"When the A's did away with their traditional FanFest the past three years, some people grumbled that this was yet another indication that the team didn't really care about its fans.

Tarps, trades, no FanFest - all means to diminish interest in the A's in an effort to prove to Major League Baseball that Oakland doesn't support the club, or so the thinking went.

Now FanFest is back today at Oracle Arena, and the A's say they've taken fans' desires into consideration all along as they've experimented with other events.

"It seems crazy to have to say it, but we value the fans, and we want to do things that make sense for the fans," vice president of sales and marketing Jim Leahey said of the previous three years. "Lots of teams do these events at different times and in different ways. There's no one formula. Some teams don't do them at all.""