Oakland A’s fans bleed green and gold and feel blue as their cherished team says goodbye | Opinion
Love was the prevailing sentiment at the final A’s game in Oakland on Thursday after 56 years of memories here.
In six short months, this broken franchise will open the 2025 baseball season at its new home, Sutter Health Park in West Sacramento. We have time enough to process that and prepare for it, but on Thursday, new beginnings and old recriminations were pushed aside for one last dance.
The celebrants, the mourners, the faithful, the resilient and the devastated chose to push aside the whys and wherefores for a final celebration of a community they created before it’s uprooted and relocated via eastbound lanes of Interstate 80.
What could be seen and experienced Thursday by being here, at the Oakland Coliseum filled with 46,889 fans? Everywhere you looked, strangers and family were embracing each other in a way that baseball executives and media pundits could never understand.
Tim and Cynthia Oliver drove here from their Vacaville home on Thursday and, once they had parked their car, the retired couple discovered that they had a flat tire. All they had to do was mention it to the people parked next to them and, soon, a stranger was removing their flat tire and replacing it with a spare.
The good Samaritan finished and returned to his own tailgate without even waiting to be thanked.
On the service elevator of the stadium, employees asked each other how long they had worked there and what they were going to do next. There were tears. There were many group photos. There was the absence of the COVID-era social distancing and the casual superficiality of workplace relationships. Everyone was unified behind the feelings of loss and the fellowship of shared experiences.
“This is my 40th season here,” said Roy Tesconi, a security guard positioned near the A’s dugout. “I was hoping for 50 but it didn’t happen.” There were many highlights he mentioned, such as the feats of former A’s legends like Jason Giambi and Mark McGwire.
“But what I’m going to miss the most are the people,” he said. “The friendships that you make through your whole life — the people I see every day for years and years.”
Baseball and the essence of community
I expected to be a casual observer of all of this, but when I stepped on the field before the game, I caught up with media colleagues I hadn’t seen in 20 years. My outstretched hand was not accepted. The people I knew wanted to hug me and I wanted to hug them. Some of us covered the A’s in the early 2000s when an exciting young team took baseball by storm.
Those of us blessed to be paid to do these jobs are older now, our past concerns mean nothing today. We were here, together again, one last time. Yeah, we hugged each other.
In its bone marrow, a baseball team is not about luxury seats or advanced metrics. It’s not about hot takes on X or ESPN. In the hearts of paying customers whose love has been monetized beyond reason by a rancid ecosystem of influencers and agents, a baseball team is about community.
At the Oakland Coliseum, that community has long been more diverse ethnically, racially and economically than most major league ballparks, if not all. This has been a blue-collar team by its location in East Oakland. As the A’s owners tried and failed to relocate the franchise to Silicon Valley or Oakland’s waterfront, A’s fans doubled down on the working-class identity they created and embraced.
These fans brought drums to the games. They created player chants that evoked the passionate frenzy of soccer fans in Europe and Latin America. They didn’t have the food choices or luxuries enjoyed right across the Bay, at Giants games that have been five-star restaurants compared to the diner/dive bar image that A’s fans embraced.
“You get to know people here,” said Mark Garcia, 58, who has been coming to A’s game from his Danville home for nearly 40 years.
“This is a super sad day but it’s also great to see all the people you know and celebrate with all the people we’ve known for years — all these people who have been on the journey that is coming to an end.”
‘It feels sad’
Each encounter in this sea of people in green and gold was poignant and powerful. They were sad but not broken. In the fifth inning, with the A’s leading the Texas Rangers 2-0, a capacity crowd began chanting “Sell the team!” When the A’s ran out to take their positions before Thursday’s final home game began, they were greeted with thunderous applause that evoked the glory years of this franchise in the 1970s and ’80s.
Why did they care so much? Why does a baseball team mean so much to a community?
For the Munoz family of San Jose, this has been where mom and dad and three sons, ages 24, 23 and 8, could celebrate their shared love of the A’s and their joy of being together.
All of five were decked out in A’s gear, Mexican sombreros and A’s ephemera. A toddler cart once used by the older boys in the family was painted green, the primary color of the A’s. Speakers and a sound system were added to the modified cart. An action figure of Eric Chavez, perhaps the most high-profile Mexican American player the A’s ever had, was affixed to the wheel of the cart that was pulled by Cruz Munoz, 8.
The cart played soulful music. It was a gesture of love to all, playing music to lighten the mood of people gathered for the same reason.
“It feels sad,” said Sal Munoz, Cruz’s dad. “But I want to enjoy today. I want to enjoy it with my sons, the last game. I want them to remember that Oakland fans are never gonna die We’re gonna be around for a long time, no matter where we go. Oakland fans forever.”
This story was originally published September 26, 2024 at 3:04 PM.
