The Oakland Athletics deserved better

This column is about baseball. It is not a joyful one, though there was plenty of joy at the Oakland Athletics’ last game at the Coliseum, fueled by a raucous pregame tailgate party that started not long after dawn.

With a mix of anger, longing and resignation I walked across the catwalk from the BART train station, over the industrial yards and the trash-strewn stream, through the vendors hawking final game memorabilia, hot dogs, beer, marijuana and, yep that guy was selling hallucinogenic mushroom chocolate treats. Because what this game needed was more existential rumination.

Past the lengthy game-day ticket lines I walked toward the entrance at the Dennis Eckersley gate, popping into the tailgating crowd for a few minutes to listen to a band play joyous music, the singer belting out lyrics in Spanish.

Not wanting to miss the first pitch, I didn’t linger. In line a young boy, dressed in a dirty Little League uniform, stood on a bollard, looking into the distance.

Two strangers carried on a loud conversation about how long they’d been coming to games. A man said he had left his kids at home. Another replied that they sent their six-year-old to school but — pointing to a slightly older boy in front of him —brought the other. He said he wondered if there would be hell to pay in the future.

The lengthy wait to get in reminded me of how it used to be before playoff games. Contrary to the spin from the A’s ownership and Major League Baseball that many national media outlets regurgitated, we used to fill the Coliseum during the playoffs, or at least the sections that the owners deigned to open for us rabble.

But that was when even John Fisher made occasional, halfhearted attempts at being competitive, before he decided to emulate Rachel Phelps in the movie “Major League” and lose on purpose to help force a move to a different location.

I was not raised an A’s fan. Born and bred in New England as a third generation Boston Red Sox fan, I’m lucky. Though more than 3,000 miles away I still have one team left to root for. While some A’s fans will follow the team first to Sacramento and then Vegas, and others will drift to the San Francisco Giants or a different team, many will not.

The first time I visited what a friend affectionately refers to as San Quentin, after the infamous prison, I was rooting for the Red Sox.

After working an evening shift the night before at a restaurant in San Diego, I drove all day in my ancient Geo Prizm to watch a 2003 playoff game.

We sat in the back row in one of those sections in the lower deck where you couldn’t see fly balls because the floor of the upper deck was right above you.

After a few innings cheering loudly and — I’m sure — obnoxiously for the visiting team, a few young men decked in green and gold in front of us turned and shouted at me to sit down and shut up.

My friend — also in green and gold — told them it was OK. I was cool, just excited.

They smiled at him, then at me, stuck out their cups of beer and yelled “Cheers!”

I did the same. And went right on cheering, until the A’s beat the Red Sox on a walk-off bunt.

Scenes from the last Oakland Athletics home game on Sept. 26, 2024. The Major League Baseball team will eventually settle in Las Vegas after a multiyear stint in West Sacramento while a new stadium is built. (Photos by Chris Marshall/Courthouse News)

Another misconception about the Coliseum and Oakland in general is that it is violent, rough, mean.

Like any major city, Oakland has its challenges. More than most. And during one playoff game I did witness one A’s fan near me pummel another for kicking his seat.

But in the dozens of games I’ve been to since moving to the East Bay almost 20 years ago, including almost every playoff game, I’ve experienced A’s fans as passionate, kind and loyal.

I wish I could say the same for the ownership.

Fisher, team president Dave Kaval and the rest of his clique of sycophants jerked around the fans and city for years, with one fanciful stadium plan after another.

One dream scenario at Howard Terminal on the Oakland waterfront involved shuttling fans from faraway public transit stations over city streets on a funicular.

That plan was opposed by both environmental groups and the Port of Oakland. Getting those groups to agree on something might be one of Fisher’s finest accomplishments in Oakland.

I don’t think Fisher ever wanted to build here. He wanted to be able to convince the other out-of-touch billionaire owners that he tried, or at least made a show of trying, to get them to approve a move out of town.

Still in denial, some A’s fans will point out that Fisher hasn’t secured final financing for the Vegas stadium, let alone broken ground. Heck the Tropicana, the casino standing where the stadium is supposed to be built, still stands, though it’s scheduled for demolition later this month.

I’m past denial. The Oakland Athletics ceased to exist at the end of a loss to the Mariners in Seattle on Sunday, Sept. 29.

The Thursday before that they won their last game at the Coliseum, after which manager Mark Kotsay led the crowd in one last “Let’s Go, Oakland” chant.

Impressive though it was, it paled in comparison to the same chant that erupted after the A’s lost the American League Division series to the Detroit Tigers in 2012 when fears that the A’s would eventually leave town were growing.

Walking out of the stadium, that chant stopped me in my tracks and sent shivers down my spine. I joined in at the top of my lungs.

Never had it felt better to represent the East Bay. Never had it felt better to be an A’s fan.

The A’s deserved better than John Fisher.

The players deserved better, as did the staff, especially the staff, always friendly and often salty.

But most of all, the fans deserved better.

Let’s Go, Oakland.