Are the A's a Travel Team yet? If not now how long before it is? Philadelphia, Kansas City, Oakland, ...next?
Cities don't own MLB teams; owners will never permit that.
Are all MLB teams Travel Teams with the communities served merely short-term leases coupled to a permanent brick & mortar stadium?
Even the players rarely originate in the community served of any MLB team. Players from other nations consistently outnumber local players. It isn't even close.
A more honest approach by MLB would be to admit it is an entertainment provider of 30 traveling teams. The teams should drop "City designations" and use franchise names only: A's, Yankees, Guardians, Astros, Dodgers.... The team schedules would be split evenly over the stadiums they visit: Approximately 5 games for each team's visit per stadium, per year would produce a 150-game season.
What difference does the "city" make? It just dates when the jersey was printed.
International mercenaries are paid tp wear the jerseys with a city name on them for franchises that may shortly need new Jerseys with different locations printed on them.
Baseball in its present form is really an exhibition more than anything else. NFL, NBA, ...all "Pro" sports.
Oakland Oaks was probably the last team of very many actual Oaklanders, ...or maybe not even then?
- Buzz Arlett
- George Bamberger
- Charlie Beamon
- Gene Bearden
- Sam Bohne (originally "Sam Cohen")
- Roger Bowman
- Ernie Broglio
- Sam Chapman
- Bill Conroy
- Vince DiMaggio
- Chuck Dressen
- Augie Galan
- Billy Herman (HOF)
- Jackie Jensen
- Spider Jorgensen
- Harry Krause
- Ray Kremer
- Cookie Lavagetto
- Thornton Lee
- Ernie Lombardi (HOF)
- Billy Martin
- Hersh Martin
- Catfish Metkovich
- Joe Gordon (HOF)
- Johnny Ostrowski
- Mel Ott (HOF)
- Jackie Price
- Earl Rapp
- Jimmie Reese
- Bill Rigney
- Neill Sheridan
- Floyd Speer
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