Former Warrior sports ‘SELL’ shirt at Battle of the Bay

Juan Toscano-Anderson may no longer be a Golden State Warrior, but he’s still loyal to the Bay Area.

The former Warrior - and possibly future Warrior - attended the Battle of the Bay Sunday, where he watched the Oakland A’s come from behind to take down their cross-bay rivals, the San Francisco Giants. After an organized effort to get a shirt to the NBA champion and Oakland native in the stands, JTA posed for a photo proudly displaying the shirt.

Toscano-Anderson grew up in East Oakland, which is why he wore the highest number in Warriors history - No. 95 - as a tribute to his grandfather’s home, at 95th Avenue and A Street. That’s only two miles from the Oakland Coliseum. He still gets his hair cut at Phat Fades and eats at Mariscos La Costa, so he’s very loyal to Oakland.

This season, after the A’s announced their plan to relocate to Vegas, the annual Battle of the Bay became a “Unite The Bay” event. Fans of both teams joined in chants of “Sell The Team” and donned “SELL” shirts, urging Oakland’s owner to sell.

John Fisher, the failson heir to the Gap fortune, has done very little to invest in the team payroll, or facilities, or making sure the scoreboard spells his own team’s name correctly.

A group called Rooted In Oakland organized a “reverse boycott” of a game June 13th, where the green shirts debuted and organized chants protested Fisher and A’s team president/hatchet man, Dave Kaval. Since then, the chants have continued, even when the A’s played on the road. The Dodgers TV broadcast even acknowledged the “Summer of Sell.”

JTA wasn’t the only former Bay Area athlete to join the “Sell The Team” movement. Former San Francisco Giant postseason hero Sergio Romo also posed for a photo for the cause.

JTA is no stranger to protests, having organized demonstrations against police brutality in Oakland in 2020, protests attended by Warriors teammates Steph Curry and Klay Thompson. Those were more serious than a baseball team leaving town, but once again, Toscano-Anderson finds himself on the right side of history. The opposite one from Dave Kaval.