The Oakland Fans Who Will Never Forgive

Profiles of fans who are done with the team for good. Their stories and why they feel that way.

The word "never" gets deployed casually in sports conversations and usually means until the next winning season. But in Oakland, in the months and years since the A's announced they were leaving, a specific segment of the fan base has arrived at a position that appears to be something different: a genuine and considered decision to end the relationship, not as a protest that will be walked back but as a permanent reckoning.

These are not people who are furious about a bad trade or a coaching decision. These are people who have spent months thinking carefully about what they feel and why, and who have arrived at the conclusion that what was done to Oakland was not something they are willing to forgive.

Their stories are different in the details and consistent in the underlying logic.

James, 51, Longtime Season Ticket Holder

James held season tickets to the A's for nineteen years, from 2005 to 2023. He is not someone who stopped going because the team was bad -- he went when the team was bad. He went because it was his thing, his time with his father before his father died, his continuing connection to something that felt like Oakland.

"I would drive from Sacramento every home stand," he said. "I'm not even from Oakland, I'm from the East Bay. But the A's were my team. I gave them money for nineteen years. When the news started getting serious, I kept telling myself it wouldn't happen."

James was at the last game. He has not watched an A's game since.

"It's not anger exactly," he said. "It's more like -- I learned something about what that relationship actually was. And what I learned is that it was one-directional. I gave them money and attention and years of my life. They gave me nothing back except some wins when they felt like spending money on players, and mostly they didn't feel like it."

He said he has transferred his baseball following to the San Francisco Giants. "Which feels weird. But the Giants are a real franchise. They invest in their team. They care about winning. That's what I want in a baseball team."

When asked whether he could ever follow the A's again, he paused for a long time. "If they're a completely different franchise in fifteen years -- different owner, different management, different culture -- maybe. But John Fisher is still the owner. And as long as that's true, no."

Maria, 44, East Oakland Native

Maria grew up in East Oakland and has strong feelings about what the A's represented to her neighborhood and community. For her, the departure is not primarily about baseball. It is about what the departure revealed about who the city's institutions considered worth serving.

"Oakland has been fighting for decades to be taken seriously," she said. "And every time we build something -- every time something says this is a real city that deserves real things -- it gets taken away. The Warriors. The Raiders. Now the A's. And in each case, the people who made the decision to leave were very wealthy and very comfortable and they didn't live in East Oakland."

Maria said she was never under any illusions that the franchise was run for her community's benefit. "I know how professional sports works. I know it's a business. But there's a difference between knowing something intellectually and having it rubbed in your face. When Fisher went on national television and called the Oakland fans bad, when he said the fans were to blame -- that was rubbing it in."

Fisher's most controversial public statement about Oakland attendance came in a 2023 interview in which he suggested that A's fans had demonstrated insufficient support for the team. The comment was widely criticized and became a lightning rod for Oakland fan anger.

"He blamed us for not showing up to watch a team he refused to invest in," Maria said. "And then he took the team to Las Vegas. I'm supposed to forgive that? I'm supposed to follow the team to Las Vegas and give him more money? No. That chapter is closed."

David, 67, Former Season Ticket Holder from the 1970s

David was at the World Series games in Oakland in 1972, 1973, and 1974. He is one of the remaining fans who saw the original dynasty, and his perspective on the departures spans a lifetime of A's fandom.

"I've seen them build great things and tear them down before," he said. "I lived through Finley selling off the team after 1974. I watched the Bash Brothers era end. I watched Billy Beane's teams lose in the playoffs year after year. I've had plenty of heartbreak with this franchise."

But he said the 2024 departure feels categorically different. "With Finley, at least you understood. He didn't have money. Free agency changed the game. There were structural reasons. With Fisher, there are no structural reasons. He's worth something like 2.6 billion dollars. He could have built a ballpark. He chose not to."

David said he attended the final game at the Coliseum feeling something he struggled to describe. "It was grief, but also anger, but also something like -- resolution. Like I was saying goodbye to something that had been over for a long time and I'd just been pretending otherwise."

He said he has no interest in following the Las Vegas team. "I'm 67 years old. The team I loved played in Oakland. That team is gone. What's in Las Vegas is something else."

The Question of What Forgiveness Would Even Mean

Listening to these fans, a pattern emerges that is not about baseball outcomes. The anger is not about the team losing -- all three of these fans endured years of bad teams without wavering. The anger is not about the players or the coaches. The anger is directed specifically at the franchise's ownership structure and the decision-making that led to the departure.

Forgiveness, in the traditional sense, would require a change in what is being forgiven. It would require either a new owner, a demonstrable change in the franchise's values and commitments, or something that amounts to accountability for what happened in Oakland.

None of those things appear imminent. Fisher remains the owner. The franchise has not acknowledged that it handled the Oakland situation poorly. There has been no apology, no substantive expression of regret, no acknowledgment that the years of broken promises and insufficient investment contributed to an outcome that hurt a community.

For the fans who say they will never forgive, "never" means: not until something changes that would make forgiveness make sense. And for now, they see no evidence that anything will.

The team is in Sacramento. It will go to Las Vegas. Oakland is left with memories of what was, and these particular fans are left with a clear-eyed understanding of what the relationship actually was -- one that, from the franchise's perspective, did not require them to feel anything much about leaving.

That clarity may be cold comfort. But it is, as several of these fans noted independently, at least honest.

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