-says-owner-john-fisher-isnt-to-blame","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/rob-manfred-sorry-for-as-fans-over-team-move-says-owner-john-fisher-isnt-to-blame\/1255649\/","title":{"rendered":"Rob Manfred ‘sorry’ for A’s fans over team move, says owner John Fisher isn’t to blame"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The news that the Oakland Athletics are likely moving to Las Vegas<\/a> is still brand new, and many A’s fans are still (and will remain) deeply hurt by what looks like a naked money grab from the team’s notoriously cheap owner, John Fisher. But don’t worry! Commissioner Rob Manfred is here to rub salt into all those fresh, bleeding wounds.\u00a0<\/p>\n

While speaking to the Associated Press Sports Editors on Monday, Manfred took an entire millisecond to express his regret about the A’s moving before immediately defending Fisher and saying he shouldn’t be blamed for anything.<\/p>\n

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\u201cI feel sorry for the fans in Oakland. I really do,\u201d Manfred said via the AP.<\/a> \u201cBut for the city of Oakland to point fingers at John Fisher, it\u2019s not fair.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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\u201cWe have shown an unbelievable commitment to the fans in Oakland by exhausting every possible opportunity to try to get something done in Oakland,\u201d he added. \u201cUnfortunately, the government doesn\u2019t seem to have the will to get it done.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Instead of blaming Fisher for choosing to stop negotiating with the city of Oakland, Manfred instead thinks the Oakland city government is to blame for not giving Fisher, the billionaire owner of a sports team, everything he wanted. Compare that to Vegas, where the A’s are being promised half a billion dollars from the state of Nevada for their new ballpark.<\/p>\n

MLB commissioner Rob Manfred believes the city of Oakland is to blame for the A’s moving, not team owner John Fisher. (AP Photo\/Wilfredo Lee)<\/figcaption>
ASSOCIATED PRESS<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

Manfred says moving will make A’s more ‘competitive’<\/h2>\n

Apparently a new ballpark and a willing government investor is all it takes to fix a franchise that has had deep, deep competition issues for decades.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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\u201cTo me, it ought to be all positive on the competitive front,\u201d Manfred added.<\/a> \u201cYou got really smart baseball operations people. You got owners that want to win, and I think Las Vegas will present a real revenue enhancing opportunity. So I think you\u2019re going to have a good product.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Unless the A’s are getting new owners when they move to Las Vegas, it’s never really been proven that Fisher is an owner who wants to win. He’s an owner who likes money (like every sports team owner), which is why he’s buying a giant plot of land in Vegas. There will be a stadium there, but theoretically there will also be restaurants, hotels, movie theaters, stores and other things that make money for landowners.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But as far as the A’s being competitive, who knows what Manfred is talking about. The A’s have never in their entire history had a payroll over $100 million. Fisher has never put enough money into the team to make them sustainably competitive. Instead, GM Dave Kaval occasionally stumbles onto a good team after yet another year of having to scrape the bottom of the free agent bargain bin. They’ve traded nearly every star they’ve ever had for minor league lottery tickets that occasionally net them a great player … that they will trade as soon as they have to pay him what he’s worth. They even traded their manager to the San Diego Padres after the 2021 season!\u00a0<\/p>\n

But according to Manfred, a permanent, costly, needless change in city will cure the A’s of all the competitive woes they’ve endured under Fisher. Unless the Vegas stadium deal requires Fisher undergo a “Young Frankenstein” style brain transplant before they break ground, no one will believe it until they see it.\u00a0<\/p>\n

From:AOL<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The news that the Oakland Athletics are likely moving to Las Vegas is still brand new, and many A’s fans are still (and will remain)…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1255649","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","wpcat-1-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1255649","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1255649"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1255649\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1255649"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1255649"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1255649"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}