There’s a nonzero chance the A’s could play some home games at Oracle Park in 2025

John Shea really upset my empty stomach this morning. According to his San Francisco Chronicle report, the San Francisco Giants could be considering allowing the Oakland A’s of Major League Baseball to play some of their home games at Oracle Park for a few seasons.

In an interview with the Nevada Independent, Oakland Athletics president Dave Kaval listed Oracle Park as one of three options for the A’s to play their regular-season home games in from 2025-27.

It’s important to remember that Dave Kaval gets paid to troll. There’s very little to him or the A’s in this regard. They hate the Giants so they spite them every chance they get. This is one of those times where the first reaction should be, “Aww, that’s adorable. The little troll boy had an idea!” And you have to feel for the A’s marketing department which, for nearly 25 years now, has built the team’s entire personality around “While they were building a stadium, we were building a team.”

I hadn’t eaten breakfast before reading this piece, which caused rumbles. Shea writes,

The Giants wouldn’t comment on Kaval’s statement, but according to an industry source, the idea of the A’s playing a limited number of games in a season at Oracle Park — as many as 30-40 — has been floated around Third and King, with the Giants possibly amenable to hosting a portion of the A’s home schedule.

The Giants have had a full stomach for years now thanks to devouring Bay Area territorial rights. The Giants’ insatiable appetite for land — tangible and abstract — is a factor in why the A’s are fucking off to Las Vegas. Every shred of evidence suggests the San Francisco Baseball Associates LLC are constitutionally unable to share.

The article makes clear that it wouldn’t be 81 home games at Oracle Park but also that the A’s will need to get creative if they’re going to keep being a body for John Fisher to bleed dry. Their TV broadcast revenue is contingent upon them actually being in the Bay Area, and so playing at Oracle would enable that.

The Giants would be in a position to charge the A’s rent and insist upon a certain threshold for tickets and concessions, which makes this whole plan seem very tricky; but the A’s have exceled at persevering through adversity when free money is involved and have developed such a perfect scam that they’re always the victim and always able to get help.

All that out of the way, how grotesquely amusing will this be if it comes to pass? Losing all that foul territory won’t help the pitching, but the A’s, theoretically, have better power hitters than the Giants normally do, and so seeing another “home team” potentially show up the carefully constructed roster of process achievers would create a nice bit of tension that — as a sports blogger — I kinda want to see; though, I still think they’ll just extend their lease at the Coliseum.

But at the same time, let’s consider the source for all of this. No, not John Shea. I’m talking about the A’s. They’re only serious about the reality their lies and greed can create. Their plan is less elegant than underpants gnomes. It’s just

PHASE 1 — LIE

PHASE 2 — PROFIT

While Kaval listed three options for the interim years, Fisher was quoted this week in the Las Vegas Review-Journal saying the A’s “haven’t had the conversation” with MLB on where they’d play from 2025 to 2027. MLB has said the matter will be hashed out in the relocation process.

You can’t even admire their shamelessness.

They just suck. At the same time, the Giants probably don’t deserve to get out of this relocation unscathed. It just stinks that it’s these stains who get to the scathing. Kaval and Fisher are the definition of a “scoundrel,” but neither of them look cool enough to be one.