Why Are John Fisher and Dave Kaval Speaking All of a Sudden?

John Fisher held a second interview on Wednesday, and had some interesting notes scribbled down before his television debut

Wednesday morning the Las Vegas Review-Journal dropped a lengthy interview with John Fisher, a man that has refused to talk to the media in the 18 years he has owned the Oakland A's. Later in the day, he spoke with Raj Mathai of NBC.

As part of the promotion for that television interview, these pictures were tweeted out.

BAY AREA EXCLUSIVE: @rajmathai asks A’s owner John Fisher if it’s hurtful to see the “sell” shirts.

Fisher says “of course. It shows the fans are passionate to keep a team & they are upset with me for taking away that dream. In that sense, I take responsibility.” @nbcbayarea pic.twitter.com/3urmjhXsuQ

— Christine Ni 倪君怡 (@christineniSF) August 23, 2023

Nothing much to see here, right? Well, if you zoom in on the notebooks in the picture on the right, there are some notes that leave a lot of questions unanswered. 

Upon closer review, John Fisher has a notepad with just these three handwritten names because even he can’t remember who actually is on his team:

Mark Kotsay
Zack Gelof
Tyler Soderstrom https://t.co/LrACq6Idag pic.twitter.com/RVc8Gtetiv

— Vitamin Dee (@2Legit2QuitDee) August 23, 2023

Yes, that reads: Mark Kotsay, Tyler Soderstrom, and Zack Gelof. The team's manager and two top prospects. Only Gelof just graduated off of prospect lists and Soderstrom was optioned back to Triple-A earlier this week. Still, they are two players that would normally have A's fans very excited if not for the whole relocation thing. 

There are no notes that accompany those names, so we're left to wonder why. Why are they there? Does he not know Mark Kotsay's name? Does he need to call those three later? Wouldn't he have an assistant to remind him of that? Is he planning to sign them to extensions to show that things will be different in Las Vegas? 

Actually that last one is a good business plan, so that's off the table. 

Everything about Wednesday, and even Dave Kaval coming out of hibernation last week feels odd. Why now? They've been quiet for so long, what has changed? The fans have already set the narrative during their silence. Could they be looking for some positive press and needed to actually have Fisher talk to make it happen? 

Are they feeling pressure from the other owners on the impending vote? That doesn't feel like it's it, because Fisher also said on Wednesday that the team had submitted their relocation papers to MLB, and the list of things we don't know yet is long. How will he pay for the new ballpark? Will it be a fixed dome or a retractable roof? Where the A's will play after their lease expires in 2024? What could happen if they face real opposition in Nevada? These are all big-time questions that you'd think you'd want answers to before casting a vote that would uproot a team. Instead, with the wave of relocation threats sweeping across the league, the A's are more likely to be used as a cautionary tale to other municipalities: Give us what we want or we're gone. It doesn't matter what the details are, as long as 29 other owners can get that threat in their bag of tricks for public money. 

The fact that none of those questions has been answered likely means that those questions don't matter to the other owners. If the fans want to change their minds, they need to do it not from an empathetic standpoint, but a financial one. Why would approving relocation be bad for Team X financially? 

That still leaves us with one big question for these appearances: Why now? What is Fisher trying to get ahead of or set the narrative on? Could it be that White Sox fans are planning their own "sell the team" chants on Thursday? Or that Dave Kaval basically said the A's need revenue sharing in order to survive, meanwhile they're trying to boast how much they'll spend once they move to Vegas? Is it that former Miami Marlins president David Samson has been exposing what he's really up to this entire time? 

It could be any of those topics, honestly. But something is up, and like always, they're going to their friendly media havens to get their layup questions that will make them look the best. If they were really proud of what they were doing they would have talked to local media before last week. Since they didn't, nobody is buying the spin they're trying to put out there. The narrative has already been set. 

Anyway, there they are. Three names of three important people in the organization just listed on a piece of paper. Out in the open. Fisher really showed how inexperienced he is at this whole "talking to the media" thing before he even said a word.