OAKLAND, Calif. — On the same day the Nevada Senate voted to approve $380 million in public money for a Las Vegas ballpark for the Athletics, fans in Oakland held their long-planned «Reverse Boycott» intended to fill the Oakland Coliseum and prove their worth to owner John Fisher and Major League Baseball.
The timing felt cruel in a cosmic sort of way. It turned out to be a party without a celebration. In the south parking lot, fans lined up three hours before the game to grab one of the 7,000 green «SELL» T-shirts provided $39,000 in community donations and produced by Oaklandish, a local clothing company.
There was a taco truck and a DJ and tables set up for fans to make their own anti-Fisher signs. The game drew 27,759, the largest home crowd of the season and more than triple the team's home average of 8,555.
They watched their team beat the Rays 2-1, a seventh straight win that for one night at least pulled them up from baseball's basement (19-50).