Last fall, when the 2024 schedule was released in preliminary form, I immediately circled May 8 on my calendar. As you probably saw on Wednesday, on May 8 the baseball version of an eclipse took place: a natural doubleheader. Not a doubleheader that included a makeup game from a previous rainout, or the dreaded day-night or split doubleheader that requires two separate admissions. No, this was old school single ticket double-dip, the second game coming thirty minutes after the first game ends. For me, it offered a satisfying coda to my time as an Oakland A’s fan. My first A’s game was itself a doubleheader in 1988 in which the A’s dominated the Cleveland Indians. And while the 2024 A’s is not the dominant force the Bash Brothers-era A’s were, they are showing promise after a couple of severe rebuilding seasons.
I left my house in Glendale at 6 AM, bound for a 8 AM flight to SJC. I chose to fly into SJC instead of OAK because I wanted to capture the experience of taking my old route from the South Bay. If BART was running all the way to Santa Clara, that would’ve been the choice. Alas, the downtown San Jose extension is still in turmoil, so I went with the Capitol Corridor train out of the Santa Clara station instead. As usual that experience was quite smooth, including a few lovely moments on the platform with an elderly woman who was traveling to Sacramento. I got off at the Coliseum station and took a few pictures of the old haunt from the Amtrak BART ramp. I also noticed an A’s security person stationed at the top of the ramp as it met the BART bridge. That didn’t strike me as particularly notable, but as I found out later, was something to consider as the season progresses.
A half hour before first pitch, there was a good stream of fans headed to the game. I didn’t expect a very large crowd even with the doubleheader, but it was nice to see some turnout. The announced crowd was 8,320. It was clear that there were plenty of no-shows because of the muted reaction to some of the announced groups that supposedly purchased tickets. On the other hand, there was a 2-for-$20 promotion on the field level which brought a number of casual fans, and there was actually a line for walkups at the BART plaza ticket window.
I figured I had plenty of time to get concessions if I was hungry, so I went straight to my seat in 119, next to the Diamond Level section. I was perched above the A’s batting circle, with a great view directly down the first base line. That afforded me a “great” view of Mount Davis, which got me thinking about how the A’s announced a series of giveaways throughout the season, culminating with a replica model of the Coliseum on the final regular season home date ever in Oakland on September 26. Which version of the Coliseum will be given away? The 1966-1995 version with the ice plant in the outfield, or the 1996-present version with the hulking 10,000-seat eyesore? I decided that I wasn’t going to travel all the way to the Bay Area to get the crappiest version of the thing I loved so much. I wasn’t going to proudly place that thing on a mantel or shelf for posterity. While that game will allow for a sort of wake for the club’s time in Oakland, I’ve personally done enough grieving over the years.
To understand my stridence about this, you’ll have to consider my past as a young man covering his childhood love the A’s and the Raiders in the media when the Raiders first came back in 1995. I was working through college, hired by a freelance Bay Area photographer to provide rudimentary copy along with pictures he sold outside the normal wire services. I read enough of the great columnists and the young upstart reporters in the Bay Area papers to provide a reasonable facsimile, so I eagerly took the gig, a wide-eyed 19 year-old sitting in the back row of every press box, but with an assigned seat and a printed name plaque nonetheless (shout out to the greats Al LoCasale and Debbie Gallas, btw). Those first couple of years were a whirlwind, as the Coliseum was in a constant state of upheaval. Were you aware that there were two seating configurations for Raiders games depending on whether the A’s season was still on? During the baseball season, the football field was configured to run from home plate to center field to limit field damage by the temporary football seats. After October, the field was reconfigured to run from foul pole to foul pole in order for the bank of football seats to be installed in the baseball outfield. That was never the most ideal situation for either team, so I was curious what the renovated Coliseum would look like. A month ago, Travis Danner posted a page from the A’s magazine touting the improvements:
- Two large family and corporate picnic areas
- Additional rest rooms and specialty food service stands
- New BART walkway and entrance plazas
- New ticket box office and retail areas
- 20,000 square foot family entertainment center concourse
- Center field corporate club with outfield seating
- New outfield seats to replace benches
- New computerized matrix scoreboards
- Two new high resolution video screens
- Improved access to the upper deck
- Additional plush Luxury Suites and renovated Suites
- Diamond level seats in two areas adjacent to dugouts
- New club seating – premier seating in an outdoor setting
- 20,000 square foot private air-conditioned baseball club with dining areas and two-story bay windows overlooking the field
- Six new elevators to all levels
- New and enlarged press box and enlarged media elevator
- All new armchair seating throughout the entire stadium
- Television monitors under overhangs for instant replays
- Improved sound system
- Premium catering for the Clubs and Luxury Suites
- Enlarged clubhouse for A’s players
- Refurbished visitor locker room
- New media interview room for players
- Indoor batting tunnel and pitcher warm-up mounds
- Enlarged weight room
- Expanded field storage
- Club concourse connecting eastern addition with existing stadiums
In hindsight it’s easy to see how the A’s and A’s fans were so thoroughly screwed by these largely football-centric improvements. More seats, more suites, and more clubs in the wrong places, plus no mention of how the baseball experience would be compromised, it was soon to be disastrous for everyone involved from the pols to the teams to the put-upon fans. Back in 1995, that wasn’t so obvious. The retro ballpark craze had just started with only four such ballparks open by the start of the season (Camden Yards, Progressive Field, Coors Field, and New Comiskey if you want to count that). At that point, the retro craze was still a nascent one. It wasn’t until the millennium approached that the trend became a craze.
Back in 1995, I still believed in the utility of the multi-purpose stadium. SkyDome was conceived as a multi-purpose dome (MLB & CFL) and was huge and glitzy. Mostly I was mostly excited that the Coliseum would get an expanded press box. During that early period the auxiliary football press box was set up in one or both of the open Loge areas beyond the original luxury suites in the outfield. There was still overflow press seating for baseball, such as the repurposing of section 317 for visiting writers during the postseason. For the most part, the bigger press box was an enormous improvement – and it wasn’t yet overrun by critters. I saw the image in the A’s magazine and thought that they were fully enclosing the stadium like some of the cookie-cutters (Busch II, Riverfront, Three Rivers). Unfortunately, fans and press were bamboozled. Even when Opening Day 1996 came we didn’t see the full effect of what would become known as Mount Davis, as they hadn’t fully poured all of the concrete for the upper deck. Remember, the A’s had to spend the first week of the season at Cashman Field in Vegas. The video below captures the mix of joy and unease that came with seeing the monstrosity looming over everything else. (Among the other notable things from that video: it was Charlie Finley Day with Monte Moore handling the proceedings, and the otherwise infallible Roy Steele mispronouncing Jeff Reboulet’s name). As Mount Davis fully rose, all A’s fans got were some security guards doing the YMCA dance late in the season.
All of my coverage on this blog and elsewhere has been viewed through the lens of someone who witnessed first hand the short and long-term effects of Mount Davis. I’m aware of how ironic it is that I got my shot through covering the Raiders coming back and that someone else recognized something in me. I’m not now and never have been a Raiders fan, though I had no reason to hate them up to that point. Nearly thirty years later, the Raiders are obviously THE catalyst for killing pro sports in Oakland because the East Bay never properly recovered from the experience, even after the Warriors’ dynasty. I’m often viewed as an enemy of the East Bay, at least on social media. In fact, Steven Tavares wrote an article about it. Criticizing Oakland is not the main focus of this site. Instead it became a chronicle of the litany of missteps and strategic errors made in trying to get a ballpark for the A’s built, by both politicians and ownership. Some were in Oakland, others in San Jose or Fremont, more are destined to come in Las Vegas. In the end, I look at all of these moments as simple matters of timing and execution. Oakland got an AFL franchise because the AFL needed a second West Coast location, and Oakland pitched itself as a good landing spot. Similarly, the A’s came to town because Finley saw more opportunity in the Bay Area than he did in Kansas City. The Warriors were nearly doomed to barnstorming by Franklin Mieuli until the gleaming Oakland Coliseum Arena was built. When East Bay power brokers brought back the Raiders and didn’t tell A’s ownership, baseball noticed but they couldn’t do anything about it. The early 2000’s birthed a renewed effort to give the A’s a proper home. The timing was poor there because there was no support by then-mayor Jerry Brown. Subsequent mayors lacked either the gravitas or the drive to see a ballpark project through, or they were somehow convinced that they could accomplish the same thing at the Coliseum 40 years in even though prevailing trends were pushing teams away from each other. At the same time, post-Haas ownership groups were often focused anywhere but Oakland, to the point that Oakland’s only legitimate shot to retain the came only 6-7 years ago.
Think I’m blowing the Mount Davis effect out of proportion? Take a look at the dwindling number of Coliseum-themed collectibles that are available for sale on eBay or MLB Shop. Posters and photos often set their perspectives to minimize the visual effect of Mount Davis as much as possible. It remains an ugly reminder of how failure can last generations. It’s impossible to deny how East Bay stadium proponents were cowed from making big public investments asks as they squandered all of their political capital on both the Raiders (horrible deal) and the Warriors (a good deal that had a rough ending). That made any and all Oakland efforts focused on the A’s a race against time, a test of MLB’s patience. It’s not that the East Bay suddenly got religion about the folly of publicly-funded stadium projects. The problem was that they knew they couldn’t ask. It’s like trying to fight with one arm tied behind your back.
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After the A’s won the first game (including a surprise Mason Miller six-out, non-save exhibition of dominance), I made my rounds throughout as much of the Coliseum as I could. I traveled both the field and plaza concourses, went up to the View level, visited the Hall of Fame area, the bleachers, everything except the closed upper decks of Mount Davis. And that’s just fine. I used one of the trough urinals. I used a regular urinal behind left field, though I noticed that entire wall of urinals there hadn’t been flushed. Everything seemed darker and dingier than I remember in previous visits. On the bright side, I noticed that outside one of the concession stands there was a dispenser of various sealed cups of dips and sauces. I immediately thought that was a brilliant bit of convenience. Then I realized that if more fans were here those dispensers would be cleaned out by the second inning. It’s just human nature to take free stuff because it’s there. I have no idea what the vibe will be on September 26, the final game at the Coli. I can imagine that a lot of stuff that isn’t properly bolted down will quickly become souvenirs. That’s more than fair in a sense. Taxpayers paid for this, they might as well get something back. After all, the Coliseum’s not going to need all of those seats for an occasional Ballers or Roots/Soul game. The Coliseum is destined to go the way of RFK Stadium, which was finally cleared for demolition only last week. Then again, DC might bring the Commanders back from the wilderness in Landover/Raljon. Is a major team coming to Oakland anytime soon? Maybe, but first Oakland will have to spend some time in the wilderness. Brooklyn eventually got one, so it’s possible.
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P.S. – On the way back to the BART station I noticed a pile of trash strewn on the BART bridge. In 36 years of going to the Coliseum I’ve never seen that. That brings me back to the A’s security guy I saw at the Amtrak ramp. It used to be there were either A’s staff at the BART station entrance, sometimes with a golf cart to take mobility-impaired fans in either direction. I saw golf carts circling the Coliseum itself as one of the drivers nicely offered me a ride, but none on the bridge. The Coliseum is not the epicenter of the Bay Area’s apparent doom spiral. The way things are going, it can’t help but get caught up in the cycle.
P.P.S. – The origin of “Let’s Play Two.”
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Some other pictures:
newballpark.org 