Bip for Oakland: A’s broadcaster and ex-player makes his pitch for mayor

It was last Wednesday afternoon. Game 94 of the 162-game season. Was anybody still watching? The soon-to-be-gone Oakland A’s have managed to win one at Fenway Park in Boston 5-2. It lifted them to a record of 35 wins and 59 losses. 

You’re welcome, Oakland.

Every game, there is a television show produced around such occasions. For years, made mostly for background noise and unhealthy sports junkies like me. But the heart tends to grow fonder (or ache) when you know something is coming to an end. 

On this day, NBC Bay Area studio analyst and former Major Leaguer Bip Roberts thought A’s rookie Lawrence Butler is really starting to come on now. Enjoy that next year, Sacramento. And just as the show was about to sign off for the night, Roberts started talking about this:

“I hear there’s a recall that’s happening where the mayor may be recalled,” Roberts said. 

OK. Even in an age where ESPN personality and the all-consuming Stephen A. Smith could openly endorse Chris Christie for president on his show, this was still—pardon the analogy—straight out of left field. 

“I’m going to have to pray on this,” Roberts continued. “But I have people in my ear saying that I should run for mayor.”

His co-host Brodie Brazil told The Standard the following day that the moment came as a total shock and was not discussed beforehand. It was a one-minute segment at the end of the show—usually reserved for throwaway topics like food or movies.

“Oh, this is real,” Roberts assured his colleague on the telecast. 

He then turned to camera eight in front of him for a close up.

“I’m an Oakland boy who understands what’s going on in Oakland,” he continued. “And because I understand the problems very well, I can make that change for you guys.”

“So you would be interested in this process?” a visibly stunned Brazil replied. 

“I would be very interested,” Roberts said. 

“I’m sorry to have to ask this, but is your name related to bipping in any way?”

Roberts lets out a deep laugh over the phone when speaking to The Standard the day following what’s now known around the NBC studios as “the Mayor Bip broadcast.” 

“Oh naw,” Roberts, whose birth name is Leon, says. “They took my nickname and turned it upside down. I’m the original. B.I.P. Stands for ‘B(etter) i(n) p(erson).’” 

“We’re going to need to get that changed,” he said. A subsequent attempt to pitch Roberts on the poetry of “bipping” potentially being related to him stealing 264 bases in his Major League career was not successful. 

Among other things he’d focus on changing if elected mayor of Oakland are, unsurprisingly, crime and homelessness. According to Roberts, the city’s failure to resolve both issues have contributed to big businesses, including the A’s, wanting to leave the city.

“When you add that all together, it’s about losing jobs and that’s keeping Oakland in a state of chaos,” Roberts said. 

How would Mayor Bip unwind that “chaos?” 

“I know a lot of people on both sides,” Roberts says about crime. “Especially those who have been incarcerated. I know how to bring them back together.”

“I plan on putting together a great team to go out into the streets,” Roberts continued. “I want to be the type of mayor people know they can come up and talk to. There’s a lot of distrust in the community, but we’re only going to get out of this if we learn to lean on each other again.”  

Regarding homelessness, Roberts said he’d like to employ those living on the streets to help clean up the city—killing two birds with one stone. His campaign is less than 24 hours old at this point, so details about how the city’s budget, housing and education crises tie into those problems were sparse. 

Moreover, this race isn’t even real unless Oakland’s sitting mayor, Sheng Thao, actually gets recalled in November. If she doesn’t, the soonest the next mayoral election would take place in the city is in 2026. 

Currently, Ms. Thao is fighting off a fresh wave of intense scrutiny after the FBI raided her home last month for an investigation related to a prominent Bay Area family’s alleged illegal political donations scheme. 

So all roads eventually lead back to the A’s and the timing of their departure. 

According to a report by Sportico, A’s games will continue to be carried on NBC Sports California after John Fisher’s team decamps for Sacramento next year—but it is not clear if the Bay Area studio show will continue in its current format. 

Both Brazil and Roberts said they have not yet been briefed by company executives about their futures next season, and NBC did not respond to a request for comment. Of note, longtime A’s play-by-play radio broadcaster Vince Cotroneo announced on the same day of the “Mayor Bip” broadcast that he would no longer be calling games for the team after it leaves Oakland. 

For Roberts’ part, he said the idea to float his name for mayor came on the very same day of the broadcast and had nothing to do with his television future. While watching the A’s game in the NBC green room and following the political news of the day, he said a private conversation got him thinking about his life growing up in Oakland and how various people in the community shielded him from bad influences so that he could focus on his athletic career. 

“I thought that after all the good things so many people here have done for me in my life, that maybe I could do something for them in return,” Roberts said. 

The East Bay son, said he grew up in “all parts” of the city before starring at Skyline High School, where other notable greats like Tom Hanks and Gary Payton went. Afterwards, Roberts went to Chabot College in Hayward before making it to the MLB in 1986. 

Baseball fans of that time will mostly remember Roberts for his stints on the San Diego Padres and Cincinnati Reds, where he made the All-Star team in 1992—his best year—where he batted a .323 average across 601 plate appearances and stole a whopping 44 bases. He would eventually finish his career in Oakland with the A’s in 1998. 

Now aged 60, Roberts occupies most of his time outside of the television studio to his church, The Well Christian Community, in Livermore, where he had been focused on community service long before Wednesday’s broadcast. His four grandchildren, with the oldest turning 20 years old this year, also keep him busy, he says. 

“My grandkids are my second chance to do things right,” Roberts says during a walk around Lake Merritt. “Back when I was still playing, I was traveling a lot to make a living. So I wasn’t around as much as I should have been.” 

With that being said, is he still serious about running for mayor? A job that would surely consume him more than professional sports? Remember, Little League baseball is only temporary. City Council meetings are forever. 

Roberts says he needs to consult with his pastor and family more, but he stands by everything he said in public already. 

“Am I a politician?” Roberts thinks out loud. “Naw, I’m just me.”