Reggie Jackson on Oakland A’s situation: ‘I’m embarrassed for baseball’

To state the obvious, things aren’t going so well for the Oakland Athletics these days.

The team is just 4-7 to open the year, their owner is actively expressing his excitement to see players on other teams hit home runs against them in Sacramento and their 56-year run in the Bay Area is officially coming to an end.

And to make matters worse, franchise icon Reggie Jackson put the franchise on blast Tuesday while appearing on “The Show” podcast with The New York Post’s Jon Heyman and Joel Sherman.

“I’m embarrassed for baseball,” he said. “I feel terrible for the city… I honestly thought (the Fisher family) would purchase the team to save the team for the city.”

“I’m so disappointed as to the way the family has interacted with the city and just let the team go to shambles. I mean, they’re a four-A team — they’re not a major-league team and they’ve abandoned the city.”

Jackson played in Oakland for 10 seasons, winning the 1973 AL MVP and leading the team to a three-peat as World Series champions in 1972, ’73 and ’74. Over his career with the Athletics, he was named an All-Star six times and led the league home runs twice.

With the Athletics being the last of Oakland’s major professional sports teams to leave the city — the Golden State Warriors to San Francisco and Raiders to Las Vegas — Jackson says the teams should have worked together to stay.

When the A’s came up for sale in 2005, “Mr. October” was even one of the prime candidates to buy the team.

“That team would not look like it does today, which really is an embarrassment to Major League Baseball, an embarrassment to Oakland, an embarrassment to the Fisher family,” the 77-year-old Jackson said, referencing if his bid was chosen nearly 20 years ago. “There is no winner there now… Is it worth creating a rotten reputation for a billion dollars?”

After making the playoffs in three consecutive seasons from 2018-2020, the A’s started to deconstruct a roster built with star-level contributors.

That included trading All-Stars Matt Olson, Matt Chapman, Chris Bassitt and Sean Murphy and allowing Marcus Semien and Liam Hendriks to leave via free agency.

“It’s not how the game should be,” Jackson said of Oakland’s moves. “There were commissioners before that penalized owners… for getting rid of players, they rescinded and reversed all those deals during free agency in 1976.”

Now an advisor for the Houston Astros, Jackson said that he spoke with John Fisher about purchasing part of the team, offering $300 million for 20 to 25 per cent of the club. The five-time World Series champion said that wouldn’t have even been enough to have any decision-making power if he were to become a minority owner.

With the team likely headed to Las Vegas after Jackson couldn’t buy the team as the high bidder in 2005, the Hall of Famer made his feelings on the entire debacle very clear.

“It’s a terrible situation. It’s absolutely not good for baseball, so I’m disappointed,” he said. “My feelings are hurt, I was pushed out, I was screwed over by the game.”

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