A’s say they fired ‘third party’ food vendor after viral tweet originally appeared on NBC Sports Bayarea
In the words of esteemed philosopher Dave Chappelle, “Where is Ja?!?”
That’s how many felt Tuesday when the Advocates for Minor Leaguers Twitter account tweeted two photos that looked like lunch from the infamous Fyre Festival, but instead were two post-game meals for Athletics minor league players.
A’s president Dave Kaval quickly responded on Twitter, calling the food “totally unacceptable.” Kaval apologized to the organization’s players, staff and coaches, and said the A’s terminated the third party vendor several weeks ago.
“Several weeks ago, we were made aware of the postgame meals being served to players in our Minor League system,” the A’s said in a statement, via ESPN’s Alden Gonzalez. “Those options were completely unacceptable and by no means meet our quality standards.
“We immediately ended our relationship with that third party vendor.”
However, that might not be the entire story.
Kaval and the A’s timeline of “several weeks ago” could be exaggerated. One source told SFGATE’s Alex Shultz that the photo of the sandwich on the left was from May 18, but the photo of the taco on the right was from May 28. The same source said the food came from two different A’s affiliates after two separate games.
In that case, this is not a one-off incident.
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This also isn’t the first time the A’s have been in hot water for how they have treated their minor league players. The A’s last year were the only team that stopped paying its minor leaguers during the league’s shutdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic. That of course was met with a lot of backlash.
A’s owner John Fisher decided to reverse course on June 5, 2020.
“I changed my mind after spending a lot of time talking to our team,” Fisher told the San Francisco Chronicle’s Susan Slusser. “I concluded I’d made a mistake.”
The A’s aren’t the first team to be scrutinized for mistreament of minor leaguers, and they won’t be the last.