The Raiders played their final and only preseason home game at the Coliseum last week. Thanks to the Winnipeg debacle last week and the Raiders’ London trip in October, the Coliseum field will have two months of unmolested bliss before the baseball season ends. Come November, the Raiders and their backloaded home schedule takes over, and when 2019 turns the page to 2020, Mark Davis won’t have to deal with those real pricks in Oakland anymore. anymore.

Over the last month, the Warriors packed their own moving trucks to leave Oakland Arena. Curious, I asked if anyone knew what happened to the Warriors team store at the club level entrance. I quickly got an answer.

That spot, mere feet from the A’s Executive Offices at the arena, seems like a good location for a year-round A’s team store. The sharing relationship for the regular stores at the C and D gates has long been uncomfortable, as the A’s usually had to clear out the stores to make way for the Raiders in the fall, while the Raiders had a more permanent storefront on the other side of 880. The Raiders would have to vacate the C/D gate team stores in the winter. This time it will be permanent.

The departure of the Dubs and Raiders gives the JPA and the A’s quite a bit of additional freedom to operate. The A’s could negotiate a multi-year lease to have a permanent team store location in the space vacated by the Dubs. Alternately, the A’s could install a pop-up store for use during the rest of the 2019 season. Either way would be a big improvement and would complement Championship Plaza, which has remarkably transformed into a feature attraction of its own.

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The other scuttlebutt I’ve heard about the Coliseum is that the bullpens will be moved from their current home in foul territory to spaces in fair territory beyond the outfield walls. The details of this aren’t clear yet. Maybe they’ll replace the stairs with the pens. Perhaps the BBQ Terrace sections past the foul poles will have pens carved out of them. Or maybe there’s space in left and right center. Wherever they end up, the fences in front of the pens are expected to be replaced with plexiglas or chain link.

2012 Game 162

We as A’s fans have been conditioned to love the bullpens despite their inherent disadvantages. They take up a lot of space that could be used for other purposes. The bus stop-style sheltered benches encourage banter between the staffs and fans, though sometimes that goes too far. If the pens are moved, I have a hunch that those areas will be turned into field clubs/party boxes like Tropicana Field.

Rays’ bullpen party area is a tribute to a different Game 162

If this were to happen, how would you like to see this executed? I’ll insert a poll question below shortly.

What should happen to the Coliseum’s bullpens?

— newballpark (@newballpark) August 27, 2019