City mayor begs MLB to ignore Las Vegas move: "A’s belong in Oakland"

The Oakland Athletics are going to move to Las Vegas, but not if the mayor has anything to do with it. Sheng Thao has begged MLB to ignore the bid to leave Oakland and stay home. Many fans agree with this sentiment, filling city hall to chant things along the same lines, like "Let's go Oakland" and "Stay in Oakland".

Thao and the city council officially approved a resolution that states:

"[The] A's belong in Oakland."

They urged the league to reject the bid to move the team from there to Las Vegas, which the team wants to do by 2024. That may be a difficult timeline to make, but the move is expected to happen sooner rather than later.

The Athletics have been one of the worst teams in baseball for the last few seasons, and their fans have not been at many of the games. However, when faced with the team leaving, they organized a reverse boycott.

They ended up with a ton of fans in the building for a game that ended up being a 1-0 victory for Oakland over an eventual 99-win Tampa Bay Rays team. It is difficult to support a bad team consistently, but fans showed up to show that they don't want the team to leave.

Now, the mayor and city council are backing them and even providing something official along those lines. The city even has a hypothetical plan to build a new stadium for the team. Whether or not MLB actually listens to them remains to be seen, but it certainly doesn't seem very likely.

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Oakland A's likely to move to Las Vegas anyway

According to the report from Sports Business Journal, it's unclear if this resolution will do anything. There's no indication of whether or not this will move the needle. Furthermore, no MLB owners have indicated that they'll stand in the way of the move that John Fisher wants to make.

Oakland Athletics are likely to move

This all means that despite their best efforts, the city of Oakland is unlikely to retain the Athletics for much longer.