Los Angeles Dodgers slugger Max Muncy sympathizes with Athletics fans amid the organization’s effort to relocate from Oakland to Las Vegas.
The Dodgers designated hitter/first baseman joined Scott Braun, AJ Pierzynski, Erik Kratz and Adam Jones on the latest episode of the “Foul Territory” podcast, where he asked about the A’s relocation effort after the organization’s public funding bill for a Las Vegas stadium was passed and signed by Nevada Gov. Joe Lombardo on Thursday.
“It’s a real tough one for me because I know when I was there I didn’t have the best time and everything, but the Oakland fans are very very diehard,” Muncy said. “They don’t get a ton of fans a lot, but when they do, it’s arguably one of the best atmospheres in all of baseball when they’re able to get 20-30,000 people in that stadium. It is an absolutely wild atmosphere , there’s really not anything else like it.”
Before Muncy established himself as a star and one of MLB’s best power hitters with the Dodgers, he played for the A’s in 2015 and 2016 before being released in the spring of 2017. The A’s selected Muncy in the fifth round of the 2012 MLB Draft and the slugger was considered by some to be one of Oakland’s top ten prospects before debuting with the club.
Muncy, understandably, does not hold a favorable view of the organization after he was released. However, watching from afar, it’s clear to him that the A’s have had no shortage of talent in the years since he last played for the organization.
“Just to see the team get taken away from those fans, it’s a tough one,” Muncy added. “It’s hard to really go into it without bashing the organization too bad and I don’t like doing that. You just look at all the players they’ve had over the last several years that they just let walk or not even pay. You could literally field an All-Star team with the amount of players they had if they just would have kept them.”
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Muncy, along with infielders Matt Olson, Matt Chapman, Marcus Semien, Sean Murphy and starting pitchers Sean Manaea and Frankie Montas are among the list of current star players who once were with the organization in recent years.
It’s fair to assume that Muncy, and a handful of the players previously mentioned, might be OK with the change of scenery.