Jorge Leon is tired. He’s just landed back in the Bay Area after a trip to Los Angeles, his vocal cords fried and energy sapped from a day protesting at Dodger Stadium. Juggling work and family time with his three children, Leon has a few days to recuperate for another A’s fan protest scheduled for Saturday at the Oakland Coliseum for the first half of the Bay Bridge Series.
He can’t stop. There’s no time to stop.
Fans have been using the power of protest to call the sports world’s attention to what they see as an injustice. Groups such as the Oakland 68s, of which Leon is president, and Last Dive Bar have organized several “reverse boycotts” and demonstrations at opposing ballparks — the latest at Dodger Stadium — since the A’s announced their intention to uproot from their Oakland home of 55 years and relocate to Las Vegas.
“I get satisfaction in that I’m being annoying to John Fisher,” Leon said. “If they leave, they’re going to go through hard times. And we’re making an example of them right now.”
Until shovels are in the ground at a new Las Vegas ballpark, or until majority owner John Fisher gets the message and sells to another owner who can keep the A’s home, fans will keep the protests alive. They’re calling it the “Summer of Sell” — a movement to show the world the A’s fans’ plight with a “Sell the Team” chant heard at every ballpark the team visits this season.
To keep the protest going, fans have to get the word out and lure some butts into seats to join the chorus. Next up is a reprise of last week’s “Unite the Bay” protest with Giants fans at Oracle Park. Back at the Coliseum, A’s fans have organized another protest in conjunction with Giants fans who want the A’s to stay and keep the Bay Area rivalry alive.
Be there for the next Protest on August 5th!
“Summer of Sell”
Our 3rd Fan Funded Giveaway as we plan to give out “Sell The Team” Rally Towels
Follow @Oakland68s and @LastDiveBar
Details to come!#UniteTheBay #SellTheTeam #Athletics #FisherOut #StayInOakland pic.twitter.com/xBuVFVFJKA— Gabriel Hernandez (@gamer_athletics) July 26, 2023
Fan groups joined forces with San Francisco-based sponsors who helped fund another fan giveaway. This time, attendees can find organizers in the Coliseum parking lot giving away yellow rally towels that say “Sell the Team” and all are invited to the parking lot tailgates that exploded into a party before the A’s first “reverse boycott” on June 13. It’s a rare show of solidarity between Giants and A’s fans — and A’s fans are noticing.
“I honestly thought there was no way this would work,” said Gabriel Hernandez, part of Las Dive Bar. “Growing up, you see that things aren’t always what they seem. There’s only a few bad apples in the bunch. There’s a lot more Giants fans who really want the A’s to stay rather than leave.”
The typically empty Coliseum usually fills up for the Bay Bridge series. But the A’s say they’ve sold more than 30,000 tickets for Saturday’s game and 16,000 for Sunday’s game — an indication that the protest seems to be drawing more interest. Some fans online pointed out that ticket prices for Saturday’s game (the cheapest seat on their website is $44) are much higher than for Sunday’s game ($27). The A’s say that increase is due to seat availability and is not something they can control.
“Games are automatically dynamically priced based on available inventory, a method that most baseball teams use. We did not manually adjust ticket prices,” the A’s said in a statement.
The “Sell the Team” chants are being heard around the world, enough so that other team fan groups are contacting Leon, Hernandez and others asking to get in on the protest when the A’s visit their town. Washington Nationals fans on social media — who, locally, saw Washington Commanders owner Dan Snyder forced to sell the NFL team — have been sharing the protest guidelines for fans there who want to participate.
Jeremy Goodrich, a 19-year-old A’s fan from the East Bay who is a key organizer behind the Twitter account @OaklandRooted, is helping facilitate and promote the news to other fan bases. St. Louis Cardinals and Seattle Mariners fan groups have also been asking how they can get involved, he said.
“Other fan bases are extremely supportive,” he said. “They want to know what they can do to help, where they can buy a ‘Sell’ shirt. There are certainly more events planned. We continue our efforts and we really have no plan to back down until shovels are in the ground. And hopefully that’s in Oakland.”