Oakland Athletics Roasted For Giving Incredibly Cheap Gift To Tigers Star Miguel Cabrera

Getty Image / Brandon Vallance

The Oakland Athletics have been a laughingstock for the entirety of the 2023 season. And, that continued on Thursday when the team was absolutely roasted for gifting retiring future Hall of Fame slugger Miguel Cabrera a cheap bottle of wine.

It’s the latest in a string of embarrassment for the once-proud franchise that has been turned into a joke by owner John Fisher.

The team has long refused to spend big money, which is somewhat a side effect of being in a smaller market and it simply not being sustainably long term. After all, they made a movie, ‘Moneyball’ about their effective penny-pinching under former general manager Billy Beane.

But, it’s gone to the extreme in recent years, with the team putting out a laughable product and trading away basically every marketable player they have. It wasn’t a coincidence that this happened at the same time that owner John Fisher was trying to hold the city of Oakland hostage on a stadium deal. Of course, the team is on the way to Las Vegas, where they could start playing as soon as next year.

On the field, it’s somehow been even worse. The team, who doesn’t have a single player that a casual baseball fan could name, is a shocking 46-107 so far this year. That’s one of the twenty-or-so worst records in the last 100 years. It’s even worse when you consider that a multitude of teams aren’t trying to win right now.

As the season winds down, the Athletics had a chance to honor retiring slugger Miguel Cabrera. This has become commonplace in sports in the last few years, especially during Yankees’ closer Mariano Rivera’s last season in 2013.

What did the Athletics get Miguel Cabrera? A bottle of wine. Ok, that sounds fine, right? Except, it was a pretty common bottle of wine that anyone could water for a mid-range price. Considering the club is worth ten figures, that’s embarrassing.

Yikes. Not great. Naturally, they lost to the Tigers, 7-3.