The logical fallacy of the day is confirmation bias, and today’s perpetrator is the Guardian, a newspaper capable of some outstanding work but also some infamous typos. And the Grauniad, as with other news outlets with lots of space to fill, is also prone to the occasional lazy appeal to reader preconceptions, as in today’s article on the Oakland A’s that could best be summed up as “the A’s, amirite?”
The premise is that the A’s, who “came to worldwide attention thanks to Moneyball” — already a dead giveaway that this is an article meant for readers who are only familiar with baseball as far as it makes it into hit movies — are on the verge of moving to Vegas because, well, let’s see:
- The A’s are last in the major leagues in attendance.
- Two fans were photographed possibly having sex in the upper deck at a recent game.
- The Oakland Coliseum is home to a colony of feral cats.
All of this is true, but all of this has also been true of other MLB teams over the years: The Miami Marlins were at the bottom in attendance for years until the A’s sold off all their decent players to take over last place; Toronto Blue Jays fans, thanks in part to a hotel that overlooks the outfield, have had sex in view of the game on multiple occasions, most recently just two nights ago; and the New York Mets had a long tradition of cats living at Shea Stadium. None of these are good things, mind you, but also none of those teams were proposed for relocation as a result, and in fact only the Mets even got a new stadium (which some New Yorkers instantly demanded that the cats be relocated to). If you’re the A’s, though, with a team president whose entire job seems to be to fly to Las Vegas and take selfies, all these things become not cute little baseball anecdotes, but rather Signs of Imminent Doom.
For further evidence, let’s head across the bay to San Francisco, where the stadium lights malfunctioned during Monday night’s Giants game:
It was around 7:45 and the sun had set on the Bay. Oracle Park’s stadium lights were noticeably dimmer than usual, causing the umpires to convene and pause play after consulting with managers Gabe Kapler and Bob Melvin. The stadium lights malfunction halted the game as the Padres led 3-0.
During the delay, the stadium PA played Journey singing “When the lights go down in the city.” What an adorable baseball anecdote! Certainly no reason to suggest that the Giants are moving to Greensboro.
I’m bringing all this up not to suggest that any of these other teams should be leaving town — the A’s owners are genuinely considering a move to Las Vegas, though whether Las Vegas is interested is very much an open question — but rather as a reminder of the awesome power of stereotypes in the human mind. Once a certain assumption is fixed in popular culture — Oakland sucks for baseball, women can’t drive, Jews drain the blood of children to make Passover matzoh — anything that happens that fits people’s expectations makes it into news stories (and late night monologues), while anything that conflicts is quickly ignored or forgotten. Or even taken as evidence of the exact opposite of what one would otherwise expect it to mean: That Guardian article cited t-shirts calling the Coliseum “Baseball’s Last Dive Bar” as an example of the stadium being “obsolete,” whereas just three years ago it was taken as an example of how a team could make the best of an older building by appealing to fans who want cheap fun.
Stereotypes have power, in other words, and sports team owners know that, which is why when they want a stadium replaced, they do their best to get people thinking of it as old and decrepit. Which some stadiums are — I’ve been to Oakland Coliseum lately, and “no-frills” is maybe the kindest way of describing it — but that has almost nothing to do with whether it’s in need of demolition, whether Oakland is a bad market for baseball, or whether moving to Las Vegas makes financial sense. People’s lizard brains like their simple black-and-white conclusions, though, so team execs will continue to traffic in confirmation bias, not because it’s true, but because it works.
A couple was just caught having sex at Blue Jay stadium last night! Go Jays!
I included a link to video of this in the post above! Do not say this is not a full-service website.
FOS: After Dark
Have you considered launching a PPV version of the website???
A couple of cats?
A cat at Shea is responsible for the Cubs collapse in 1969, that’s why they’re protected.
Dozens of cats, in the cases of both Shea and the Coliseum.
If the Colosseum is torn down, there goes the World’s Largest Animal Shelter.
Cat Box
What in the name of all that is holy is this obsession with Greensboro? Where you born there? What are you going to do when the dog catches the car and a major league team actually moves there and all sorts of chaos erupts?
Will you be laughing maniacally?
It was randomly chosen (like, with a random number generator) as a place to spread a rumor about where the Bills were moving to. I guess I should pick a new random destination for the A’s?
Yes! May I suggest my hometown of Laredo, TX?
It’s in dire need of all those massive economic benefits building a billion dollar stadium would bring!
Surely the cats would have to be moved to Vegas (conveyed in extreme comfort perhaps)?
I mean, the rats are gone – and there are cats. And probably seabirds. Relocating the sea birds could be more expensive. just sayin.
And if someone else doesn’t pay for all this you just see what will happen!!!
“The premise is that the A’s, who “came to worldwide attention thanks to Moneyball” — already a dead giveaway that this is an article meant for readers who are only familiar with baseball as far as it makes it into hit movies”
So, the English?
Feral cats are cats, who have never felt the touch of a human. LOVE THEM, DON’T FEAR THEM! The A’s aren’t leaving because of cats, they’re leaving because the team stinks, and because neither owners nor fans are passionate enough. Just ask the Raiders.
I would say the fans are plenty passionate. They have put up with a lot from A’s ownership over the past 20 years, and only a small portion of that tolerance involves an old and outmoded stadium (that, like it or not, the franchise does share some responsibility for).
A’s fans have shown up in reasonable/good numbers for almost all of the A’s existence in Oakland (check out Baseball Reference’s history of Athletics attendance 1968-2019).
The fact that they have refused to attend at a rate comparable to the historic average this year when the Failson GAP heir has increased prices AND fielded a team that mainly consists of double-A level players is not surprising.
This is entirely at the feet of Fisher and his shamefully dishonest spokesdick Kaval.
I don’t know if this latest gambit will work. It has certainly put the fans off attending (as mentioned previously, really the only thing he has left to do is keep the gates locked when the A’s are playing home games… but I don’t know if the team actually controls this or not).
What it has not done and cannot do is provide the A’s franchise with a viable alternative home city/stadium – something they will need to have in place eventually.