In the early 2000s, the Oakland Athletics’ marketing department rolled out a promotional campaign that played on the team’s ubiquitous single-letter nickname. Billboards appeared throughout the Bay Area with images of the A’s squad, each one emblazoned with bold, white font stating “There’s No A in Give Up,” or “There’s No A in Ego”.
Over the course of several years, that basic format was toyed with in various creative ways. When I attended Jason Giambi’s first game back in Oakland donning Yankee pinstripes, I spotted several “There’s No A in Sellout” signs throughout the stands. A few years later, tee-shirts asserting that “There is an A in Streak” were unavoidable in the East Bay. But now, that once-fun ad campaign feels like a punch to the gut, as the Oakland fanbase reckons with the reality of a Coliseum with no A’s in it.
I can’t remember the first time I attended an A’s game at the Coliseum. I would imagine it’s a relatively common phenomena for lifelong sports fans whose experience of watching their favorite team’s home games pre-dates their ability to organize memories into chronological order. But going back to the mid-90s, I’d wager there are few places I’ve spent more time. One of my most cherished memories is of walking the warning track with my little league team when I was 10 years old, feeling like quite the big shot.
But while the past may be foggy, I’m confident that I’ll never forget my last A’s game at the Coliseum. The last A’s game at the Coliseum. To say that my experience attending last Thursday’s game was memorable for the game itself would be false. Instead, my trip to the beloved concrete behemoth was an exercise in revisiting the decades of memories I’ve built there throughout my life, finding them in every corner of the ballpark.
As it so often has over the years, the day started on BART. My husband Dave and I hopped on the train in El Cerrito around 9 am and watched from our seats as more and more A’s fans boarded at each stop. By the time it reached Fruitvale, the last stop before the Coliseum, the train car was jam-packed. Fans were sporting A’s jerseys from throughout the team’s history in Oakland; on our car, I spotted jerseys embroidered with the names of franchise heavys like Rickey Henderson and Vida Blue, scattered among less well-known names like Jason Kendall and Jack Cust. But just in case I was tempted to let myself get too caught up in nostalgia, the crowd was dotted with a significant number of the now-iconic Kelly green “SELL” t-shirts, which served as a sobering reminder of the game we were all heading to.
As the train clacked and clanged along the tracks in its final approach to the much-maligned stadium, a hush fell over its occupants. We all stared out at the horizon as the ballpark came into view. Some of us pulled out our phones, as though capturing this moment was somehow important. As though the stadium was being demolished, rather than abandoned, by our once-beloved franchise. I thought back to the excitement I used to feel whenever I’d reach this part of the BART trip. Jockeying for position near the train’s doors in hopes of beating the throng of fellow fans to the narrow stairwell on the station platform, racing toward the turnstile. I couldn’t feel that excitement anymore; my eyes begin to sting as I stepped off the train.
The stadium is connected to the BART station by a concrete walkway caged by a curving fence. Along the sides of this chain link tunnel, vendors have long set up folding tables covered with A’s (and/or Raiders) merch. Some of my earliest Coliseum memories feature the chorus of vendors barking out their prices. As I made my way toward the stadium, I thought back to a night game circa 2002, when a bevy of vendors were all hawking t-shirts and hats for a flat rate of $5, until I reached one enterprising vendor cutting through the cacophony with the low-low price of $4.98 (but also adding, at a lower decibel, that he offered no change). As I got closer to the ballpark’s entrance, I saw the ticket office, all but empty thanks to the game having long been sold out, and the fact that most folks have digital tickets on their phones. But the image of the ticket window flooded me with memories of fishing out my high school ID to prove I was under the age limit for discounted $4 bleacher tickets. The long lines of fans at every gate, all seemingly waiting with a strange combination of mourning and eagerness to enter the stadium, recalled showing up hours early for bobblehead giveaways. Dave and I walked the perimeter of the stadium before getting in line, and as we passed by the overflowing parking lot, we caught whiffs of charcoal and weed wafting over the various groups of early-morning tailgaters; I thought back to countless games when I’d been amongst them.
When we finally did get in line, the man in front of us was wearing a customized A’s jersey with the word CHAMPIONS embroidered where a player’s last name would normally be, the word arching over the number 89. I was struck by the finality of that 1989 Bay Bridge Series now officially earning the designation of the Oakland A’s last World Series title. Once inside the concrete confines, we walked a short distance in the lower concourse, weaving our way through a thick crowd of like-minded early arrivers. Eventually, we climbed to the upper concourse, where the crowds weren’t quite so dense, and I thought back to all the times I’d scaled these cement stairs, either on my way to nosebleed seats, or to scope out the stands for available seats that I could conceivably sneak into. I remembered going up and down the aisles after games ended, scouring the rows for souvenir cups that other fans had left behind and collecting them in big stacks to bring home with me.
As we passed by the concession stands, many still shuttered, I tried to calculate how many nachos I’ve consumed here. How many beers? How many hot dogs? I thought back to sitting in the stands as a kid, hoping the chocolate malts guy would come to my section. I could hear the sounds of heavy-footed vendors trudging up the stairs. One cold night, I remember hearing a man with a tray of steaming cups yelling “Hot chocolate!” while making his way through the section, then transitioning to “Warm chocolate!” as the wind picked up a bit, until he was down to just a couple of cups, yelling “Chocolate milk! Get your chocolate milk!” I thought about the pizza vendor who had such a uniquely melodic phrasing when he’d shout “PEP-peroni pizz-AAAAAAA! Hey, pizza here!”
Dave and I passed through the Connie Mack Club, and stopped by the suite we had reserved for the morning after our wedding six years ago, reminiscing about how fun it had been to get our Midwest-based softball team, most of whom had never been to Oakland, let alone the Coliseum, out to the game. We spent the remaining time before the game soaking in these memories and perusing the plaques and other tributes to A’s history scattered throughout the ballpark, before eventually settling into our second-level seats above the A’s on-deck circle. Footage from the 1972 World Series was playing on the big screen, followed by a sequence of commercials put out by the A’s over the years, all of which brought back memories of either doing my math homework with the A’s on in the background throughout my school years, or of my friends sending me clips of more recent ad campaigns when I wasn’t living in the region and couldn’t catch them during game broadcasts. I took in the sight of the teams warming up on…
