Former Oakland Athletics reliever Trevor May told team owner John Fisher to “sell the team” in a video Monday announcing his retirement from professional baseball. Here’s what you need to know:
- May 34 played nine MLB seasons – six with the Minnesota Twins, two with the New York Mets and one with the A’s. He finished his career with a 4.24 ERA and 36 wins, 28 losses and 33 saves.
- The A’s are expected to move to Las Vegas after the 2024 season. In May, the team released the first renderings of its planned new ballpark, which includes a partially retractable roof and a seating capacity of 30,000.
- Las Vegas will be the franchise’s fourth city when the planned move takes place. The A’s played in Philadelphia from 1901 to 1954 and in Kansas City from 1955 to 1967 before moving to Oakland in 1968.
- On June 13, fans of the franchise organized a “reverse boycott.” More than 27,000 people crowded into the Colosseum, many of them wearing T-shirts that read “SELL.”
What May said
“Sell the team, dude,” May said. “Sell it, man. Let someone who is actually proud of the things they own own something. There are actually people saying something about the game. Let them do it.”
“Take mom and dad’s money somewhere else, idiot. And if you want to be a greedy guy, you should own it. There is nothing weaker than being afraid of cameras. That’s one thing I’ve really struggled with this year, not just gutting this guy. Do what you’re going to do, brother. You are whatever. You are a billionaire. You have all this power. You shouldn’t have any because you don’t deserve any of it.”
How surprising are these comments?
Fans had already told the world loudly and often what they thought of Fisher. Others outside football, including writers, broadcasters and even politicians, have also criticized him. But we never heard much from members of the 2023 A’s about how they viewed the man who cut payroll and made plans to move the team to Las Vegas.
That changed on Monday, when May not only announced his retirement but also said some of the most damning things a player — active or not — has ever said about a team owner in a public forum.
Like former A members Chris Bassitt and Marcus Semien earlier this year when lamenting the A members’ current situation, May did not mention Fisher by name. (“So I just think if you’re not going to win a World Series, then I don’t think you should be an owner. I really don’t,” Bassitt said.) But May beat Fisher down in a way , which thrilled A’s fans and highlighted what kind of conversations might have been going on in the A’s clubhouse while the team lost 112 games, an Oakland-era franchise record.
That doesn’t mean May has opened the floodgates. He’s enjoying the newfound freedom that comes with starting a new life after retiring as a player, and the majority of the A’s roster is made up of young players and fringe major league players who can’t afford the boat to rock. But May, who said after the A’s reverse boycott game that he took some time to enjoy the moment on the Coliseum mound before making a save against the Rays, provided a bit of catharsis with his diatribe against Fisher. Fans certainly appreciated what he said, and it’s safe to assume many of his 2023 A’s teammates did too. — Steve Berman, MLB Editor
Required reading
(Photo: Matt Kartozian/USA Today)