Giants' advantage after Oakland A's cowardly move should infuriate Dodgers fans
When the dust settles on the Oakland A's fans' spirited reverse boycott on Tuesday night, the nagging thing that was true before the show of devotion still will be. The A's are leaving, thanks to a long-term calculated plan by trust-fund-exploiting Gap heir John Fisher and his cronies in the MLB office.
Long ago, for whatever reason, he and the powers that be deemed baseball would be more profitable for all if it played to transients in Las Vegas rather than diehards. They funded studies about new sites in Oakland. They flirted with alternate stadium plans. And, in the end, they tanked everything they could tank and ignored everything they could ignore to move the team somewhere nobody outside of the game really wants it. Even Vegas native Bryce Harper has been like, "No, I don't think that's good for anybody."
The fans tailgated. They partied. They chanted. They showed up when called upon. And they're still going to lose the franchise they've bled for for decades. Oakland fans are the biggest losers in this orchestrated nightmare by far, but Las Vegas "fans" are not the biggest winners of the debacle.
That would be the San Francisco Giants, who'll now get the market all to themselves, as well as the gobs of revenue that come with the monopoly.
Oakland A's Reverse Boycott was great, but it'll still leave Oakland high and dry and Giants at an advantage
Expansion? Eh, maybe. But considering the league just facilitated a team's move out of Oakland, and considering the frosty relationship the Giants have always had with even local minor-league teams over territorial rights, something tells us they're just going to bask in the glow for a while.
It's not like the Dodgers don't have a massive financial advantage of their own. But that's the nature of a rivalry. When you're up, you want your rivals to be down. Very down. You don't want the playing field evened; everybody else does.
With revenue sharing already greatly benefitting the league's lesser teams, why would the Dodgers and their California cohorts smile and nod at the A's swiping their shared cash and heading to Las Vegas, giving further advantage to the rival Giants?
Tuesday's Oakland community revival was a heartwarming story, but at the end of the day, the move will still be approved.
The Dodgers will have to accept that the Giants have been given a "get out of local competition" free card. Guess the only thing left to hope is that free agent stars continue to pass on the Giants' money, no matter how big the pool gets.