Former Oakland Athletics reliever Trevor May, in a video Monday announcing his retirement from professional baseball, told team owner John Fisher to “sell the team.” Here’s what you need to know:

• May, 34, played nine MLB seasons — six with the Minnesota Twins, two with the New York Mets and one with the A’s. He finished his career with an ERA of 4.24 to go with 36 wins, 28 losses and 33 saves.
• The A’s are expected to relocate to Las Vegas after the 2024 season. In May, the team released the first renderings of their proposed new ballpark, which includes a partially retractable roof and a seating capacity of 30,000.
• Las Vegas will be the franchise’s fourth city if the proposed relocation takes place. The A’s played in Philadelphia from 1901 to 1954 and Kansas City from 1955 to 1967 before moving to Oakland in 1968.
• On June 13, fans of the franchise organized a “reverse boycott.” More than 27,000 people packed the Coliseum, many of which had shirts that read “SELL.”

What May said

“Sell the team dude,” May said. “Sell it, man. Let someone who actually takes pride in the things they own, own something. There’s actually people who give a s— about the game. Let them do it.”

“Take mommy and daddy’s money somewhere else, dork. And also, if you’re going to be a greedy f—, own it. There’s nothing weaker than being afraid of cameras. That’s one thing I really struggled with this year, not just eviscerating that guy. Do what you’re going to do, bro. You’re whatever. You’re a billionaire. You guys have all this power. You shouldn’t have any because you didn’t earn any of it.”

How surprising are these comments?

Fans had already let the world know, loudly and often, how they felt about Fisher. Others outside the game, including writers, broadcasters and even politicians, have criticized him as well. But we never heard much from members of the 2023 A’s about how they looked at the man who slashed payroll and made plans to move the team to Las Vegas.

That changed Monday when May didn’t just announce his retirement but also said some of the most scathing things a player — active or not — has ever uttered about a team owner in a public forum.

Like former A’s Chris Bassitt and Marcus Semien earlier this year, when they bemoaned the A’s current situation, May didn’t mention Fisher by name. (“So I just think if you’re not in the game to try to win a World Series, then I don’t think you should be an owner. I really don’t,” Bassitt said.) But May bashed Fisher in a manner that delighted A’s fans and highlighted what kind of conversations might have been occurring in the A’s clubhouse while the team lost 112 games, an Oakland-era franchise record.

This doesn’t mean May has opened the floodgates. He has the newfound freedom that comes with embarking on a new life after calling it quits as a player, and most of the A’s roster is made up of young players and fringe major leaguers who can’t afford to rock the boat. But May, who said after the A’s reverse boycott game that he took some time to savor the moment on the Coliseum mound before notching a save against the Rays, provided a bit of catharsis with his diatribe against Fisher. The fans certainly appreciate what he said, and it might be safe to assume that many of his 2023 A’s teammates did as well. — Steve Berman, MLB editor

Required reading

(Photo: Matt Kartozian/USA Today)