OAKLAND – When the divorce between the A’s and Oakland was finalized Thursday afternoon, a crowd of 46,889 at the Coliseum summoned two chants, one conveying love and support, followed immediately by another expressing unbridled disaffection.
As the noise faded, the Coliseum speakers filled the vacuum with the melancholy torch song introduced in 1973 by Oakland’s own Tower of Power.
“So Very Hard to Go.”
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How appropriate, for the relationship between Oakland and the A’s spanned 56 years. They’ve remained a duo through countless highs and lows, with epic celebrations and confrontations, but never relinquishing their bond.
Until now.
After 57 seasons, four of them drenched with champagne glory, the city whose high schools sent to Major League Baseball such Hall of Fame gifts as Ernie Lombardi, Frank Robinson, Joe Morgan and Rickey Henderson is being excised from the major American sports landscape.
The town that gave rise to such MLB All-Stars as Jackie Jensen, Curt Flood, Dave Stewart, Lloyd Moseby, Bip Roberts, Jimmy Rollins, Dontrelle Willis and Tyson Ross is, like a grease stain on a stovetop, being scrubbed out of the big leagues.
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And the Coliseum, a childhood sanctuary for many future big leaguers, including Randy Johnson, Gary Pettis, Al Woods, Tom Candiotti, Shooty Babitt, Mike Young, Brian Johnson and Gold Glove outfielder Darren Lewis, is destined to be one of the loneliest places in the Bay Area.
For the first time since 1959, Oakland is without representation in MLB, the NBA or the AFL/NFL.
The communal loss became real at 3:06 p.m. with the recording of the last out of a 3-2 victory over the Texas Rangers.
Fans relished in their final opportunity to indulge in what has become a dual pastime, cheering wildly for their favorite baseball team – “Let’s go, Oakland!" – when not seizing opportunities to summon “Sell the team!” chants directed at ownership. Those chants were revived after A’s manager Mark Kotsay walked onto the field, grabbed a microphone and addressed the crowd immediately afterward.
“There are no better fans than you guys,” Kotsay said. “Thank you all for loving the game of baseball. Thank you for your lifelong support of the Oakland A’s.”
The A’s arrived in 1968 and over time became etched in the fabric of Bay Area lives. Of mine, as an Oakland native who grew up chasing baseballs that cleared fences during batting practice. Of many others who for so long bled green and gold.
We will have to settle for platinum memories of which there is no shortage.
As one generation treasures Catfish Hunter’s perfect game, another will cherish Dallas Braden’s perfect game, whereupon its conclusion he lifted his grandmother off her feet right in front of the dugout. We won’t forget Rickey Henderson’s record-breaking steal, after which he yanked the swiped bag from the dirt, held it aloft and rightfully pronounced himself “the greatest of all time.”
If one generation of A's fans will forever rue Jeremy Giambi’s failure to slide and Derek Jeter’s unforgettable relay throw to nab him at the plate, the previous generation will relive the night the Minnesota Twins, one win away from clinching the AL West, had the champagne on ice in the clubhouse – only to be chilled by 21-year-old left-hander Vida Blue throwing a no-hitter in his eighth career start.
How can any generation, any baseball fan or moviegoer, forget Scott Hatteberg’s walkoff bomb to clinch Oakland’s 20th consecutive victory, sparking euphoria among the Coliseum crowd of 55,528?
Standing in his office nearly an hour after the final out, Kotsay was telling NBC Sports Bay Area that fans in Oakland were amazing during his playing career not only during his four seasons with the A’s but also when he was a member of a visiting team.
“Even after I was traded,” he said, “coming back here I felt it and loved the joy and the energy that they give, whether it’s 3,500 or 35,000.”
Which sheds a brighter light on his postgame message to the fans.
“Look, it’s been a trying few years,” Kotsay said. “But the one thing that has been constant is the passion of the fans. Getting a chance to speak to them from the heart was something I felt really strongly about. I’d been asked all week if I was going to do it, and I didn’t want to let it out that I was going to do it. These fans have gone through a lot. And they still showed up today.”
The A’s cracked the 2 million attendance threshold long before the San Francisco Giants and, moreover, first exceeding that total in 1988 and doing so for six consecutive seasons. They finished among the top four American League franchises during four of those seasons. They topped 2 million five more times entering the millennium.
Only twice since John Fisher became majority owner in 2005 have the A’s topped 2 million. It was during this time that the schisms began to form, and it has become progressively worse in recent seasons.
The franchise’s farewell to Oakland has been a resolute journey of nearly 20 years. Ownership’s desire to leave the Coliseum has led it to tour multiple Bay Area sites, most notably San Jose and Fremont, before Fisher decided on Las Vegas as the team’s next home – but only after a planned detour in a minor-league ballpark in Sacramento, beginning next season.
With the season-long knowledge this would be the last in Oakland, much of the initial indignation has given way to plaintive resignation. The vibe in and around the Coliseum was more festival than fury. Faces that twisted in anger on opening day now wore the weary ache of painful reality.
Maybe historical pride can nourish them, for only that remains plentiful. The A’s were the second team to migrate to the Bay Area, after the Giants, but they won four World Series before San Francisco earned its first.
And now they are on the way out.
Good luck to the Oakland Roots and anyone else willing to call the Coliseum home. Their games have become local gathering experiences, and they will be coming to the big gray bowl next season. May they thrive.
But this place was built in the 1960s specifically to house a pro football team and lure an MLB team. It no longer has either. It’s a lot to ask of memories to dull the void.
