The A’s moved over 70 years ago, but these Philadelphians are still fans: ‘We’re gonna stick by them’

Von McWilliams is 42 years old and lives in Chester County. He has vivid memories of Chase Utley, Jimmy Rollins, and Ryan Howard but has no interest in being a Phillies fan.

If anything, he roots against them. At least, that was what his 84-year-old grandfather, William, taught him to do. William was raised on the Philadelphia A’s. He spent his summers at Shibe Park, and after the A’s left for Kansas City, he continued to follow the team.

That was 1955, long before ESPN or MLB Extra Innings. Because the A’s were 1,125 miles away, William couldn’t listen to games on a radio broadcast. So he’d check the box scores.

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“He’d read them in the paper every day,” McWilliams said. “Even in the 1950s and 1960s, when they weren’t good.”

William passed his fandom on to his grandson, who was born in 1983, just a few years before Mark McGwire and Jose Canseco made their big league debuts. When McWilliams was 5, his mother let him stay up past his bedtime so he could watch Game 1 of the 1988 World Series.

It did not end well for the A’s. Pinch hitter Kirk Gibson hit a two-run home run off reliever Dennis Eckersley in the bottom of the ninth, giving the Dodgers a 5-4 win and McWilliams an unpleasant and unforgettable memory.

“I cried inconsolably,” he said. “To this day, when I see that, it pains me.”

Decades later, McWilliams remains devoted to a team that has moved four times in 125 seasons. They moved from Oakland, Calif., after the 2024 season to a temporary home in Sacramento, where they will host the Phillies on Friday for the start of a weekend series. In 2028, the A’s are hoping to move again, to Las Vegas, and if that happens, McWilliams will still root for them.

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He’s not alone. The A’s left Philadelphia 71 years ago, but continue to have fans in the area. These fans aren’t all octogenarians. Like McWilliams, many of them are the children or grandchildren of those who watched baseball at North 21st Street and West Lehigh Avenue, who saw the likes of Connie Mack, Jimmie Foxx, and Lefty Grove.

They remember a team that, despite its ups and downs, gave Philadelphia five World Series titles between 1901 and 1954.

“[For me and my grandfather], it was always just, ‘Yes, we’re A’s fans,’” McWilliams said. “Because they used to be in Philadelphia, and that was our team. So we’re going to stick by them.”

When the A’s moved out of town in the winter of 1954, they were one of the worst teams in baseball. They were coming off a 51-103 season that put them dead last in the American League.

Their best player, by WAR, was a rookie named Arnie Portocarrero, who had an ERA of 4.06 and was out of the game by 1961. From 1932 — a year after their 1931 World Series appearance — to 1954, the A’s managed only six winning seasons.

Attendance was down, and the Mack family, which owned the team, was rapidly losing money. They began to look for suitors to purchase their franchise. A few were in Philadelphia, and, at first, it seemed like the A’s would stay.

In October 1954, the Mack family agreed to a deal with a group of Philadelphia businessmen, led by John P. Crisconi, a wealthy car dealer. But at the last minute, Chicago businessman Arnold Johnson made a more enticing offer, which the Macks ultimately accepted.

Johnson was the owner of Yankee Stadium at the time and was backed by Yankees ownership, which was not lost on A’s fans in the Philadelphia area. Mick Green, a 38-year-old nurse’s aide who lives in Upper Bucks County, heard all about it from his grandfather, Jim.

“For the most part, he just complained about how the Yankees stole them, to be honest with you,” Green said. “Because he was born in the ’30s, the [A’s] teams that he grew up with kind of [stunk]. It was more his dad’s teams that won the championships.”

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Green works overnight shifts at a local hospital and listens to A’s and Phillies games on the radio while his patients sleep. He considers himself a fan of both teams but feels that the A’s never should have left Philadelphia to begin with.

A common refrain among original Philadelphia A’s fans — the ones who went to games — is that the wrong team moved. The Phillies were in their Whiz Kids era and had more recent success in 1954 but hadn’t won a World Series in their 71-year history. The A’s had won five in less time.

This feeling of injustice became abundantly clear to J.T. Ramsay when he created the Facebook group “Bring Back the A’s” in 2010. Ramsay wasn’t born into an A’s-loving family, but was interested in baseball history and had an uncle in San Francisco.

In 1989, Ramsay visited him and attended his first MLB game at the Oakland Coliseum. He was hooked.

“It was very exotic to be an A’s fan in the 1980s in Boyertown,” he said.

Ramsay created the Facebook group out of curiosity and a desire to learn more about social media. He was working as a music critic and figured it would be a good way to promote his articles.

What started as a simple experiment led to something unexpected. Ramsay started to hear from A’s fans, young and old. Some were family members of former players and staff. One, who worked as an architect, sent him renderings of a potential ballpark in the Philadelphia area.

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The group became somewhat cathartic for people who’d felt forgotten.

“In a very Philadelphian way, I wanted to embrace contrarianism, while the Phillies were experiencing some of the greatest success of my lifetime,” Ramsay said. “People sent full mock-ups of potential ballparks. There was someone who was strongly in favor of redeveloping the site of the old Baker Bowl.

“And then there were the people who had deep experience in urban development who were like, ‘Well, actually, it should really be out here in the Northeast, and here’s how we could expand the subway.’

“They put a tremendous amount of thought into it, and this gave them an outlet for all of that thinking and passion.”

The group began to host events around the A’s-Phillies series every year. A local sportswear store, Shibe Vintage Sports, did, too, and invited authors and former players to speak to A’s fans in the area. To Ramsay, a digital media and social media consultant, the interest was obvious.

“People would find this Facebook page, and they’d reach out and express gratitude for it existing,” Ramsay said. “And they’d share their very personal ties to the team. It really celebrated the past and demonstrated the abiding love they have for the A’s.

“I’m a Gen-Xer. I can‘t remember when the A’s played in Philadelphia. I didn’t get the experience of [watching a game at] Connie Mack Stadium. So it was a really interesting way to connect with the city’s past and baseball’s past.”

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Green wasn’t surprised by the outpouring of support.

“The majority of the A’s success was here,” he said. “I mean, nine AL championships, five World Series championships. Their dynasties happened here.”

About seven months ago, a South Jersey-based A’s fan stumbled across a petition on Change.org. The fan, who prefers to remain anonymous because he doesn’t want to draw attention to himself, thought it was a joke.

It was titled “Bring the Athletics Back to Philadelphia” and already had 100 signatures. He didn’t agree with all of the language — particularly around moving the Phillies out of the city — but he didn’t want to waste the signatures, either. So he began to circulate the petition to friends and family.

So far, 754 people have added their names. It has connected him to a vibrant community that he wouldn’t otherwise know about.

“Most people like it,” he said. “There are some people that think it’s crazy. That’s fine. There are certainly elements of it that are crazy. The A’s have been gone for 70 years. But most of the people who think it’s crazy have probably never even been to Philadelphia, you know?”

In October 2024, he changed his Twitter handle to @AthleticsPhilly. He linked to the petition in his bio and made his profile picture the logo of the Philadelphia A’s: a white elephant on a blue backdrop with its trunk wrapped around a baseball.

The fan began tweeting at different accounts — the Phillies, the Mets, local media members — in an attempt to get more traction for the petition. He also tweeted at Yuengling Brewery, urging its owner, Dick Yuengling, to buy the A’s.

“Well, they want to go national,” the fan said. “What better way? Build a Yuengling Stadium.”

He said he wouldn’t be doing all of this if the team planned to stay in Oakland. But because the A’s plan to move, he figured he might as well pitch a return to Philadelphia. He knows it’s a long shot, but baseball is a game of hope.

Until the final out is made, anything can happen. An injured pinch hitter can launch a baseball over the right-field wall. An owner from Chicago can change the future of a franchise forever. So in this fan’s mind, there’s always a chance.

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“A few older people who were here when the A’s played here said that they really appreciate it,” he said. “They don’t think it’s really going to happen, but they really appreciate us even trying. It reminds them of their youth and makes them feel that some people still care.

“Nobody thinks it’s really going to happen. But even just the thought of it, it makes them happy. You know?”