OAKLAND, Calif. (AP) — Many fans at the Oakland Coliseum were still hanging out in the parking lot when Alex Wood delivered the first pitch of the season for the Athletics against the Cleveland Guardians.
And they had no intention of going into the stadium.
In protest of the A’s planned move to Las Vegas in 2028, fan groups staged a boycott of the home opener Thursday, purchasing tickets to the game to organize a block party outside the stadium. Paid attendance for the game was 13,522, but many never made it inside.
A half-hour before the game's first pitch, hundreds of fans gathered in the far corner of the parking lot. They displayed “Sell” T-shirts and flags, threw beanbags at caricatures of team executives —including owner John Fisher and president Dave Kaval — and danced to live music while munching on dinner from food trucks.
“Everyone’s in such a good mood because we're all here for the same thing,” said Edward Silva, a student at San Jose State and a lifelong A's fan. “Everyone knows the score. So everyone’s on the same page, and just creating a wonderful atmosphere.”
The A’s opened gates to parking lots just two hours before the game to align with what they said was the expected attendance, but fan groups that organized the boycott, including the Oakland 68’s and The Last Dive Bar, said it was an attempt to limit the protest.
Dennis Biles, an organizer with the Oakland 68’s, said at a rally in the parking lot that Thursday was the first A’s home game he missed in five years. Biles, a season ticket holder since 2007, chose to attend college locally so he could still go to A’s games. He noted that other fans probably made similar sacrifices to support the club, small or large.
“For a long time, I really believed that the A’s were actually dedicated to the community,” Biles said. “And I really bought into that whole spiel.”
The A’s plan to relocate to Las Vegas in 2028, but where they will play after this season remains uncertain with their lease at the Coliseum expiring. Sacramento and Salt Lake City have been floated as options, as well as sharing Oracle Park with the San Francisco Giants.
The Oakland 68’s and the Oakland United Coalition called at the rally for the Alameda County Board of Supervisors to back out of their agreement to sell their 50% stake of the Coliseum to the A’s. At another booth was organizers at Schools Over Stadiums, a group attempting to block public funding for the Las Vegas stadium in favor of money for education.
Thursday was the second large action taken by A’s fans during home games after plans to move to Las Vegas were announced. Last June, fans packed the Coliseum for a reverse boycott urging Fisher to sell the team.
“I felt like that was for us to know that it was important,” said Hal Gordon, an economist and former hot dog vendor at the Coliseum who became a fan favorite before he left in 2022. “This time, we’re fighting. We’re fighting back. We’re raising money to fight back. We’re urging people not to go in so they have less money to build their stadium.”
He added: “There’s no playbook when someone says, ‘We’re stealing your team from you.'"
Managers for both teams empathized with the fans.
“I wouldn’t expect anything less from Oakland A’s fans,” manager Mark Kotsay said. “When they come out, they come out with support, with love, and they do it full force.”
Kotsay added that the fans that do show up to the game itself would “have a way to just be loud and create energy.”
“Just to put a uniform on and to have this opportunity to be a big leaguer, to manage a big league club — I’m honored, regardless if there’s one fan or 60,000 fans,” Kotsay said.
Oakland remains a special place for Guardians manager Stephen Vogt, who made his debut against the club for which he played six years.
“My heart goes out to the fans and the people of Oakland, obviously the organization as well,” Vogt said. “They’re in a tough place right now and hopefully they’ll get some answers and some clarity soon.”
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People with letters spelling "sell" chant during an opening-day baseball game between the Oakland Athletics and the Cleveland Guardians on Thursday, March 28, 2024, in Oakland, Calif. The announced attendance at the A’s home opener was 13,522 — about half of the crowd at last year’s home opener of 26,805. Many who bought tickets did not actually enter the stadium, with fan groups organizing a boycott in the parking lot to protest the team’s planned move to Las Vegas. (Benjamin Fanjoy/San Francisco Chronicle via AP)
A group of fans and protesters gather in the parking lot outside the Oakland Coliseum before the Oakland Athletics played against the Cleveland Guardians in a baseball game on opening day, Thursday, March 28, 2024, in Oakland, Calif. The announced attendance was 13,522 — about half of the crowd at last year’s home opener of 26,805. Many who bought tickets did not actually enter the stadium, with fan groups organizing a boycott in the parking lot to protest the team’s planned move to Las Vegas. (Benjamin Fanjoy/San Francisco Chronicle via AP)
The Oakland Athletics take batting practice before opening day baseball game at the Coliseum in Oakland, Calif., on Thursday, March 28, 2024. (Jose Carlos Fajardo/Bay Area News Group via AP)
The Oakland Athletics and the Cleveland Guardians listen to the national anthem before a baseball game Thursday, March 28, 2024, in Oakland, Calif. (AP Photo/Godofredo A. Vásquez)
Maryam Alwan figured the worst was over after New York City police in riot gear arrested her and other protesters on the Columbia University campus, loaded them onto buses and held them in custody for hours.
But the next evening, the college junior received an email from the university. Alwan and other students were being suspended after their arrests at the “ Gaza Solidarity Encampment,” a tactic colleges across the country have deployed to calm growing campus protests against the Israel-Hamas war.
The students' plight has become a central part of protests, with students and a growing number of faculty demanding their amnesty. At issue is whether universities and law enforcement will clear the charges and withhold other consequences, or whether the suspensions and legal records will follow students into their adult lives.
Terms of the suspensions vary from campus to campus. At Columbia and its affiliated Barnard College for women, Alwan and dozens more were arrested April 18 and promptly barred from campus and classes, unable to attend in-person or virtually, and banned from dining halls.
Questions about their academic futures remain. Will they be allowed to take final exams? What about financial aid? Graduation? Columbia says outcomes will be decided at disciplinary hearings, but Alwan says she has not been given a date.
“This feels very dystopian,” said Alwan, a comparative literature and society major.
What started at Columbia has turned into a nationwide showdown between students and administrators over anti-war protests and the limits of free speech. In the past 10 days, hundreds of students have been arrested, suspended, put on probation and, in rare cases, expelled from colleges including Yale University, the University of Southern California, Vanderbilt University and the University of Minnesota.
Barnard, a women's liberal arts college at Columbia, suspended more than 50 students who were arrested April 18 and evicted them from campus housing, according to interviews with students and reporting from the Columbia Spectator campus newspaper, which obtained internal campus documents.
On Friday, Barnard announced it had reached agreements restoring campus access to “nearly all” of them. A statement from the college did not specify the number but said all students who had their suspensions lifted have agreed to follow college rules and, in some cases, were put on probation.
On the night of the arrests, however, Barnard student Maryam Iqbal posted a screenshot on the social media platform X of a dean's email telling her she could briefly return to her room with campus security before getting kicked out.
“You will have 15 minutes to gather what you might need,” the email read.
More than 100 Barnard and Columbia faculty staged a “Rally to Support Our Students” last week condemning the student arrests and demanding suspensions be lifted.
Columbia is still pushing to remove the tent encampment on the campus main lawn where graduation is set to be hosted May 15. The students have demanded the school cuts ties with Israel-linked companies and ensure amnesty for students and faculty arrested or disciplined in connection with the protests.
Talks with the student protesters are continuing, said Ben Chang, a Columbia spokesperson. “We have our demands; they have theirs,” he said.
For international students facing suspension, there is the added fear of losing their visas, said Radhika Sainath, an attorney with Palestine Legal, which helped a group of Columbia students file a federal civil rights complaint against the school Thursday. It accuses Columbia of not doing enough to address discrimination against Palestinian students.
“The level of punishment is not even just draconian, it feels like over-the-top callousness,” Sainath said.
More than 40 students were arrested at a Yale demonstration last week, including senior Craig Birckhead-Morton. He is due to graduate May 20 but says the university has not yet told him if his case will be submitted to a disciplinary panel. He worries about whether he will receive a diploma and if his acceptance to Columbia graduate school could be at risk.
“The school has done its best to ignore us and not tell us what happens next,” said Birckhead-Morton, a history major.
Across the country, college administrators have struggled to balance free speech and inclusivity. Some demonstrations have included hate speech, antisemitic threats or support for Hamas, the group that attacked Israel on Oct. 7, sparking a war in Gaza that has left more than 34,000 dead.
May commencement ceremonies add pressure to clear demonstrations. University officials say arrests and suspensions are a last resort, and that they give ample warnings beforehand to clear protest areas.
Vanderbilt University in Tennessee has issued what are believed to be the only student expulsions related to protesting the Israel-Hamas conflict, according to the Institute for Middle Eastern Understanding. More than two dozen students occupied the university chancellor’s office for several hours on March 26, prompting the university to summon police and arrest several protesters. Vanderbilt then issued three expulsions, one suspension and put 22 protesters on probation.
In an open letter to Chancellor Daniel Diermeier, more than 150 Vanderbilt professors criticized the university’s crackdown as “excessive and punitive.”
Freshman Jack Petocz, 19, one of those expelled, is being allowed to attend classes while he appeals. He has been evicted from his dorm and is living off campus.
Petocz said protesting in high school was what helped get him into Vanderbilt and secure a merit scholarship for activists and organizers. His college essay was about organizing walkouts in rural Florida to oppose Gov. Ron DeSantis’ anti-LGBTQ policies.
“Vanderbilt seemed to love that,” Petocz said. “Unfortunately, the buck stops when you start advocating for Palestinian liberation.”
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New York City Police Department officers arrest pro-Palestinian protesters outside a student-led encampment at New York University on Monday, April 22, 2024, in New York. The protest and encampment was set up to demand the university divest from weapons manufacturers and the Israeli government. The NYPD said 133 protesters were taken into custody on Monday, and all have been released with summonses to appear in court on disorderly conduct charges. (AP Photo/Noreen Nasir)
Protesters are cuffed after being detained on the campus of Emory University during a pro-Palestinian demonstration Thursday, April 25, 2024, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart)
Pro-Palestinian demonstration encampment is seen at the Columbia University, Friday, April 26, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura)
Columbia University professors rally in solidarity with their students rights to protest free from arrest at the Columbia University campus in New York on Monday April 22, 2024. (AP Photo/Stefan Jeremiah)
A protester is arrested by University of Texas police at a pro-Palestinian protest at the University of Texas, Wednesday, April 24, 2024, in Austin, Texas. (Mikala Compton/Austin American-Statesman via AP)
Northeastern University Police remove and arrest protesters one by one at the tent encampment on campus in Boston on Saturday, April 27, 2024. Dozens of NU students and other protesters who set up tents with them on the NU campus were arrested by state, Boston and NU police. (John Tlumacki/The Boston Globe via AP)
Georgia State Patrol officers detain a demonstrator on the campus of Emory University during a pro-Palestinian demonstration, Thursday, April 25, 2024, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart)
