Oakland: Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum
Fighting a war that's already been lost.
Back in Philadelphia, Romain gave me a “Baseball’s Last Dive Bar” wristband, in Phillies red and white, of course, despite the origin being a reference to the current, decrepit home of the Oakland Athletics. There was even some disputed lore toward the beginning of this season that the A’s front office was making roster decisions based on players wearing the wristbands, benching or demoting the ones they felt wore them in protest of the team’s divorce with the city of Oakland.
Last Dive Bar, the fan group/apparel company behind the wristbands, has been hypercritical of team owner John Fisher’s decision to move the franchise to Las Vegas — by way of Sacramento, after trying to extort public funding for a new stadium from Oakland — and is spearheading a boycott that has led the A’s to the bottom of MLB attendance this year, drawing fewer than 10,000 fans per game.1
Pre-pandemic, the team was drawing roughly double the number of fans to each contest than they have in this decade. For sure, the product on the field in the 2020s is much, much worse than in the 2010s due to Fisher’s unwillingness to pay the market rate for big league talent. A’s fans, though usually in the lower third of the league in attendance, are widely regarded as some of the most passionate in baseball, even when their team stinks.2
In late 2019, Erin and I made vacation plans to drive up the Pacific Coast Highway from Los Angeles to Seattle over a couple of weeks, enjoying many stops to admire the unique, gorgeous views of the ocean, shoreline, cliffs and mountains along the route. We highlighted the dates in our calendars — May 16-31, 2020 — and started digging into hotels, Airbnb properties, flights, rental cars and any other trip necessities that might require a deposit.
Of course, the world had other ideas about how we should spend May of 2020, namely, at home, occasionally having halting, stilted conversations with a group of friends on a newfangled thing called Zoom, while Erin perfected the art of sourdough bread baking and I lamented the utter lack of baseball. Once we learned enough about COVID to end lockdown recommendations, I would frequently hop in the car and go drive around to look at the scenery, knowing full well that the long, straight, flat stretches of I-70 through Ohio could not match the picturesque perfection of the Pacific Coast Highway.
Fast forward four years… Erin and I had the date Aug. 6 highlighted on our calendars. We couldn’t drive the entirety of the PCH as we had planned, but we were at least going to tackle part of it as we drove from Anaheim to our rental house in Berkeley. Unfortunately, there was some more bad news for our trip: rock slides had closed a section of the highway near Big Sur, meaning we would have to detour from the PCH in San Luis Obispo and take 101 the rest of the way to the Bay.
We spent a little too much time on the L.A. portion of the highway: in retrospect, we should’ve picked it up in Santa Monica instead of rolling slowly from red light to red light through the myriad communities from Long Beach to Venice.3 Once we got to the more scenic stretches of Highway 1, the normal and expected morning fog had lingered on into the afternoon, obscuring the views we had been longing for until we got near Santa Barbara for lunch.
Everybody wants to talk about rampant crime in California, mostly as a way to slander the big cities in an attempt to score cheap political points. As Erin and I tore through an order of fried calamari at Teddy’s by the Sea in Carpinteria, the sketchy dude who was sitting all by himself on the patio — one of only a handful of tables occupied at 2:30 in the afternoon — ordered a water refill from his server, then picked up his backpack and confidently dashed after dining. Our shared server wasn’t inclined to go running down the street in pursuit, so we left him a sizeable tip in case the petty thief’s bill would have to come out of the employee’s pocket. Even in the city that bills itself as “The World’s Safest Beach,” somebody’s going to find a way to get a free lunch.
The drive up 101 was mostly uneventful, save for a near constant check of the 100-plus degree outdoor temperature and the estimated range of our remaining gasoline, the latter eventually necessitating dealing with the former. I also want to give a shout out to the town of Gilroy, whose primary agricultural export filled the cabin air in the Mazda 3 with the pungent aroma of garlic.4
It was dark by the time we got to our Airbnb, a well-appointed in-law cottage, tucked away behind a house at the end of a cul-de-sac in the Berkeley Hills. We didn’t even realize that there was a little babbling brook that tumbled lazily through the trees outside our bedroom window until the next morning. Erin and I have a knack for finding really great places to stay on vacation, usually in homes we couldn’t possibly afford to own. It’s a great skill for a getaway, but always a reminder that this is highly unlikely to ever be our reality.
Scott and Mindy had their own little luxury spot up in Napa, but schlepped down to the East Bay to join us for the baseball game on Wednesday afternoon. After a quick side quest for coffee and pastry, Erin and I met up with them at the El Cerrito BART station to head down to the Coliseum.
I had a goal in mind for this game: do not give John Fisher any money, if at all possible. Tickets? Club seats bought secondhand on SeatGeek.5 Parking? Hell no: take the train and walk across the pedestrian bridge. Beers?6 Crush some cans from the cooler bag in the parking lot with the other tailgaters. Food? Carry in your own or wait to eat until after the game. Merchandise? Buy it from the unaffiliated, unofficial tabletop vendors on the way in. That’s where Scott and Mindy bought me one of the iconic green “SELL” shirts made popular during last year’s “reverse boycott” event, albeit a size too big since XLs were all sold out.
Inside the Coliseum about 20 minutes before first pitch, we headed up to the Shibe Park Tavern, a section on the club level celebrating the Philadelphia roots of the franchise. This might be the nicest looking section of the entire facility, incorporating actual bricks from the long since demolished Shibe Park, home of the club from 1909-1954.7 It was also the access point for our second row seats in section 216, just to the right of home plate, which we found a few minutes before first pitch. I draped my SELL shirt over the empty seatback to my left, ensuring that I wouldn’t accidentally see myself on the video board.
The lowly Chicago White Sox, sporting a record 60 games under .500, on a one-game win streak after having dropped an American League record-tying 21 in a row, with a roster decimated by their fire sale of any legitimate big league talent a week prior, jumped out to an early 2-0 lead. Sox left fielder Andrew Benintendi, usually not known for his power, mashed a high fastball off the top of the right field wall to open the scoring. Chicago starter Davis Martin, a barely-regarded pitching prospect, did an admirable job, limiting Oakland to just four baserunners in the first six innings.
I’m not the kind of casual baseball fan who can’t find the beauty in a pitchers’ duel steeped in the futility of two of the league’s most inept lineups, but Erin and I did take the lull in offense as an opportunity to take a final lap around what is generally thought of as MLB’s worst ballpark.
The Coliseum actually has the largest fan capacity in the majors at 56,782, almost 1,000 seats larger than Dodger Stadium 337 miles to the southeast. However, nearly 10,000 seats in the upper decks — including the center field nosebleeds known as Mt. Davis, named for the late Raiders owner who added that deck for football games — are tarped off and not available for sale except for playoff games and the occasional series with the across the bay rival Giants. Even with the artificially decreased capacity, four out of five seats have typically been empty at A’s games for the past four seasons, which makes for a depressing spectator experience.
Because there is generally only 20% attendance, it shouldn’t come as much of a surprise that close to 80% of the concessions stands are also shuttered, not just in the upper levels and outfield sections, but in the main concourse leading to the lower seating bowl as well. Walking through the Coliseum on game day feels a lot like strolling through a dead mall, overhead security doors pulled down over all the vacant vendor spaces, only a Sunglass Hut and Cheryl’s Cookies buffering the “anchor tenant” Sears. The Orange Julius closed last month.
It wasn’t always this way. Back in 2010, I was in Oakland for work and had the evening free to go to an A’s game. It must have been June or July, because the World Cup soccer tournament was happening in South Africa and the vuvuzela had entered the American consciousness. The Oakland fanbase has always been encouraged to bring musical instruments — horns, drums, what-have-you — to the games to get involved. After all, if you’re only going to have a third of your seats filled on an average night, why not make enough noise to fill the entire stadium?
A’s fans latched onto the vuvuzela with gusto, blaring their cheap, plastic, monotone horns non-stop from the first pitch to the last, the hot summer East Bay air literally abuzz with love of their home nine. A more puritan, priggish fanbase — let’s say St. Louis, just to start an argument — would reject these noisemakers as a distraction from the game, an uninvited annoyance disrupting the reverent atmosphere baseball deserves as the storied national pastime.
Fuck all that. Make a joyful noise.
I also remember one of the most clever taunts I’ve ever heard at a ballgame, courtesy of the zealous Oakland fans. As I sat in the left field grandstand, I started to hear two distinct high-pitched tones repeating: one quickly ascending in frequency, followed by another slowly descending. It was almost like a groan tube — you know, those old plastic toys with a noisemaker that slides from the top to the bottom when you turn it over? — except it was purely pitch modulation and not so much flanging.
The more I heard it, the better I was able to pinpoint the source: almost directly across the diamond from me in the right field stands. As I looked over in the direction of the sound, I saw a relief pitcher for the visiting team warming up in their bullpen.8 As the pitcher threw his warmup fastballs to the catcher, the A’s fans in the section next to the ‘pen made their upward-sweeping noise… BOOOWHEEP! The catcher’s return throw to the pitcher solicited the longer, downward BEEEEEOOOOOWOOOP! Up and down, over and over, again and again until the pitcher was ready to enter the game, the rhythmic chant implanted in his head, unable to be shaken loose.
BOOOWHEEP!
BEEEEEOOOOOWOOOP!
BOOOWHEEP!
BEEEEEOOOOOWOOOP!
BOOOWHEEP!
BEEEEEOOOOOWOOOP!
In the top of the seventh inning, Erin and I found ourselves in the concourse overlooking the White Sox bullpen while reliever Touki Toussaint was warming up. The small group of fans in that section were silent. I bounded down to the second or third row and started the chant.
BOOOWHEEP!
BEEEEEOOOOOWOOOP!
I think I belted it out twice before the inning abruptly ended and Toussaint jogged away from the bullpen toward the diamond to take over for starter Davis Martin. I don’t know if any other fans around me would’ve picked up on it and joined in had I started sooner or stuck around for the next Chicago pitchers to get loose, but I did my best to honor the creative fans who came before me.
In the bottom of the frame, after the seventh inning stretch, Toussaint allowed three Oakland baserunners, all of whom would come around to score as the home team took the lead for the first time on the day. After an eventless eighth inning, Oakland called on their all-star rookie closer, Mason Miller, to shut down the visiting Sox and send the 6,964 paid attendees home happy. Miller threw 13 pitches, nine of them fastballs in excess of 100 miles per hour, to retire the side in order and secure a 3-2 victory for the Athletics.9
The four of us retreated for the exits. I had set one foot in the Shibe Park Tavern at the top of the stairs when I realized I had left my SELL shirt behind on the seat adjacent to mine. When I returned just a few seconds later, it was gone. I honestly am not sure if it disappeared during my brief absence or during the longer walkabout that Erin and I took between the fourth and seventh innings. Either way, I got crimed in Oakland, just like Fox News said I would. I let my guard down, drank a little too much on an empty stomach and opened myself up to an easy crime of opportunity. Honestly, I hope whomever snagged my shirt is swimming in that 2XL and that it makes them just a little less aerodynamic, slowing them down just enough to get caught next time they decide to swipe some stuff that isn’t theirs.
On the pedestrian bridge back to the train, I hit up another street vendor who happened to have the right size SELL shirt for me. I plopped down my $20 with alacrity.
On the BART ride back north, we discussed our plans for the rest of the day as we stood holding onto the poles and hand loops near the train doors. Scott and Mindy were going to head back up to Napa, where we would meet them later in the week. Erin and I were going to meet up with our friend Libby, who wasn’t able to shake free from work to go to the A’s game with us but wanted to take us out for drinks and dinner.10
We got to the Lake Merritt station where Scott and Mindy were transferring to another line. Erin and I were going to disembark in search of some much needed food in Jack London Square. I wasn’t stumbling drunk, but I was a ways from sober and clear of mind. As the doors opened, Scott and Mindy exited first. I looked down where Mindy had been standing and saw a reusable grocery bag that I assumed she had left behind on the train. I casually picked it up, thinking I was doing a favor for a friend, when suddenly an angry shout rang out from behind me.
“WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING, STEALING MY BAG?!?”
I made the least graceful pirouette to turn toward the voice. A guy a few years older a few inches shorter and a little more scraggly than I am aired a legitimate grievance. I was standing there, holding what was obviously his bag — Mindy couldn’t have taken one this size into the ballpark — in the middle of committing a crime myself.
“I didn’t know it was yours!” I cried in reply, thrusting the bag toward him in an attempt to defuse and resolve the situation. He kept yelling at me, which I probably deserved but didn’t plan on sticking around for. I turned for the train doors where suddenly two transit cops had appeared. Assured of my innocence by way of ignorance, I slipped past them out onto the platform and beat a hasty retreat for the stairs up to street level. They did not pursue, not that I was trying to evade, and we popped out topside on the corner of 8th and Oak.
It’s easy to see how a misunderstanding can escalate to something violent, especially when armed police or public are involved. If the bag owner had a gun on his person, it’s entirely possible I’d have been perforated to death right then and there, just for drunkenly picking up something I thought my friend left behind. The cops could have done the same, arriving on the scene of what surely looked like a crime in progress. I’m lucky that I look like a dorky, fat, clean, middle-aged white dude. I’m sure I got a break that a dorky, fat, clean, middle-aged black dude might not have got, let alone somebody who “fits a description” or is regularly demonized by fearmongers in the media who perpetuate our shoot-first culture.
The adrenaline rush of inadvertently attempting petty theft took care of the booze buzz, but also brought on the need to walk it off. Erin and I made our way through Jack London Square in search of a Korean brewery that my friend Rob recommended to me. It didn’t take long to find, and once we did we walked through the front door only to be informed they were closed. Did we just trespass?
Walking north on Broadway toward downtown Oakland, we passed the encampment of unhoused people under the 880 freeway, some of them in the throes of a fentanyl fix. This is the crime that California claims to care about, but rather than addressing the root causes of homelessness, the governor’s current solution is to forcibly clear out the camps and criminalize poverty. Which is the bigger crime: falling through the cracks of society, or setting up systems to make those cracks wider, deeper, easier to get caught in and harder to climb out of?
NEXT GAMES:
Detroit Tigers at San Francisco Giants, Saturday, Aug. 10, 1:05 p.m. PDT, Oracle Park
Colorado Rockies at Arizona Diamondbacks, Monday, Aug. 12, 6:40 p.m. MST, Chase Field
To be fair, Oakland was dead last in MLB attendance in 2022 and 2023 as well, with figures around they same as they are in 2024 so far. Last Dive Bar’s boycott is loud, but maybe not as effective as they’d hope.
Feel free to consult a map; I know everybody can’t be Joe California like I am now after having been to L.A. once.
Not a bad thing. At all.
I assume the team makes some amount of money of the fees on these transfers, but considerably less than face value of tickets purchased directly from the box office.
Full transparency: Erin bought me a couple of beers inside the Coliseum, but no money from my trip savings or my personal checking changed hands. I can live with a technicality.
The Phillies also played at Shibe from 1938-1970, but unlike St. Louis’s Sportsman’s Park and the Polo Grounds in New York, the two Philadelphia tenants never played each other in a World Series on their shared home field.
The Oakland Coliseum is one of only two big league ballparks that still have their bullpens on the field in foul territory, as opposed to beyond the outfield walls.
That’s seven straight home team victories, evening the Bleachers and ‘Bleeds record at 12-12.
We met up with her at Drake’s Dealership, the Oakland outpost of San Leandro’s Drake’s Brewing Company. After that, we headed over to Champa Garden for some truly excellent Vietnamese and Lao food before making our way back to our house in the hills.
The only horns St. Louis fans are regularly blowing are their own.
I'm glad you had fun in Oakland, try to do fewer misdemeanors next time.