The widely reviled owner of the Oakland A’s sent a goodbye letter to fans Monday, but to a lot of people — including sports anchor Larry Beil — it was one more insult before John Fisher uproots the team.
Beil’s highly critical commentary Monday night about Fisher’s missive — what the ABC7 broadcaster called “disingenuous” — was a hot topic Tuesday on sports blogs and Twitter as the Athletics prepare for their final game at the Coliseum on Thursday.
“When I sat down to vent, I wasn’t trying to create something that went viral,” Beil told The Standard by phone. “I was just trying to express the frustration of that letter,” which he lambasted as “a work of fiction.”
In the letter, Fisher said, “Staying in Oakland was our goal, it was our mission, and we failed to achieve it. And for that I am genuinely sorry.” He wrote that along with former co-owner Lew Wolff, “our dream was to win world championships and build a new ballpark in Oakland.”
But Beil, a former ESPN anchor on SportsCenter, said these claims were tough to swallow given the organization’s dubious history of negotiating with Oakland for a new ballpark and the team having by far the lowest payroll in Major League Baseball.
“John, you’re a serial penny pincher. You’ve destroyed your family’s great name and legacy because of your cheapness,” he told ABC7 viewers yesterday.
The A’s did not respond to requests for comment Tuesday.
Though it had a spontaneous feel, most of what Beil said had been scripted and cleared by an executive producer before he went on the air, he said.
“It shouldn’t be my personal feelings about John Fisher. It’s about the fans,” he said. “I wouldn’t expect me ranting like a madman for four minutes was going to change anyone’s minds.”
Indeed, praise poured in from spurned A’s fans on social media. Beil has been bombarded with messages and texts, perhaps more than for anything else he’s done in his career, he said.
“It’s been resounding and somewhat surprising,” he said.
Thank you @LarryBeilABC7 You said things on air that many of us @Athletics fans needed someone to say for us! Thank you! #Oakland #oaklandathletics #mlb #sell #selltheteam https://t.co/eBOXBfZCCV
— J Carini (@Carini_Cards) September 24, 2024
Though Fisher bought the team in 2005, Beil has never secured an interview with him. This is not the first time he’s rebuked Fisher on air; he thinks perhaps it resonated so strongly because the A’s are down to their final days in Oakland.
He cut Fisher a little slack over the failure to build a new stadium in Oakland, saying the city’s elected officials don’t have a great track record. Putting A’s executives at the bargaining table with reps from Oakland City Hall was a “recipe for disaster.”
Don’t expect to see Beil so animated on a regular basis.
“I don’t yell and scream that much,” he said. “That kind of commentary is reserved for pretty rare occasions.”