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Well done. You've sorted through the embarrassment of riches that is the modern podcast landscape and found me Rob Briden on my podcast.

In this series of Briden and I talk to among others, Harry Hill, Ben Elton, Charlotte Church, Steve Cougan and Dame Harriet Walter.

And that's just a few. We tend to chat for about 45 minutes to an hour never longer. It's terrific conversation, reminiscent, sweat appropriate and exchange of anecdotes.

So do join me Rob Briden wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes of Briden and are available early and ad-free on Amazon Music or by subscribing to Wondry Plus in Apple Podcasts or the Wondry app.

Today's Tampa Bay Rays game two of the four game series about to commence here at the Coliseum. Some energy as you can imagine at the ballpark on this Tuesday night.

On a recent Tuesday night, the worst team in baseball, the Oakland Ace hosted the best team in baseball, the Tampa Bay Rays.

And for perhaps the first time all season, the atmosphere inside Oakland Stadium was electric.

But it wasn't just the fact that the A's beat the Rays that had the fans cheering. It was the fact that this was a protest.

A last ditch effort to try and keep Oakland's last professional sports team from moving to Las Vegas.

We want to make a point that hey, if you are commits Oakland and committed to investing in your roster, we'll be here. And this is just the product of what can happen if you literally care about your city, your team and your fans.

Today Melissa Lockard from the Athletic explains why team after team has left Oakland, the last stand to keep the A's in town and whether it could actually work.

From Wondry, I'm Tiffany Oshinsky. It's Friday, June 30th, and this is the lead.

Melissa Lockard, welcome to the lead. Thank you so much for being here.

Thanks so much for having me. I appreciate it.

So Melissa, we're here today to talk about the Exodus of professional sports teams from Oakland and the fight to keep the A's in town.

So first, can you tell us a little bit about your history with the Bay Area and covering Bay Area sports?

Absolutely. Yeah, I am almost a lifelong resident of the Bay Area. I grew up in the East Bay, went away for school, lived on the East Coast for a little while and came back in 2004.

And I started a blog covering the A's back then that turned into almost 20 years now, I guess, covering the team. And then my time with the Athletic, I began it with the Athletic Bay Area.

And we were of course covering all the Bay Area teams. So I do cover the giants a little bit as well. I kind of live and breathe Bay Area sports a little bit my whole life.

And throughout this whole drama that's playing out in Oakland, it seems like the A's fans are really a central character in the whole thing. So what can you tell us about the Oakland sports fan base and specifically the A's fan base?

Yeah, I mean, I think there has always been a fair amount of overlap between A's warriors and Raiders fans, although of course the Raiders had a bit of a gap in the time that they were in Oakland when they were in Los Angeles as well. So in terms of A's fans, I mean, I think they've always just sort of had an us versus them mentality.

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