The Oakland Ballers — the East Bay’s feel-good replacement to the feel-bad A’s — have enjoyed a run of good news recently.
Last fall, in their debut season in the Pioneer League, the team put together a torrid second-half winning streak and finished just one game from the league championship. They raised more than $2 million from fans in their first community investment round. Then, earlier this month, they announced two attention-grabbing local celebrity investors — East Bay music legends Too $hort and Billie Joe Armstrong of Green Day.
But the team’s latest star investor thinks a correction is due.
“I’d like to finally give them some bad press,” said comedian Chelsea Peretti of “Brooklyn Nine-Nine,” “Saturday Night Live,” and “Parks and Recreation” fame. The Ballers, according to team sources, will be unveiling Peretti as the team’s newest big-name backer this week.
Peretti, who now lives in Los Angeles, grew up in North Oakland, and went to high school with Ballers’ founders Bryan Carmel and Paul Freedman at the College Preparatory School, in Rockridge. Upon learning about her history with the Ballers, The Standard reached out to Peretti for comment.
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“I wouldn’t say they were cool, exactly,” Peretti said. “I mean, they were funny. And that’s largely what is cool in my book.”
Her fellow team owners spent much of their time in high school “partying, eating sandwiches at Tilden, and making fun of each other,” she recalls. “Paul and Bryan had that brand of humor where they were persistently coming at you.”
In fact they weren’t just clowns. A bit of research on Carmel revealed that he had been elected president of their class in high school. Did Peretti vote for him?
Peretti: “It’s possible.”
The conversation turned to baseball. Was she a fan?
“I don’t really like baseball.”
Did she like going to games?
“People are always like, ‘Oh, come to a game. You can eat a hot dog.’ I’m like, ‘Guess what, honey? I can eat a hot dog whenever I want.’”
Was she at least a Ballers fan? Would she make it out to a game?
“Do they have nachos?”
Did it surprise her that Freedman and Carmel had started a professional baseball team that had helped to heal a suffering sports town and even earned the accolades of local rappers and punk rockers?
“They’re both very enterprising people, very outgoing people,” she said, “and I would say hardworking people. So, no, it wouldn’t surprise me if you told me this was their future.”
Why, finally, had she decided to invest in her old friends’ venture?
She paused.
“I will say that the idea of the city of Oakland being bereft of any baseball team, I mean, I don’t know if I’m misunderstanding, but it seems sad. It definitely was a big cultural institution. Growing up in Oakland, the A’s were such a ubiquitous force. I admire what Paul and Bryan are doing to fill that void. That’s cool.”
The Ballers open their season at home against the Ogden Raptors on Tuesday, May 20. Peretti didn’t promise she’d be in attendance, but she left the door open.
“I mean, I might, just to support my friends, and eat nachos.”