Semien’s family having reunion in Oakland
The A’s games this week at the Oakland Coliseum will look a little different for Tracy White. She’d grown accustomed to wearing her green and gold shirt bearing the name of her son, Marcus Semien, in the family section at the ballpark.
For the Oakland A’s four-game series against the Toronto Blue Jays this week, White will be donning her brand new blue and white Toronto shirt with “Semien” emblazoned on the back.
“Can I even wear this shirt?” White asked in an interview Saturday. “Doesn’t feel right not to wear an A’s shirt, but I have to.”
Semien, 30, an East Bay kid who attended Cal and then spent six seasons with the A’s, signed with the Blue Jays last January. It was a one-year contract for $18 million, much better than the A’s offer, but it required a position change.
Semien, a shortstop and MVP finalist in 2019, is now a second baseman, forming a double-play combination with Blue Jays wunderkind Bo Bichette. For more on his homecoming, including the game, please visit mercurynews.com/athletics.
The adjustments are not limited to Semien and his family. The A’s miss him too.
“There’s certain guys you don’t want to see in a different uniform,” A’s manager Bob Melvin said Monday before the game.
Semien misses his old teammates, too. He met up with some of the A’s at the team hotel when they were in Tampa to play the Rays last week. They reconnected during batting practice on Monday.
But Semien is shaken by the role reversal.
“Last night it was the weirdest part, turning on video of Frankie Montas,” he said. “A guy I played behind for years, and I’m studying him because I’m going to face him. It’s just weird. I know everything about all these hitters and what they’re doing because I’ve been watching. But once you’re competing against them, you really have to dig deep into the data and the video and it does feel a little weird.”
Speaking of weird, home for Semien and the Blue Jays is Dunedin, Fla., their longtime spring training site. This season, because of COVID restrictions in Canada, it’s where the Blue Jays are headquartered and where they play their home games. Late this season, they hope to move to Buffalo, home of their TripleA team, about 90 minutes from Toronto.
The A’s will see Semien again for a three-game series in September — most likely in Buffalo, the affiliate site the Blue Jays will move to midseason from their current home ballpark in Dunedin, Fla. This may be the only time this season Semien’s family will see him play live.
Semien’s entire family plans to be at the Coliseum for all four games. Though with MLB’s COVID protocols and the three night games don’t allow much free time for players, the kind of quality time they’re used to might not come easy. At least, they’re planning a hug. And White is hoping to see her newest grandson, Eli, for the first time since he was born four months ago.
For Marcus’ family, barbecues and gatherings were common after weekend games in his time with the Oakland A’s. During non-pandemic times, White and Semien’s younger sister Chynna Williams would travel to Anaheim and Seattle with the A’s, and every year would venture to Mesa to watch Semien in spring training.
Semien’s time with his hometown team wasn’t taken for granted. His arrival to Oakland in 2015 in a trade with the Chicago White Sox was a childhood dream realized for Semien and his family. But given the A’s history of letting longtime players go, his departure felt inevitable.
Semien got off to a slow start with his new team, but he has begun to show more signs of his former self in recent weeks. Semien has hit safely in eight of the past nine games to raise his average to .228, the highest it’s been since the opening week of the season. Sunday he hit his sixth home run of the season and drove in four runs as the Jays completed a weekend sweep of Atlanta.
Though the A’s publicly made known they wanted to return their hometown hero and 2019 MVP finalist, they couldn’t compete financially. The A’s didn’t extend Semien a qualifying offer, instead offering up a bizarre $12.5 million deal with $10 million deferred with $1 million installments paid over 10 years.
“Well, I mean, we called them,” Semien said this winter of his interaction with the A’s front office. “I’ll just leave it at that. It was just something I felt like I owed to my family. And it didn’t work.
“But that’s totally fine. I understand the business. I understand where these owners are at and what decisions they have to make right now because of the pandemic. We just had to move on.”
The inevitability that his time in Oakland was up hit Semien during the ALDS loss against the Houston Astros. After the game Semien wondered aloud if it would be the last time he’d don green and gold on the field. He and his family knew it was true.
“It wasn’t a shocker to me. I always knew but didn’t want it to happen,” White said. “I’m sure he would have loved to stay if circumstances allowed. If they were different and the A’s had a better attitude about signing free agents it would have been a better situation. It is what it is, and I’m glad the Blue Jays play the A’s so I can see a game.”
A’s fans don’t take kindly to players who spin through the franchise’s revolving door. Jason Giambi was booed mercilessly in his return to the Oakland Coliseum after signing a seven-year, $120 million deal with the New York Yankees in 2002. Fans attending that game in April 19 years ago held up signs that read “Money can’t buy you love,” and “Our Giambi is better,” referring to his brother, Jeremy.
Semien was on the field when Josh Donaldson and Yoenis Cespedes, two other fan favorites that slipped out of Oakland, returned to the Coliseum in new jerseys.
“You always heard about it and talked to A’s fan and they were hurt about losing Cespedes and Donaldson,” Semien said. “I’m pretty sure Donaldson did some damage in that series, too. That’s something everyone wants to do when they come back to their old team is do some damage. You see some guys get booed, some get cheered. It’s part of the game.”
White wasn’t expecting anything but love from A’s fans.