A's Brent Rooker has fun with New York Yankees fans at World Series

Jason Burke | Oct 30, 2024

Sep 20, 2024; Oakland, California, USA; Oakland Athletics outfielder Brent Rooker (25) scores during the tenth inning against the New York Yankees at Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum. Mandatory Credit: Bob Kupbens-Imagn Images / Bob Kupbens-Imagn Images

Brent Rooker had a ridiculous season for the Oakland A's in 2024, and ended up being one of the ten best bats in all of Major League Baseball this past season, yet, a large swath of the baseball world is unfamiliar with his game.

At Game 3 of the World Series, Brent Rooker was roaming Yankee Stadium, and MLB decided to put the knowledge of one random Yankees to the test when the A's slugger asked this fan questions about that Brent Rooker guy.

Brent Rooker takes the trip to Billy's and makes a couple of new friends 😂 pic.twitter.com/B7x5XrX4gm

— MLB (@MLB) October 29, 2024

The question was simple: How many home runs did Brent Rooker hit for the A's in 2024? The prize for guessing correctly was a bucket of beer. These guys just started lobbing out guesses, but to their credit, they did begin with 29 homers, which is a respectable total. After a few guesses they got to his actual total of 39, and were awarded the brews.

Rooker drops some hints that the guy that he's asking about with all of these cameras around is in fact himself, but the fans don't pick up on it. After discussing fantasy baseball for a minute, the main fan in the video goes, "Brent Rooker was my first pickup and he was a dog." At this point someone off camera says, "that's him" pointing to Rooker and the look of shock on this guy's face is priceless.

The difference in the level of fame that a random guy on the Yankees can have compared to one of the ten best hitters in baseball never ceases to amaze. As we wrote about earlier this year, the duo of Rooker and teammate Lawrence Butler was performing at roughly the same level as Aaron Judge and Juan Soto from July 1 onward, and the amount that the A's duo was talked about was slim to none.

That piece was written midway through September. The way things ended up, all four players in question ranked in the top 8 hitters in baseball according to wRC+ from July 1 through the end of the regular season. Obviously Judge ranked No. 1 with a 223 (100 is league average), followed by Bobby Witt Jr. (193), Yordan Alvarez (190) and Vladimir Guerrero Jr. (188).

Coming in at No. 5 is Rooker, with a 185 after hitting .323 with a .391 OBP and 24 home runs. Right behind him is Shohei Ohtani (180), who created the 50/50 club this season. Juan Soto came in at No.7 with a 174, and then Butler with a 167.

This is a half-season of crazy production for the A's that not enough people have called attention to, as evidenced by Brent Rooker being able to freely walk around Yankee Stadium. Sometimes other teams have good players too.