What the B’s Mean to Me: Sam Wormald

Our Dispatcher from the UK talks about what makes him a B’s fan 5,000 miles and eight time zones away

by Sam Wormald

The English usually follow a US sports team because they’ve been to a game on vacation. I use the word ‘follow’ loosely - perhaps checking the scores or tables every few weeks.

For more dedicated fans, it can be more problematic. For example, in the NFL, supporting a West Coast team means home games are going to start at 21.25 (that’s 9:25 PM, for those who would rather re-use numbers twice in a day!) at the earliest, with others often deep into the early hours of the following morning.

Of course, this doesn’t deter everyone.

I am a lifelong Chicago Bears fan (despite only visiting Chicago for the first time last summer), and I want to write this article as a Miami Marlins MLB supporter. All my other US sporting allegiances are hardly logical: Miami Heat, Pittsburgh Penguins, and Michigan Wolverines (us Brits have no loyalty to specific cities!). But unfortunately, the lack of Marlins media coverage in the UK has made following them since my visit to Marlins Park in 2018 virtually impossible. My baseball loyalties are split evenly now with the much more popular and written about Chicago Cubs. That’s part of being a fan–you sometimes can only give as much as the team lets you give.

So if there is a lack of coverage for the Marlins, how on earth do I have, and maintain, an interest in the Oakland Ballers and the Pioneer League?

Firstly, the Bay Area has been on my sporting radar for some time. I first started properly watching US sports after visiting California in 2016. I can remember visiting the San Francisco Giants’ Oracle Park and being amazed by its bayside location. I also recall researching Oakland, a silhouette on the other side of the Oakland Bay Bridge, and looking online at its then-three sports franchises. A baseball merchandise collector, eight-year-old me took an instant liking to the Athletics’ Stomper mascot, and bought a minifigure at some point on our Golden State roadtrip. I may, at the time, have been far more interested in the Giants and San Francisco franchises, but the Athletics became a team I checked up on every now and then.

As the years passed, my knowledge and awareness of the Athletics began to fade. Then, almost out of nowhere in 2021, I saw renderings of the proposed ballpark at Howard Terminal… and the rumours of relocation to Vegas. Checking up on news surrounding the new ballpark or relocation became a weekly occurrence for me.

I was fascinated by the concept of a franchise relocation. The idea of moving a sports team to another city is totally incomprehensible for the average Brit, so I started to ask myself, does it happen in the US because fans don’t care as much?

The answer to my question was soon answered when I saw the work of the Last Dive Bar, Oakland 68s, and so many others to keep the A’s in Oakland. A group of fans coming together in the face of a billionaire owner—this is something I associated with English football, not baseball.

I saw the situation as an opportunity to link some of my sporting interests on my fledgling blog, The Opinionated Saint. By comparing the plight of the A’s fans to the football club, AFC Wimbledon, I could not only introduce English football supporters to a new sporting culture, but also begin to build an America-based readership. But to properly compare the two, I needed to find a baseball start-up team in Oakland, like AFC Wimbledon…

A random scroll on Instagram took me to the Ballers, and they were exactly what I was looking for. A new team by the fans, for the fans, with the aim of filling the baseball void which now existed in Oakland.

At the time, the team was very much in its infancy, and had only just been unveiled. There was a logo, but no jersey; a website, but no email. But it was a start, and a sign of life for baseball in Oakland. A few Instagram DMs later, I had secured an interview with Tim Koide, then the Vice President of Business Operations.

By the time the interview took place and I had published the article in October 2024, the Ballers had already completed their inaugural season. For my US coverage, the article was somewhat of a breakthrough for me. Since its publication, I have had the opportunity to interview NFL players, college sports coaches, and staff at NHL franchises, including the Bay Area’s very own San Jose Sharks.

For the next eighteen months, I followed the Ballers like the ‘casual’ US sports fans in England I described at the start of the article, checking scores and standings once or twice a fortnight.

Then, on another Instagram scroll, I saw an advertisement to write for Dispatches From Raimondi. It took a while with my exam revisions, but a couple of months later I reached out to Joe, and the rest, you could say, is history. From a journalistic standpoint, writing for Dispatches has already offered me incredible experience, and has granted me the opportunity to work with the Boston Red Sox and Kansas City Royals for my blog.

I must confess, I don’t know much about Oakland as a city. I’ve never stepped foot in it, but I hope to one day. I wouldn’t be able to rattle off the Ballers’ roster from top to bottom like I can about English football teams, nor tell you much about the statistical side of the game. But my affinity to the Ballers is growing each day. Being able to watch, even from afar, a fan owned and led baseball team start from the bottom and work its way into the heart of a hurting sporting community is something incredibly special. It’s even closer to my heart given a recent school project I did on German football. The vast majority of clubs there are fan-owned to keep supporter interests at the front of a club’s actions. It can work, it does work, and it's something I am hugely passionate about.

So as I write this article in the middle of an English downpour, dreaming of the day I visit Raimondi Park, I ask myself, ‘What do the B’s mean to me?’ Not only does the team offer the best example to my sometimes ignorant friends of the kind of dedicated fans that US sports do in fact offer, but on a more serious note, the Ballers have shown me that it’s possible to feel welcomed and a part of a fanbase and community on the opposite side of the globe. Following the B’s and their growth in the coming years will no doubt become a bigger part of life (and nights) at university!

Sam Wormald is passionate about all sports, specifically football (soccer!), baseball, NFL and cricket. He is a student living in the south of England and is about to finish high school before starting university in the autumn/fall. He runs a sports blog, 'The Opinionated Saint'. Find him on Instagram, or at opinionatedsaint.wordpress.com.

What the B’s Mean to Me: Chad McAchran