Sacramento is the next stop for John Fisher.
Major League Baseball’s Oakland Athletics owner John Fisher plans to use a minor league baseball park in Sacramento, California for his business’ home schedule for 2025, 2026 and 2027. It will be goodbye to Oakland forever for Fisher and maybe Major League Baseball. Fisher eventually wants to plant his business in Las Vegas. Various Oakland Athletics’ owners have been fed up with Oakland for about five decades and the franchise almost ended up in Denver in 1978 but Major League Baseball stopped the relocation. The Philadelphia Athletics franchise ended up in Kansas City in 1955 after being sold to Arnold Johnson following a 54-season run in Philadelphia. Charles Finley tried to get out of Kansas City soon after he bought the team from the Johnson estate in 1960. Finley moved the business to Oakland after the 1967 season.
Finley’s move caused a seismic shift in the world of Major League Baseball. Missouri Senator Stuart Symington threatened to introduce legislation to remove MLB’s antitrust exemption if MLB did not restore a Kansas City franchise. In 1968, because of Symington’s threat, the American League placed expansion franchises in Kansas City and Seattle while the National League expanded to Montréal and San Diego. So far, in California, no state or federally elected office holder has threatened MLB in the same manner as Symington did in 1967. Fisher is finishing up his lease agreement that ends at the end of the current baseball season so there probably won’t be any litigation from the city of Oakland or Alameda County, California. But the Senate can look into any aspect of Major League Baseball’s business and even though most of Major League Baseball’s antitrust exemption has been diluted, MLB still has control of franchise movement and team territories. Fisher’s business will play out the string in Oakland and head east to Sacramento next year.
Fisher wants to call Sacramento home in 2025.
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