Mandatory Credit: Ed Szczepanski-Imagn Images

John Fisher Is 2025’s Biggest Villain, Says Ken Rosenthal

John Fisher is a popular name among baseball fans, but for all the wrong reasons...

Mandatory Credit: Ed Szczepanski-Imagn Images

As a matter of habit, I still catch myself writing “Oakland Athletics.” After finishing each piece, I CTRL+F “Oakland” and find myself deleting it from all mentions. Because the brutal truth is, the Oakland Athletics aren’t from Oakland anymore. After holding that name and playing from the Oakland Coliseum since 1968, nearly six decades of history have been callously discarded.

Let’s call this what it really is: a travesty. John Fisher has accomplished the unthinkable, taking a storied franchise with four World Series trophies and a passionate fanbase, and turning it into a homeless, identity-less shell of itself. The A’s aren’t in Vegas yet. They’re stuck in baseball purgatory, exiled to Sacramento in a half-baked transition that screams incompetence.

“SELL THE TEAM”

A’s fans are letting John Fisher hear it pic.twitter.com/8VzYovTBIa
— Jomboy Media (@JomboyMedia) September 26, 2024

Sutter Health Park is far from a ready or appropriate ballpark for Major League Baseball. It’s a MINOR LEAGUE facility that can’t handle basic MLB requirements. Media capacity? Inadequate. Consistent sellouts? Dream on. It’s an absolute embarrassment that Fisher seems perfectly content to endure, all while counting the future gambling endorsements that await in Vegas.

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November 16, 2023, is when MLB’s owners unanimously approved this move. The team claims their Las Vegas ballpark won’t be ready until 2028, though who actually believes that timeline? After moving from Oakland following the 2024 season, they’ve been relegated to West Sacramento’s Sutter Health Park for three seasons with a possible fourth. They don’t have a city name which precedes ‘Athletics’, pathetically going by just the “A’s” or “Athletics.”

Fisher wanted to believe that Sacramento would magically solve his problems. Instead, the disaster has only intensified. The so-called “renovations” to Sutter Health Park have been laughably insufficient. Team clubhouses, park facilities, media accommodations, all are woefully inadequate. When a golf cart breaks down while removing an injured player, you know you’ve hit rock bottom.

Ken Rosenthal called a spade a spade and said, “That would be John Fisher,” Rosenthal declared when naming 2025’s biggest villain. “They are playing in a minor league park because of the way things evolved in Oakland, and you can blame people all you want and there’s plenty of blame. But this whole thing should never have happened.”

"There is NOT an excuse for a major league team to be stuck at a minor league park for this length of time."@Ken_Rosenthal's biggest villain of 2025 is none other than A's owner John Fisher. pic.twitter.com/CQs7SuSDuM
— Foul Territory (@FoulTerritoryTV) April 22, 2025

“There is not an excuse for a major league team to be stuck, repeat, stuck at a minor league park for this length of time. I don’t know why the league allowed it to happen. They will blame Oakland as they have in the past. That’s fine, but still. This was a situation that, to me, should have been avoided.”

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Rosenthal isn’t just condemning Fisher. He also pointed a finger at MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred and the entire power structure that allowed this debacle. The A’s are operating in conditions that would embarrass a rookie league team. No proper media facilities. Lengthy walks to the clubhouses. It’s a slap in the face to fans, players, and the very concept of Major League Baseball.

Will things improve when they finally reach Vegas? Don’t hold your breath. The divorce from Oakland was so catastrophically mishandled that Fisher’s reputation is permanently stained. The broadcasters may desperately avoid mentioning “Oakland,” but everyone knows where this team belongs. Sacramento deserves better than being Fisher’s convenient stopover. Vegas deserves better than inheriting this mess.

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Sacramento is a passionate sports community that deserves far better than serving as Oakland’s reluctant rebound relationship. The same can be said for Las Vegas. But as has become painfully obvious by now, John Fisher simply doesn’t care, and perhaps that’s the most damning truth of all.

Athletics

John Fisher

Ken Rosenthal

Mohsin Baldiwala

mlb

Mohsin Baldiwala is a Master’s student in Journalism and freelance content producer who got hooked on baseball through Seinfeld’s hapless George Costanza. The same reason why he’s a Yankees fan. He writes about sports because he believes it can offer a brief escape from the world’s chaos. Even if that means enduring the heartbreak of the 2024 World Series.