Can an A’s Fan Cheer for the Giants?
Now this is a subject that has really irked me recently, as I am sure is the case with many Oakland Athletics fans. On one hand I am from the Bay Area and when the Giants played in Candlestick I did not really seem to mind them and let’s face it, it really makes it more fun to go out in San Francisco when the Giants do well. On the other hand though, Giants fans are, generally, a bandwagon bunch. When the Giants started to get better, hats popped up on every street corner and all the sudden everyone was showing their pride for the black and orange. Not to mention the fact that Giants fans love to talk smack about the A’s, if you don’t understand baseball it is easiest to just hate on a neighboring team.
Well with these dissenting points of view in mind, it is time to try to put this whole debate to rest. Can an A’s fan in good conscience cheer for the Giants? I do not think so.
Let us start with a very simple reason why the Giants do not deserve the love of A’s fans in the World Series, and that is territory rights. Now, I for one want to keep the A’s in Oakland, but there are very legitimate arguments for moving the team. I will not come down on either side of this issue at the moment, but let’s just say that it is an important issue for the A’s franchise.
One of the reasons why the A’s cannot move to the South Bay is due to the territory rights which the Giants hold over the region, claiming that the South Bay is too important to the Giants fan base and advertisers. So where did the Giants get these all important territory rights? From the A’s! Now I know what you must be thinking, they probably purchased the rights for some sum of money, or the A’s gave them a hard time about it, but no, this is not the case. The A’s and the Giants used to share the rights to the South Bay, but when the Giants wanted to put a referendum thru in San Francisco with the hopes of moving the team, the A’s granted them the rights to move south out of kindness.
Apparently, less then two decades later. this gift means nothing, as now the Giants upper management refuses to budge on the territorial rights that should be shared at this point. As former A’s owner Stephen Schott put it
They had to get permission from the A’s. They didn’t pay for those territorial rights, by the way. Now, in the meantime, they built a stadium closer to Oakland than they were before. And now, if we talk about another stadium down in that area, they go berserk. It’s like my 4-year-old granddaughter says sometimes, ‘crybaby, crybaby.’
Clearly this should be reason enough to dislike the Giants franchise, but lets delve a little deeper. The Giants fans have been getting a lot of love recently for their presence in the playoffs. Now many of my good friends are Giants fans, and it is true there are tons of good fans, but let’s face it, go to a game in the regular season, and it may have been packed, but probably no more than 10% of the fans could actually name the full rotation or the starting line up. I mean come on, half of the fans are wearing Barry Zito jersey’s, and where is he in the post season? Truth is, the majority of Giants fans are as fickle as their love for Cody Ross, and while they have a great turn out in the regular season, it’s really just because of that slide in left field… That and the first pump cam.
Lastly, there is a huge media bias towards the Giants in the Bay Area. The A’s are hard to find anywhere but on Comcast SportsNet Bay Area, and if you are looking for any A’s news in the paper well you better stick to the Oakland Tribune because forget the Chronicle, the East Bay just isn’t their thing. Add in the pretentious hosts and uninformed callers on KNBR and well you’ve got yourself a really despisable media presence.
That being said, why cheer for the Rangers? Well they are an AL West team and they are representing our division, a division that has been hated on all season. Not to mention Josh Hamilton has racked up the most unbelievable comeback story since this guy.
So I say let’s bury the division hatchet, and let’s go Rangers, although if San Francisco wins, at least the nightlife will be spectacular. All in all, the A’s historically have a better record against the Giants, so lets take solace in that.
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You’re probably right about A’s fans, if I were one I wouldn’t cheer for the Giants either. But I do want to set the record straight on your generalizations about Giants fans. Sure, there are a boatload of bandwagon fans this year, but I lived in Boston during both of their World Series wins, and you haven’t seen a bandwagon til you saw Boston in 2004 (actually, the whole freakin’ country). More people claim to be Giants fans than this time last year, yeah, but every last idiot in Boston was a Sox fan in 2004.
Any time you have a championship team, you gain fans, that’s just how it works. The bandwagon types may not know the lineup, but I was at a game this season where Wellemeyer got an apologetic standing O after pitching 7 innings of 1-run ball. The Giants have plenty of hard-core, dedicated fans who deserve to see them win the Series. Probably just as many or more than Oakland does.
I question the loyalty of any A’s fan that roots for the Giants. If you claim to be an A’s fan that’s rooting for the Giants, then you’re not really an A’s fan – you’re a Giants fan.
http://georgemurphy.us/wordpress/2010/10/28/rooting-against-the-san-francisco-giants/
I am a 100% Giants fan since my mother delivered me on this planet, and there is no way in hell I would ever root for the A’s. Even if we are both from the Bay Area. Its like Rooting for the Raiders when I’m a 49ers Fan. It just wont happen, So if you are an A’s fan please don’t bandwagon for the Giants we have enough of those already……
Don’t you worry. It will be a cold day in hell before this A’s fan bandwagons for the Giants!!!
Go Rangers!!!
No true A’s fan can EVER cheer for the giants. Ever.
As far as the media coverage goes, we need to win more, pure and simple.
The bandwagoners are the worst, and as stated above, when you go to the playoffs, it happens. But the WORST type of fans are the ones that say, “but I cheer for the A’s and want them to do well…” And my response is: If you EVER cheer for the giants (lack of capitalization done on purpose), I do NOT want you supporting the A’s.
I am a baseball fan and can appreciate good baseball and the giants are playing well. But I will cheer for the Rangers (and Ron Washington who should be our manager, but that’s for another time) without hesitation, as I did for the Braves and Phillies. Don’t care about any of ‘em, but hate being in the Bay Area for this.
Um – what? The A’s never gave territorial rights – that’s something MLB did, they are the one in control over such things, so take that issue up with them. In case you forget, the Giants were in the bay area long before the A’s came over.
While I now live in Butte County, I grew up in the south bay, and have never heard of any “big rivalry” between the teams (or fans of the teams). Now if we were talking Niners and Raiders – then you have contention, but I’ve knowm many Giants and A’s fans over the years and aside from an occasional ribbing – no bad blood there.
George – question away, however not everyone is a strictly “one-team” fan. I am a Giants fan first and foremost – but I can root for whoever else I like as long as it’s not affecting the NL West. You guys crack me up!
Nothing wrong with rooting for your division, but if the Giants weren’t in the big show this year and the A’s were – I’d be rooting for the “other” home team as I’ve seen many games on both sides of the bay…
Hi Dubguy,
First and foremost thank you for reading and thank you for your response. Now if you doubt the origin of the Giants territorial rights to the South Bay, a simple google search should clear things up, so go ahead and take a peak. You will see that the A’s and Giants were initially splitting the disputed territory and the A’s gave the Giants the region out of good faith.
Now I agree, I do not think there is much of a rivalry between the teams, that was one of my points in the article, outside of 1989 of course but a 4 game sweep is clearly not much of a rivalry series. That being said, Giants fans and KNBR talk a lot of smack about the A’s organization. If it weren’t for the reasons I outline, I wouldn’t have a problem with the Giants, but it is what it is, and I couldn’t really want them to win this series. That being said, I am glad that the Yankees did not make the series and that’s really what I care about the most.
Enjoy the game, it’s starting off pretty slow so far, but now its time for me to head out and give it my full attention, once again thanks for reading, and good luck.
The ownership of the Giants is nothing like the late owner Has of Oakland. He understood what was best for baseball by letting and sharing the territorial rights of the South Bay. Otherwise, the Giants fans would have been St. Petersburg fans. For those who are not geographically literate, that is in Florida. Instead of playing in AT&T park, you would be playing in the horrible Tropicana Dome. There would have been only one Bay Area team to root for. Giants fans should thank the Oakland A’s!
No. The Giants want the A’s out of the Bay Area. Not to mention, the A’s already get zero local media coverage. If/when the Giants win the WS, I don’t know what media coverage of the A’s will look like.
First of all, just because the Athletics were incompetent enough to give territorial rights to the Giants if that was the case, does that mean that the Giants are to do the same? Would the A’s just hand over say the City of Alameda territorial rights if the Giants wanted it? I’m sure there is a lot more money and sponsorship at stake here than many realize. I think this whole you can’t root for a Giants team and the territorial thing is just plain sour grapes. If the A’s had a new stadium and a winning team I believe the story would be different here. Living in the East Bay, I know many A’s fans who are pulling for the Giants why you ask? Because the entire Bay Area is starved for some sort of winning team and a championship. As a Giants fan, if the A’s were in the World Series, I would probably root for them. This is not a rivalry like Raiders and 49ers or like Giants and Dodgers. People go thru so much with the economy and all they just want to be a part of something special. A winning sports franchise offers them just that. In this case it’s the Giants. You don’t like it? Billy Beane is the only guy you should blame. Can’t put together a winning team. As far as band wagoning goes, there are band wagoners when every team is winning so of course there are band wagoners now. But I’ve met some pretty die hard Giants fans so don’t ever fool yourself by thinking we don’t exist.