A's Owner John Fisher Wants to Show Off His Art Collection at Baseball Games in Las Vegas
Have you ever been at a baseball game and said to yourself: "Man, I would love to be at an art museum?" Boy, is this story for you.
It's been awhile since we've heard anything from the A's friends at the Las Vegas Review-Journal, but they broke their silence recently in a post talking about how Oakland A's owner John Fisher "plans to display selections from his family’s acclaimed collection at the A’s stadium on the Strip."
Right off the bat this feels like a joke. An art exhibit at baseball games? Usually teams will have franchise memorabilia or a bobblehead collection or something along those lines. But a world-renowned art collection?
Initial thought: This sounds awful.
Second thought: Why is Las Vegas helping pay for the ballpark when Fisher has all of this valuable art?
Part of the collection, according to the LVRJ, is Andy Warhol's 1963 piece "Triple Elvis." Whether it will be displayed at the ballpark isn't mentioned. One place you can definitely see the "Triple Elvis" is on the internet.
The rest of the article just talks about how amazing the Fisher family's art collection is said to be.
This is the guy that is in charge of a baseball team. He's in charge of building a ballpark for said baseball team. He also thinks it's a great idea to take this art collection and place it in front of baseball fans that have been drinking all day. Maybe he'll have them stand really far away from the art to keep it safe, but at that point, why even display it?
Usually when people leave their seats at a baseball game it's to get refreshments and spend money. This will be actively making people not spend money when they go to a baseball game, which is pretty on par with Fisher's track record as a businessman.
This is just a ridiculous news story and it's really quite difficult to fathom that nobody talked to him and said that this was a bad idea. The only way this makes sense is if there was a large swath of the ballpark that they know they have to decorate somehow, and Fisher, being cost conscious, was just like "hey what about art? I have some laying around that we could use."
Fisher also wants to set up an art program in Las Vegas, which is admirable. Yet, given his track record and his inability to follow through on just about anything, we'll save judgement on the art program until we see what it entails.
An art exhibit featuring the team's history would be a pretty cool idea, honestly. Commission some artists to do their interpretations of some of the A's legends of the past and put them on display. They could tell a little bit about the history of the franchise in a city that doesn't know much about them. It's like having numbers retired, but with pictures!
The problem with this idea is that the A's haven't had many players stick around during John Fisher's tenure as the team's owner. The Fisher era of this exhibit would have to come with a transactions log attached to tell you which trade each player was involved in. I would love to wear a monocle and a top hat to enter that wing and go around saying, "quite a good trade indeed!" To which a friend would say, "Yes, but not as good as this trade!"
Art lovers from all over the world would flock to see this incredible display. They probably won't do the same for Fisher's idea.