A few days ago, in the owners' meetings held following the Reverse Boycott staged at the Oakland Coliseum by the Oakland A's, MLB Rob Manfred said something quite interesting about the crowd present inside the Coli on June 13, one that surpassed all expectaions and the average fewer-than-10,000 persons attending A's games this season.
Back then, as quoted by Evan Drellic of The Athletic, Manfred said that the event "was great," and that it's "great to see what is, this year, almost an average Major League Baseball crowd in the facility for one night. That's a great thing."
Welp.
Obviously, the backlash was hella strong, and everybody, Oaklanders and beyond, demolished Manfred from his witty but nonsensical comments. With the MLB staging some ballgames in London, Manfred adressed the media on Friday and tried (?) to fix the situation... only to make it all worst.
Laurence Miedema of The Mercury News wrote a piece on Friday that includes everything you need to know about Manfred's back-to-back whiffs.
The A's announced an attendance of 27,759 for the June 13 game, which according to Manfred was "almost an average MLB crowd." This season, through Friday, the average attendance in MLB games sits at 27,701, according to ESPN's data. Hmmm...
So Manfred, perhaps having looked at the numbers or most probably not, said on Friday that his comment about the Oakland fans "was taken out of context," and that all he wanted was "to find a solution in Oakland" for the future of the A's and that he "feels sorry for the fans," as transcribed by Miedema.
The best was yet to come, though.
Manfred added that he and the rest of the MLB brass "did everything we could possibly do to keep the club in Oakland," although he then said that "unfortunately, one night doesn’t change a decade worth of inaction."
Sorry, what?
At least Manfred didn't confirm the relocation is happening. In order for that to happen all other 29 owners must approve it with 23 voting in favor of it.
Regarding the timeline for the relocation application and the clubs' voting process, Manfred stated that there are currently no set deadlines, per ESPN. "I don't have a firm timeline," Manfred said. "Depends on when the application comes in and how long the committee feels it needs to examine the application."
For now, we wait.