Look whose field is going to be trampled by 300-lb. linemen soon?
Pic from Wikipedia Commons/Eric Chan
AT&T Park, one of those baseball-only-first facilities. As part of renovations to Cal’s Memorial Stadium, Cal’s football team will temporarily play their six home games of the 2011 season at China Basin. The schedule is as follows so far:
- Oregon State, 9/24
- Washington State, 10/15
- Arizona, 10/29
- USC, 11/12
Two other dates are to be filled, probably two early September non-conference games. The Big Game is scheduled for Stanford in 2011. Interesting quote from head coach Jeff Tedford:
“I’m very, very happy about coming to a place that’s so familiar to us after playing here,” Tedford said. “Such a classy place. I think our kids are going to get jacked up about playing here. It felt like home.”
Tedford said the only negative about the bowl game was having both teams on the same side of the field. That won’t be the case in 2011, as teams will be on opposite sidelines.
I never understood having the teams on the same sideline in the first place. Good to see that this is being addressed.
As for playing football games on a pristine baseball field during the regular season: I hope the revenue is worth it.
newballpark.org 
I am surprised the JPA didn’t try to get them.
@Zonis. They did, according to the linked article. It’s interesting that the reasons giving for Cal playing at AT&T Park are similar reasons that Oakland supporters give for why the A’s should stay in Oakland. Mass transit, proximity to the East bay fans, etc.
I’m sure they did, as the article notes that Cal considered the Coliseum. Somehow Cal provided a BS excuse:
They could’ve wiped out all of the criteria except for the last one. Clearly, this is a buddy-buddy Cal alumni deal involving Larry Baer. It’s also possible that the Bears weren’t looking forward to sharing the field with another football team as well, and the JPA wasn’t down with up to double the number of stadium seating changes.
Not having this at the Coliseum doesn’t make a whole lot of sense: between the 18,000 more seats, the geographic proximity to Berkeley, the BART-access, and the better field setup, you’d think it would have been the obvious choice unless it just didn’t make financial sense. The scheduling wouldn’t have been that bad (worst case scenario would’ve been the Bears and Raiders play on whatever weekends that the A’s were out of town, and if you scheduled the A’s’ schedule to be front-heavy and the football schedules to be back-heavy, you have even more flexibility).
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The thing about having the benches on the same side, though, was that the seats on the east sideline (the temporary bleachers in RF) were elevated, while the seats on the west sideline (down the LF line) are not. So to compensate, both benches were put on the east side because the extra players don’t block the fans on that side, and having one bench on the other side would block plenty of fans (the same setup was used for Vikings games at Metropolitan Stadium and for Packers games when they played a few games a year at County Stadium in Milwaukee). Right now, they’re destroying rows 1-5 on the west side and seriously hindering rows 6-10. With the already-small capacity, I don’t understand this one.
Ha, I always knew Cal was as bougie as Stanford.
When the JPA envisioned this:
They probably saw the Coliseum project as being the premiere sporting/entertainment venue in the Bay Area. Accounting for initial construction, Mount Davis and the 1996 renovation, I wonder if the whole thing was worth it.
The Coliseum is a fascinating place. It’s got qualities of the 1960’s Cookie Cutters as well as Dodger Stadium. In a sense, it’s one of the last of its kind but also, there wasn’t another stadium like it. Busch, Fulton County, Three Rivers, Riverfront, were bred from the same DNA. The Coliseum seems to be the hybrid of Dodger & Shea Stadium. Consider the A’s, Raiders & Warriors relocate and now events like this passing up the Coliseum, the JPA may have to start securing funds to dismantle the old girl.
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Looks like the JPA couldn’t get it done again. What a shock. Frankly though I’m glad the bypassed the Coliseum for 2 reasons. One it saves the A’s just that much more football tearing their field up in the fall (now if only the Raiders would go back to LA). And second, for all it’s proximity, the Coliseum is dump compared to Pac Bell and the area around Pac Bell is much more akin to Berkeley for after game entertainment, food, etc… than the no man’s land around the Coliseum is right now. As for the Stick, just glad that wasn’t even a serious consideration. Candlestick’s only remaining redeeming quality is that they’ll likely implode it sometime in the near future, which frankly will be great to see in person.
Cal gets 60-70,000 people to its games. PacBell or whatever the place is called this evening seats 45,000 for football. OK…
“He catches a TD pass! He smashes into the left field wall!”
This could be seen as a good PR move by the Giants as well. Get all the Cal/East Bay (north of Oakland) fans to AT&T Park for football, and sell the hell out of the Giants at the same time. Not that I care much, but will the dirt infield remain for football Saturdays? Just curious. “The Coliseum is a dump compared to PacBell and the area around PacBell is much more akin to Berkley for after game entertainment , food, etc.” Not only did Dan NAIL IT but he gave the true reason for low attendance at A’s games.
guess the gints don’t have any post season plans since the games will fall within that timeframe–imagine having a playoff baseball game on a sunday after football on a saturday–oh that’s right–thats what we have in Oakland
Baseball just announced that the 3 games between the Blue Jays and Phillies, that will be moved from Toronto because of the G8 summit will now be played in Philadelphia instead of a neutral site. They did this 2 years ago when Hurricane Ike forced the Astros and Cubs series out of Houston, and MLB moved the games to Milwaukee instead of Arlington. 40K cub fans went to each game in Milwaukee. Houston fell out of the pennant race. MLB always chooses the money even if they have to screw someone in the process.
@jesse – You think this is a screwjob? MLB’s actually being proactive here. Can you imagine something like the 1999 WTO Seattle riots happening right outside SkyDome/Rogers Centre? And it’s not like there’s another place to move the games. Exhibition Stadium’s gone, and Montreal? Well, that can’t be a warm-and-fuzzy situation there given the history.
Why not Coca-Cola field in Buffalo? Accessible to Blue Jays fans, capacity of 18,000. Not as many as a big league park, but not far below what most MLB teams actually draw to a typical game. They could make up the shortfall by charging slightly more for tickets, and Buffalo fans would probably be thrilled to have a chance to see MLB (kind of the reverse of the Bills situation). Seems fairer to me.
It’s a shame they didn’t think to play the game in Montreal. I’d have flown up in a heartbeat to catch a game at the Big Owe.
@jesse “instead of Arlington”? Who would schedule baseball games at an open air stadium 250 miles away from where a Cat 4 hurricane was expected to hit? Milwaukee, Tampa, and even SF were vacant and considered as alternate venues.
If the Astros owner hadn’t been so damn stubborn about holding out in case the storm shifted (allowing maybe a Sunday DH at Minute Maid) they could have steered MLB toward a more neutral site.