When I want to explore my love for baseball, I usually call my good friend Carlos Jackson. No one in my circle of life loves baseball more than him. His father took him to the 1990 World Series when he was seven years old. Some days, when school ended at Encinal High, he would go to the Coliseum by himself and just watch the A game. If he wasn’t a man of faith, he’d be fighting you over Ken Griffey Jr.
So on the eve of the A’s final game in Oakland, I reportedly called Los. To hear his passion for baseball and the A’s. My best attempt to evoke some kind of emotional atmosphere that fits this historical moment. He told story after story. About catching batting practice for home runs in the stands. About his interview during the A’s game by local television, which happened to happen when baseball returned after 9/11, which happened on his 18th birthday. About being booed by a packed Coliseum after New York Yankees slugger Paul O’Neill dropped an easy pop-up at third base. On the significance of the A’s, being the only Bay Area jersey he could wear the plastered “Oakland” across the chest, being able to wear the plastered “Oakland” across the chest for most of his life – where people from the city would have preferred to have it posted.
I listened to him talk about this upcoming day and the meaning of what will be lost. The conversation led to a moment of reflection and digestion of his thoughts.
I still felt nothing.
This is not a perspective to represent A’s fans. That contingency is too great and diverse to be defined by one point of view. This statement is also not on behalf of the people of Oakland, although yours is.
GO DEEPER
With both cheers and angry chants, Oakland fans send off their beloved A’s in the final home game
This is only the revelation of one. The occasion of the A’s final game in Oakland is not a sad one. It’s not annoying, although I could feel like famous sports broadcaster Larry Beil when he left. It’s not even disappointing.
The search for sentiment on this occasion revealed instead a heart that resembles a typical Thursday afternoon match at the Coliseum. Empty.
It’s all dried out here.
It’s not for lack of trying. Went and bought the classic A’s hat. I tried to write my favorite A’s player in each position. But good memories of matches, of players and of moments are drowned out by the fatigue of this stadium saga. Memories of the Bash Brothers, mimicking Dave Stewart’s look while playing strikeout in the park, 20-game winning streak – as Ken Korach said in his last Coliseum callthose memories live forever. But nostalgia is no match for the numbness that comes from MLB’s abandonment as the A’s try to pull off a heist in a struggling city.
I’ve read the great pieces about better days. Listening to people share their memories. But the pain for ownership is just too loud. It’s hard to care when it’s so obviously not reciprocated.
That is not an insignificant evaporation. I used to walk from Sobrante Park to the Coliseum for the Safeway Saturday Barbecue. I waited until the first pitch to do my chores so I could listen to Bill King Call A games on the radio. I’ve broken a few boards frustrated by Dave Kingman’s strikeouts. I joined half the Oakland kids of my era who claimed Rickey Henderson was my cousin. I still believe that Road A’s gray jerseys with Oakland on the chest are the coldest baseball jerseys ever. I’ve had aunts and uncles and friends and neighbors working on A games at the Coliseum. From middle school field trips to high school fundraisers to boys’ nights out as adults, attending A’s games was an important part of the community.
Now? In the words of legendary Oakland philosopher on matters of the heart, Keyshia Cole, “I just want it to be over.” Remove them from our presence as the imitators they have proven themselves to be.
Manager Mark Kotsay addresses the crowd after Thursday’s win over the Rangers, the A’s final game in Oakland. They will play in Sacramento for the next three years. (Ezra Shaw/Getty Images)
Perhaps this absence of sentiment is the organic boredom of life in the industry, 25 years of watching the sausage being made. Maybe it’s the decades when the A’s threatened to leave, tried to leave, followed by a few non-serious pursuits of stadiums in Oakland – one of which was becoming owned by a community college district – with terms and qualifications that reflected their true feelings revealed about this. place. Perhaps it is an evolving institution, matured by a society increasingly bent to the whims and desires of billionaires.
All of the above is reasonable.
Either way, the Oakland Athletics are not worth the emotional investment that is warranted at this point. Not from me. John Fisher has been a treacherous manager of one of the greatest sports franchises. Everything about the A’s has crumbled under his leadership: winning, fandom, reputation.
Major League Baseball forfeited the right to pull these hearts one last time. They allowed all this to happen, preferring frugality and profit margins over culture and history.
That’s why this athletics farewell to Oakland lacks little emotion for me. What made them so special to this region has been wasted for a long time. They have discredited the city and its fan base for years, blaming their mediocrity on insufficient support from the fan base and local leaders. As if it is not their job to achieve such support.
They have refused to pay every player the love of the fans. They have chosen to rebuild every time they have been close to battle. They eroded the relationship for years, all to secure public funding.
The A’s are leaving now, but they’re gone. The recipes have been lost.
Sports franchises, in our billionaire’s paradise of a country, are no longer a public trust. Not as a norm. They are large companies with little room for municipal motivations. They buy franchises and inherit loyalty, passion and loyalty. Many have forgotten that fans’ hearts were not part of the purchase.
The A’s actively snuffed out the adoration of a proven fan base and then blamed the absences for forcing them out. They had a fervent fan base – diverse, affluent and nostalgic – and actively undermined it on an annual basis.
A’s fans express their thoughts on owner John Fisher during a 2023 game. Fisher is relocating the team after years of failed stadium efforts. (Michael Zagaris/Oakland Athletics/Getty Images)
I understand the hearts that are bleeding because of this. Cognitively registers it. A’s manager Mark Kotsay walking to midfield with his wife before the final match was a poignant illustration. Mason Miller threw 100 miles per hour on the last pitch in Coliseum history, securing the final out and putting on a final Kool & The Gang “Celebration” outro that was storybook.
But as Kotsay said, it affects everyone at different times. For me, and perhaps for others too, it happened a while ago. This is just an opportunity for the nation to remind us of our loss, to be portrayed as unworthy for not unconditionally supporting an unworthy steward in an industry bent on excluding the less fortunate.
If this latest homecoming has shown anything, like the reverse boycott and the grassroots campaign to justify the fan base, and even the energy generated by the Oakland Ballers, the love for baseball is alive and well here. The love for the community lives here. The love for history, for relevance, for championships is here.
Athletics had it, took it for granted and had a chance to get it again. But they’d rather take the free money, even if it means crashing on the Sacramento River Cats’ bench for three years. Billionaire owner A and his fellow billionaire owners have no interest in earning devotion. Just dollars. They are not about cultivating community. Just cash.
It seems my heart has become as cold as theirs.
GO DEEPER
From Tom Hanks to Dame Lillard, mourning the Oakland A’s: ‘It’s pretty heartbreaking’
(Top photo of the Oakland A’s mascot greeting fans during the team’s final game at the Coliseum: Ezra Shaw/Getty Images)