I feel for you.  You must be the only A's fan in Vermont.  My brother has a fahm there, and when I've visited all I've ever seen is Bosox, Bosox, Bosox.

So where in Vermont are you? I grew up in Vergennes.

But I have plenty about what drove me away from other teams.

1. First game at Dodger Stadium, a 16 inning pitcher's duel that played to an almost empty stadium after 1/3 of the crowd left between the 7th inning stretch and bottom of the 9th, then half the crowd left by the 12th, then the rest were long gone by the 14th. By the end, as the Dodgers won, the players applauded the fans who stuck around. Sad scene, and that was me gone. LA fans suck.
2. Stuck in Cincinnati for a year through work, I went to nearly every Cincy home game, watching then GM Bowden rip apart any semblance of potential with dumb trades and merciless salary-cutting, all the while pumping half his payroll into the increasingly immobile, if not continually injured, Barry Larkin. After the 18th or so one-run loss without witnessing a one-run win (and some of those losses coming despite being 4 runs ahead going into the 9th), I realized there wasn't a damn thing about the ballclub that I actually liked, and as Bowden started talking of trading away Griffey (who had come back to his home team with a HUGE salary discount a year earlier), I was done. I mean, heck, when your favorite player is Kelly Stinnett, it's time for a change.
3. Colorado Rockies - Dating a girl from 'Rado, I spent a few months going to Rockies games, and I think I saw more home runs in that few months than I have in the 4 years since. The fact that the Rockies gave up more of those dingers than they hit didn't help, nor did the 'we're here for homeruns, not baseball' attitude of much of the crowd. Yick.
4. Toronto Blue Jays - I wanted to love the Jays. I really did. But you can only be yelled at so many times to "make some nooooooooooise" when your team is down by six and your bullpen is stocked by guys that wouldn't crack Oakland's AA pen. That, and astroturf is hideous. And when the team changed their logo and nickname to try to bring in the 'youth basketball market', well there goes any allegiance I ever had.
5. Seattle Mariners - Out of geographic convenience more than anything, I gave the M's a try for a while. Seeing Ichiro gunning down runners at third from deeep deeeeeeep right field was enough to make you a fan forever, but watching the team owners sell off EVERYONE else on the team, for crap coming back the other way (Carl Everett? Please!), while ditching guys like Olerud simply because they would save money doing so... well, that sucked. And continues to. But even before then, I could never support a team that had Bret Boone as a major part of its lineup, so they never caught on with me. Seattle has one of the best stadiums around, so I still go whenever I'm in town, but their owners make Jim Bowden look like he has a clue.

When I play baseball video games (High Heat 2002 stands the test of time, yo), I manage the team I'm running a certain way - searching for underpaid value, developing talented kids, and offloading guys that ask for too much money. No easy options - and to find a MLB team that works the same way, well that hits me right here.

(points to heart)

A's for life. Unless they sign Bonds.