Just when we started to forget about the A’s — they’re 19.5 games out of first place entering Monday’s series opener with the Indians — they jump right to the front page of the newspaper with a story so bizarre it’s almost unbelievable. But the Chronicle’s Susan Slusser owns the A’s beat, so you know it’s true.
Here’s the full article, which you should definitely read. Slusser’s report, in which she cites anonymous sources within the A’s clubhouse, including players, details the altercation between Danny Valencia and Billy Butler, who missed the A’s weekend series against the White Sox with a vague injury. Slusser suggests it may be a concussion from the fight, as the A’s revealed Butler was suffering from nausea and vomiting.
The players told Slusser that Valencia’s supposed to use a certain brand of spikes as part of an endorsement agreement (most deals usually gets the player 10-20K in additional income) and an equipment representative was in the clubhouse asking about his use of a different brand. Valencia told the rep he always used the endorser’s spikes during games and only used the other ones before games. Butler allegedly tattled and told the rep that Valencia, his former teammate in Kansas City, was lying. This is when things get really interesting.
According to Slusser:
After the rep departed, the players said, Valencia confronted Butler and told him, “Don’t you ever loud-talk me in front of a rep. That was wrong,” and walked aggressively toward Butler. Butler turned around, took a couple steps toward Valencia, and according to both witnesses, said, “I can say whatever I want and your bitch ass isn’t going to do anything about it.” One player said that the men leaned in, bumped heads and then started pushing each other, then Valencia started swinging and hit Butler in the temple.
The fact that this happened isn’t cause for extreme concern; the fact that it got out, however, is. While Slusser is good at what she does, extracting the truth, if the A’s were a close-knit group, this would’ve stayed a private matter. Baseball has so many unwritten rules and old-timers that these types of things usually manage to stay under the wraps. If it’s a fight in the dugout like Jeff Kent vs. Barry Bonds or, more recently, Jonathan Papelbon vs. Bryce Harper, there’s nothing you can do. The cameras catch it and the cat’s out of the bag. But in the A’s case, this happened behind closed doors but is now out in the world, from the Twitter-verse to the national media’s talking heads.
Again, these guys were teammates before their Oakland days. And Slusser, who we must repeat is very tapped into everything in A’s-land, says Butler and Valencia are frequently found goofing around with each other. That sounds like a friendship, at least by baseball teammate standards so why would they suddenly snap and get violent? The snitching that could lean to a lighter wallet certainly has a lot to do with it, but perhaps the losing is taking its toll. Butler and Valencia were teammates on the Kansas City team that eventually lost to the Giants in the 2014 World Series. (Valencia was traded mid-season so didn’t take part in the Fall Classic.) They’ve spent the last two seasons with the A’s, who are 121-165 over that span. That’s going to eat at any professional athlete with any competitive pride, which is most.
The A’s are in dire straits as of late. ‘Moneyball’ is more Hollywood movie than MLB success story at this point. Why Billy Beane hasn’t left for greener pastures is anybody’s guess and all due respect to their die-hard fan base, but the greedy owners don’t deserve that type of loyalty. They’re lucky to have the sparse, but raucous, crowd they get at the Coliseum.
While the A’s struggle for attention in a Giants-dominated Bay Area bubble, here they are grabbing the headlines for all the wrong reasons. No, the A’s didn’t lock up a homegrown star or call-up a sure thing prospect. Instead, they have a fractured clubhouse and can’t even keep it in house.