Oakland wasn’t outbid.
It was shut out.
By a league that chose an owner over a city, a fanbase, and the truth.
Don’t call it relocation.
Call it coordination.
This right here is all Oakland fans ever asked for. It was never titles or even really a stadium.
They wanted to see their favorite players stay in Oakland. Ownership never never allowed this to happen.
Here’s what I wrote, one year ago today:
Today was the Coliseum funeral that I expected, but in true Oakland fashion it was also somehow…fun. 46,000 friends and family filled the tired, crumbling ballpark one more time. We laughed and cried and high-fived and fist-bumped, we cheered and booed, we screamed ‘sell the team’ and ‘let’s go Oakland’ and a few somewhat more profane and lyrical chants. We walked the entire concourse in the sixth inning and again after the game ended, when no one really wanted to leave, and then we did a full circle of the stadium parking lots before getting back on the BART train where, to no one’s surprise, the entire train car sang along to the Beastie Boys “Fight for your right to party” on somebody’s speaker. We said hello to friends old and new, over and over. Sure, there were a few idiots trying to create a little havoc who I’m sure will get some media time, but the vast majority of people, 99.9% of them, just enjoyed an afternoon at the ballpark. And of course, it was on a day when the ballpark that claims the most perfect weather in baseball had exactly that weather, one last time.
I hate that they’re leaving, and I hate how people hate on Oakland (the same way I’ve always hated how people hate on Detroit), and I hate that the management just doesn’t care about any of this, and I hate that they think they could somehow ever recreate this scene in Sacramento or Vegas or anywhere, for that matter. If this one stupid billionaire cared one-billionth as much as the fans in the ballpark today did, we wouldn’t be in this spot.
But still, today was a celebration, and it even ended with Kool and the Gang’s ‘Celebration’ after one last Oakland A’s win. I wish it could be different, but I’m so glad I was there. One last time.