I snapped the picture below in the first inning. There was a decent walk-up crowd waiting in line for tickets at the booths and kiosks at the BART Plaza. I knew that the crowd would be less than 20,000, but I was hoping for a figure approaching 20k.
The final tally? 15,115.
Look, we can’t expect a bandwagon to appear when it doesn’t exist. We can hope that more A’s fans will come out of the woodwork. For various reasons legitimate and silly, they don’t come. Or do they?
15,115, as pathetic as that looks, is 20-30% better than Monday or Tuesday night crowds that came in April or May. You can’t say that it’s the weather because tonight much of the game was spent below 60 degrees. Regardless, it’s nothing to crow about. At least it doesn’t look like a crowd of 5,000 with just as many no-shows. The size of the walk-up crowd was encouraging. A bandwagon’s gotta start somewhere.
newballpark.org 
about what i had expected realistically in terms of probaby “best case”. agreed the crowd was bigger, not by much, than most weeknight games at the coliseum against non drawing teams. too bad the a’s team themselves didn’t give the crowd much to cheer about with their mistakes early in the game that cost them and lack of clutch hitting the last 1/3 of the game as they had their chances to score at least a couple more runs and possibly even more had they come up with hits when runners were on and make this more of a game than the final score indicated.
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reddick continues to impress and shockingly he’s hitting better at the pitcher friendly coliseum compared to on the road. in fact cespedes is also hitting much better at home than on the road.
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reddick-.270/.348/.552 at the coliseum and .268/.354/.506 on the road.
cespedes-.297/.439/.645 at coliseum and .278/.308/.461 on the road.
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maybe that will show free agents that you can indeed put up good #s at the coliseum, i think the big hurt showed that in 06 too, although the negative of it being a “toilet bowl” and still having to play most of the time in front of the smallest crowds in baseball will have a lasting image for other hitters around the league who the a’s may try to acquire thru fa or trade.
15,000 and change in a stadium seating about 35,000. Yet I still keep hearing calls to remove the tarps so there will be more (empty) seats available.
I think the A’s should pull the tarps for a season, just to prove how they’re not the problem. Would be a great “told you so” moment for people at have been saying they’re not the problem all along. And for Wolff.
A groundswell takes time to gain momentum… It will come. If this core group of players stays together for the next few seasons (and perform like I think they can) there is no reason to think that the attendance won’t creep back up over 2M annually.
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I couldn’t go last night, can’t go tonight and other commitments will keep me away from all but one game of the home stand… But Thursday night I will be there in my “Yoenis es mi Hombre” shirt and Sunday I will be flying to Miami in my “Dread the Locks” shirt… Go A’s!
Jeffery is spot on.
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We’ve got a team in the wild card hunt. A team that wasn’t supposed to compete this year. A team whose longest tenured players – therefore the most likely to be recognized by casual fans – happen to be our worst hitters (Zuke, Penny).
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We made a splash with Cespedes, Reddick has been a terrific find, and the two headed monster of Gomes-Smith have performed at the wish-list level. We have a dearth of young, unknown starting pitchers who just go out there and mow down whomever they’re facing and a bullpen that mirrors them.
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While it was nice to hope for a big bounce from being 3 games over .500, casual fans need to let the names and deeds of our new core permeate the conversation. This takes time and the biggest drawback to a serious boost, IMHO, are the little injuries that have hampered Cespedes this season. When he’s played he’s been outstanding, but he needs to be out there every day for fans get the idea that if they attend, they may just see something special.
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This is the big week test for the A’s, no doubt. If the A’s come out of this a winner (gosh i hope we do better than last night’s game) you’ll see a gradual uptick. The stories will write themselves: misfits and cast offs find way to beat the richest teams on the planet (a la 2001).
It would be really sad to see this team broken up. There is so much young talent out there that have barely scraped their potential.
Selig, you gotta do something soon. Do not let this team go into rebuilding mode again. This team can win now and in the near future.
It is in MLBs best interest to see a competitive team open up Cisco Field in San Jose. Not sell of its players while rotting in the Coliseum…..Wait, that’s the Giants best interests.
btw, people in a position to know have told me that the A’s considered tarps immediately after the Raider renovations (which the A’s strongly opposed) got final approval. At that time, apparently, the available materials weren’t good enough; the high winds at the summit of Mt. Davis would’ve torn covers to shreds. I can’t say exactly what change in technology finally made the tarps possible, but obviously it appeared. The problem is Mt. Davis, really, not the tarps. I fondly remember evenings at that stadium with late sun on the hills. Even the current Coliseum is better than the old Stick, however. A new park, whether in Oakland or in SJ, surely will draw bigger crowds than the current place. How much bigger? Who knows, but surely bigger.
Too bad there are no sponsors who want to brag about bleeding-edge space-age tarpaulin technology!
xoot is right… Mt. Davis is the problem and has been since 1996… It took a decent baseball stadium and turned it into half an okay football stadium.
The Coliseum is half a football stadium and half a baseball stadium. Combined, it’s deficient for both sports. Only $1.5 billion is needed to provide separate, state-of-the-art facilities.
Hold on a sec. Had there been no Mt. Davis the Coliseum would’ve an adequate ballpark, still ranked in the bottom third in the face of all of the new parks. Let’s not fool ourselves into thinking it was more than that.
Yes, it’s dropped from being maybe the 20th-best ballpark to duking it out with Tampa Bay for the title of worst ballpark in the majors.
I’m not trying to imply the Coliseum’s ok, in today’s mlb world. A new, as they say “intimate,” baseball-only stadium, somewhere, is necessary now. But MD really ruined most of the charm the old place did have. I think what I really wanted to convey is my view that jokes about the tarps are cheap shots.
Yeah there’s no debate the Mt. Davis just accelerated what was already a slow decline for the Coliseum given it’s advancing age, lack of care and competitors passing it by. But it wouldn’t be dead last on any lists had Mt. Davis not been built. In it’s old form, properly cared for, it would still be better than Tropicana Field and Rogers Centre at least rather than the worst stadium in baseball. But it still would have fallen from the upper half of stadiums to close to the bottom, Mt. Davis or not.
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The thing Mt. Davis has done however is give the stadium a very apparent and very easy to point to reason as to why it sucks.
20,000+ (sold) for Wednesday’s Business Person’s Special.
I wasn’t intending to imply that the Coli is great as is, or even sans Davis… Just agreeing that if you were going to weigh why “casual fans” stay away it is more Mt. Davis than tarps. And by a lot
The Coliseum is around the same age as Dodger, Angel, and Kauffman Stadiums, which are all perfectly fine and still in use. The honest truth is that if Mt. Davis weren’t built the Coliseum would still be a viable option for long term home of the A’s. The Coliseum already had nice views before nice views got popular in stadiums, and being literally sandwiched between 880 and BART has always been its primary advantage. All the Coliseum really needed were serious upgrades and to be more baseball friendly.
From TKs blOg:
And people wonder why we can’t attract top tier FAs!
…yes, I laugh at these folks who theorize that all Wolff needs to do is bring in some top free agents and the A’s will draw just great. Ignoring the realities that a: free agents don’t want to play here even if given competitive offers, and b: the A’s in 2006 had one of the top 4 teams in baseball and finished 26th out of 30 teams in attendance.
Only 23,382 last night for the first game of the Yankees series. Not terrible, but frankly it seems low given the opponent.
So much for folks who say the A’s are suppressing attendance by keeping the tarps on even for the big-draw teams like the Yankee$. 12,000 empty seats last night. Take the tarps off and make that 22,000 empty seats.
More like 35,000 empties, since the seats on top of Mt. Davis are really part of the stadium whether the A’s have ever acknowledge that or not (and they have on occasion as I’ve “seen” two games from up there).
I don’t think anyone’s complaining about the Mount Davis tarps.
Dodger, Angel, and Kauffman were all built as baseball only stadiums (Angel was renovated to a multi-purpose and then back) as opposed to the Coliseum which was built as a multi-purpose venue from the beginning.
True. But of all the true multipurpose venues built from the 1959’s RFK stadium through the last one at the 1982 Metrodome, the Coliseum was arguably the most baseball friendly. And more important it was the only one that really felt somewhat like a “ballpark”.
The original configuration pre-Mt. Davis was 48, 219. It has been years since Mt. Davis was involved in baseball configs. Either way, you look at 23K plus on a Thursday night in July during a pretty slow sport’s day in the Bay is pathetic, to put it mildly. Especially considering I grew up in 3rd deck when seats were $5 per game. But pjk is absolutely right. No need for any of the tarps to be removed for any reason short of an ALCS.
I would say Shea Stadium was better than the old Coliseum. San Diego was probably better pre-1980’s renovations as well (when it was San Diego Stadium before Jack Murphy and way before Qualcomm).
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I would rate the true multipurposes in this order (including Skydome as a true multipurpose as I don’t see why it wouldn’t be):
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Shea Stadium
San Diego Stadium
Oakland Coliseum
RFK Stadium
Jack Murphy Stadium
Busch Stadium
Atlanta Fulton-County Stadium
Qualcomm Stadium
Skydome
Astrodome
Riverfront Stadium
Three Rivers Stadium
Net/McAfee/O.co Coliseum
Metrodome
Veterans Stadium
Kingdome
Olympic Stadium
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Did I miss any?
I’d actually put the old Oakland Coliseum as the best of the multi-purposes. I thought it was clearly better than Jack Murphy and about even with Shea.
See I’d rate them differently. Never liked Shea’s ridiculously high/steep stands, enclosed concourse and heavily partitioned seating area (not to mention the planes constantly flying over). I’d also give the old Coliseum for the nod over San Diego Stadium just because it had a full set of real bleachers that SD Stadium didn’t have until the Jack Murphy Stadium upgrades in the 80’s.
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As for RFK, maybe it’s because I went late in it’s life, but that place is an absolute toilet and would be near the bottom of any of my lists. It actually makes the Coliseum look good even in the Coliseum’s current compromised state. I mean come on RFK has wooden seats, lacks true luxury suites which even the old Coliseum had (not to mention the walkways to it’s “luxury suites” are those scary ass acrobatic bridges), and most of your view from what should be choice behind the plate seats is of nothing but the back of the press boxes. Not to mention most of the RFK concourse on the first level is enclosed unlike the old Coliseum before the Raiders had those damned fences put up. And the run down neighborhood is the cake topper.
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I’d probably rate the multipurpose stadiums as follows:
Oakland Coliseum (pre-95)
Jack Murphy Stadium
Busch Stadium (post 90’s renovations)
San Diego Stadium
Shea Stadium
Skydome
(Anaheim Stadium)
Cinergy Field (during it’s last years with the outfield opened up)
Qualcomm Stadium
Network Associates/McAfee/O.co Coliseum
Atlanta-Fulton County
(Candlestick Park)
RFK Stadium
Busch Stadium (pre 90’s renos)
Astrodome
Kingdome
Metrodome
Veterans Stadium
Three Rivers Stadium
Riverfront Stadium
Olympic Stadium
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I just can’t forgive pure outdoor stadiums that have fake grass. At least domes had an excuse. Also in theory Cleveland Stadium could be considered the first multipurpose however it had more in common with Milwaukee Co. Stadium than the 60’s-80’s donuts. And while Dolphin Stadium has a lot in common with the Metrodome it was built as a football stadium first and foremost and wasn’t supposed to be a long term home for the Marlins despite what actually happened. And of course Candlestick and Anaheim Stadium while multipurpose for a chunk of their respective lives were built as baseball stadiums first and foremost but as they were multipurpose for quite a while (particularly Candlestick) I’ve slotted them in where they’d fit.
Yeah, I was thinking Cleveland and Baltimore could have been on there as well. I guess I should have noted that I put the Astrodome where it was based on its ’65-’88-or-so configuration before the upper deck went all the way around. After that, I’d put it near the bottom. I was also counting Busch before the ’90’s renovations (as it wasn’t multipurpose after that given the lack of a football team).
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I guess I like RFK because the stands are actually shaped like a baseball field, instead of being circular or square/rectangular like the rest of the stadia on this list. And don’t people love Fenway and Wrigley because of the wooden seats?
In Wrigley and Fenway it’s fitting given the early 20th century surroundings. They’re charming or quaint if uncomfortable for the average American ass these days. In a giant 60’s donut clone stadium they just seem lazy, old and out of place and just add to the stadium’s overall neglected feel. They’re not like the seats in Wrigley, or particularly Fenway that have been updated, repaired, and cared for. At RFK they’re only there because DC is too broke and too disinterested in doing anything to replace them since they’ve fully expected to demolish RFK stadium for the last 20 years and have just not got around to doing it (again because they don’t have the money to do it).
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And yeah I forgot Baltimore on that list as well. Given it’s similarities in design with Cleveland I’d probably list it along with Cleveland in that strange 30’s-50’s transition period between the turn of the century parks like Shibe and Fenway, and the multipurpose/donut clone stadiums of the 60’s-80’s. Though strictly speaking both were designed to be multipurpose, just with more emphasis on baseball than the stadiums that came later. Which again makes sense when you consider football’s growing popularity. Cleveland (1932) and Baltimore (1949) were more heavily favoring baseball, RFK (1961) still favored baseball slightly but was much more neutral, the donuts starting with the Astrodome in it’s original configuration (1965) and Coliseum (1966) were even more neutral, then the Atlanta/Cinergy/Three Rivers/Veterans quadruplets were nothing but neutral, and by the time the last multipurpose stadium was built with the Metrodome (1982) the emphasis had swung almost completely to football.
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Also we forgot Arlington Stadium on both our lists. The overheated poor man’s minor league based version of the Coliseum. I’d probably slot it in just below RFK on my list.
Hey 28,142 tonight. Almost a great number, until you remember they were playing the Yankees and those games used to be sure things to sell out or near sell out on weekends.
Team is winning, Yankees are in town, it’s a weekend game, tickets are cheap and…17,000 short of a sellout. I’m sure some people will still find a way to blame Wolff…
excuse me – 7,000 short of a sellout
So that’s at least 7,000 people discouraged by tarps? Tragic.
…Never mind that A’s-Yankees games are anything but a true reflection of how much support the A’s have since half the crowd is rooting for the Yankees. At the last Yankees series, I had some Yankees fans getting upset with me for making fun of Alex Rodriguez. We’re not supposed to make fun of the other team’s players? OK.