White Sox fans may mirror boycott
As Oakland Athletics fans continue their quest to keep their team from moving to Las Vegas, it seems that they aren’t the only fan base peeved with a team’s ownership. Other fans have been inspired by the East Bay’s display of displeasure and now hope to spread the movement nationwide.
Following Oakland’s lead, a group of Chicago White Sox fans are organizing a reverse boycott night at a home date on Aug. 24 when the A’s visit Guaranteed Rate Field for the first time this season.
A newly created account on the social media site X, formerly known as Twitter, tagged @SelltheTeamJR, targeted White Sox owner Jerry Reinsdorf. A tweet Monday called on him to relinquish his stake in the franchise and posted about organizing a Windy City reverse boycott. The post encourages White Sox fans who attend the game to “show the FO that the fans are fed up!,” meaning the White Sox front office. It also states, “We want change at the TOP,” seemingly calling for Reinsdorf to sell.
The potential White Sox fan protest comes in the same vein as Oakland’s protests from this summer, in that both are frustrated with disappointing results on the field. Where the A’s protests are aimed at owner John Fisher for failing to field a competitive team while focusing on his attempt to relocate the team to Las Vegas, White Sox fans are disappointed with a team failing to contend in a weak AL Central.
A’s fans have been successful in creating a stir to bring their frustrations to light, as their initial reverse boycott brought what was then a seasonhigh 27,759 fans to Oakland Coliseum on June 13 to express their frustrations with Fisher and the team’s brass in chants. The protest then moved across the Bay on July 25 as A’s and San Francisco Giants fans showed solidarity against Fisher when the two teams faced off at Oracle Park. Just over a week later, a new season-best 37,553 fans came to the Coliseum when the Giants visited as both fan bases continued to voice their concerns over the franchise’s future.
A more detailed explanation of the proposed Chicago boycott was also posted on Reddit, where a user proposed a “SELL THE TEAM night” and stated that with Oakland’s arrival, “I don’t believe there would be a better time for this.” The post then goes on to relate Oakland’s likely loss of its team to the standing of the White Sox, which the fan says for years has been “treating the fans like garbage.”
The White Sox fan said in the post that they knew Reinsdorf wouldn’t sell the team because of the night, but that “seeing 10000s of fans chanting their heads off like it’s a playoff game would go down in Sox history and could be major news (another black eye for the org).”
The Chicago protest is focused on the management of the franchise, one that has won just one World Series in Reinsdorf’s 43 years of ownership. The team began Wednesday at 46-69, the fourth-worst record in the MLB. In contrast with the penurious A’s, the White Sox have the highest payroll in their division.