Some time soon, the Oakland Athletics will be a total misnomer. Already, the “Athletics” part of the equation is in doubt—the Athletics are hardly demonstrating their elite athletic talent as the clear worst team in MLB at 4-18 with an abominable -103 run differential and paucity of power or speed or skill. And soon, they won't even be in Oakland any more either; last week, the A's announced that it had purchased a 49 acre parcel of land off of the Las Vegas strip with the intention of relocating to Vegas by 2027. To listen to Oakland politicians and residents say it, this represented a massive betrayal by a team that's been part of the city's fabric for nearly 60 years since the team arrived in 1968. But, if MLB commissioner Rob Manfred can be believed (and why would you believe him?), the A's deserve no blame at all for abandoning their fans for the greener pastures of Las Vegas.

“I feel sorry for the fans in Oakland. I really do,” he said to the Associated Press. “But for the city of Oakland to point fingers at John Fisher, it’s not fair.

“We have shown an unbelievable commitment to the fans in Oakland by exhausting every possible opportunity to try to get something done in Oakland,” Manfred added. “Unfortunately, the government doesn’t seem to have the will to get it done.”

Beyond taking aim at the Oakland government, Manfred fixed his crosshairs on perhaps the one blameless party in the whole brouhaha: the fans. It is, of course, total nonsense to blame the fans and taxpayers for not being overly thrilled with the prospect of forking over hundreds of millions of dollars to build the playpen for a famously miserly and uncaring ownership group, but that's never stopped Manfred before.

“Their attendance has never been outstanding, let’s put it that way,” he said.

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“To me, it ought to be all positive on the competitive front,” he added. “You got really smart baseball operations people. You got owners that want to win, and I think Las Vegas will present a real revenue enhancing opportunity. So I think you’re going to have a good product.”