The beauty, pain and ugliness of the Oakland A’s final game at the Coliseum
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I’ve never been on death row and don’t plan on it anytime soon, but I feel like I got a preview on Thursday.
I woke up with the feeling like I was marching towards certain death, with a scheduled execution around 3 p.m.
It sounds a bit dramatic, but what is life anyways? In the end, it comes down to how you spend your time and who you spend it with.
For as long as I’ve been alive, I’ve spent countless hours at the Oakland Coliseum forging friendships with hundreds, if not thousands, of people that I wouldn’t know otherwise. Old, young, men, women, rich, poor, famous, unseen, black, white, brown and everything in between – all united by our love for the Oakland A’s.
Now it’s all gone. For all of us. A part of us all died on Thursday.
As my BART train pulled up to the Coliseum for my final pregame A’s pilgrimage, the operator PA cracked.
“If you’re going to the last A’s game today, enjoy yourself,” the conductor said. “And Eff John Fisher.”
Where do you think Fisher was for the funeral he orchestrated? Think he snuck into the stadium in disguise and watched from a suite as the Oakland A’s took their last breath? Or was he at home in a mansion watching TV, eating a lunch prepared by hired help?
Meanwhile, the fans were tailgating in the parking lot for one last hurrah, our toast to a dying friend. A toast to a part of our lives that was dying, in fact.
Fans packed the parking lots and forced gates to open an hour early, at 7 a.m., since traffic got backed up on 880. Of course, the final Oakland 68s A’s tailgate was as classic as ever. Mike the Hot Dog Mayor slanged some doggies while Ice Cold Kennybo sold beer from the trunk of his car. Joints were passed, blunts were hit, beers were cheersed, bottles were passed, green-and-gold jello shots were shared. The all-to-familiar smells of barbecued meat, grilled onions, dank and the regional rappings of Too $hort and Tupac assaulted your senses on the dreadful trips the porta-potties.
The flags. All the flags. Last Dive Bar. Oakland 68s. SELL. Oakland A’s. Oakland B’s. Raiders. Warriors.
All waving one more time as our pirate ship sank. Like we’re a band of pirates drinking rum and flipping off Poseidon while we get thrashed by the waves of time and neglect.
It’s hard to describe the feeling of the A’s fandom community unless you’re in the boat. My dad comes from a big family with eight brothers and sisters, and I’ve got a lot of cousins that get together once every couple of years for big occasions. That warmth and love and collective welcoming spirit I get from those cousins is the same feeling I get when there’s a big A’s tailgate or event.
This week I saw a lot of old faces that I hadn’t seen in maybe a decade, when I got to know the RF bleacher crew while roaming around the stadium as a reporter and content creator. Since the pandemic, the tailgates have become fewer and farther between. People checked out, but they had to come back to pay their respects on Thursday.
At one point I saw my friend standing by himself taking in the scene, the Coliseum looming behind him.
“This is great, but it sucks, man,” I told him, looking at all the smiling faces in their kelly green gear.
“Dude, I have to keep reminding myself that this isn’t just like a normal Sunday tailgate,” he said. “It’s all over after this.”
I stopped to chat with another drummer, whose loyalty had been burnt so bad that he didn’t go to any A’s games this season until the final homestand. We still see each other at Roots and Ballers games, but it’s not the same. The cell phone rattled in his hand as we took a selfie together.
“Sorry, dude, I have the shakes right now,” he said.
We hugged and clinked our Ice Cold Kennybo koozies. A little while later, we started making our way to the gallow’s pole.
“Well, here we go,” I told him as we hugged once more.
“Here we go,” he said.
Another fan carried a SELL flag over her shoulder and looked proud as it waved in the wind for the jaunt to our demise. A “Fuck John Fisher!” chant broke out at the metal detectors and a middle-aged security guard started clapping along with the beat as we made our way in.
“I’m right there with you,” she said.
It started hitting like a massive wave once we walked in. Seeing the Coliseum concourse packed with so many people, the field shining beyond the concrete behemoth that housed so many memories, the usual sea of empty green seats filled with living, breathing, chanting, laughing, crying human beings.
When I made my way through the tunnel to Section 149, the concrete walls gave way to a perfectly jeweled Oakland afternoon – the spotless blue sky, the golden sunshine, the heavenly green grass. And the fans. I swear the fans sparkled in the distance. All 47,000 of them. Everything was sparkling.
I’ve seen Iguazu Falls, Machu Picchu at sunrise, Ipanema beach at sunset, and dated Brazilian women – but I’ve never seen a sight so beautiful as the Coliseum in that moment.
And it broke me. I absolutely lost it and started bawling. A friend, who I met for the first time at Yankee Stadium earlier this year, comforted me as I cried my eyes out in the concourse behind Section 149, amidst the dreary, gray slabs and support columns of Mount Davis.
“It doesn’t have to be like this,” I told him, sobbing.
On Wednesday night, during a lap around the stadium that turned into another feeling of a family reunion, I ran into longtime A’s photographer Michael Zagaris. I took a photo of him taking a photo of my friends and then we stopped to talk for a bit.
“I’m using this as a tool to hide from it,” I admitted to him, as I held up my camera.
But there was no hiding it anymore. After trying to distract myself by burying myself in photography and video documentation the final three games, all the emotions just poured out.
Ice Cold Kennybo walked by and offered a helping hand, too.
“Just breathe, man,” he said, wearing a plastic king’s crown atop his Stomper Beanie, while toting an empty beer crate. “Want some water? I got you.”
I was a mess and took up his offer, so we walked toward a concessions supply room as he got ready for the next run. But there was a line and a few minutes passed, he still didn’t get water. I composed myself and thanked him, but there were still six innings left in the game.
I sat with my family for a few innings, in the first deck. Krazy George bounded around, banging his drum one last time. A huge, inflatable baseball beach ball went around the lower bowl before falling into foul territory in left field. Fans booed and chanted, “BRING IT BACK! BRING IT BACK!”
In the fifth inning, another huge “SELL THE TEAM!” chant broke out. It was loud, sure, but taken down a notch from the cries of June 13 last year at the Reverse Boycott. C’est la vie when you’re on life support.
I had to get back to Section 149 for the final moments of the game – but first a pit stop to the ad hoc smoking section that had broken out behind Section 305ish at the third deck. Fans shared doobies and bleezys while security guards walked by and laughed, especially when someone put a joint in the mouth of a Dave Kaval puppet. I could only imagine what this place was like for Day On The Green back in the day. Ah, good times at the Coliseum.
While “Take me out to the ballgame” played for one last time on the loudspeakers, I made my way back to Section 149 as a huge line formed near the exit for the Coliseum replica giveaway.
Kara Tsuboi gave a heartfelt goodbye on the big screen that had people tearing up and even Stomper came by to bang on the drums. The intensity rose in the final innings, as the RF Bleacher die-hards unfurled a massive, yellow City of Oakland flag (backwards) at first. Then they busted out a big, white banner that simply said UNFORGIVABLE. Then, finally, a tie-dye bed sheet that said, FUCK FISHER.
A couple of youngsters ran onto the field in the bottom of the ninth before getting tackled in center field. A fan threw a beer can on the field from the bleachers and then left his seat, getting flipped off and booed by fans as he walked through the concrete exit tunnel. Another fan kept throwing smoke bombs onto the field to delay the game, causing more yelling and arguments within Section 149.
Then, with a 104 mph fastball, Mason Miller dropped the guillotine. The final pitch in Oakland A’s history got hit to Max Schuemann at third base for a 5-3 putout.
In the days leading up to the final game, we heard the A’s told their players and coaching staff to avoid lingering on the field after the final out. I don’t know what the fear-mongering, out-of-touch front office expected (what, were we gonna tackle Brent Rooker and throw our replica Coliseums at Lawrence Butler?) but no riot occurred. Some fans kicked off the cup holders from the back of seats, but there was no widespread pandemonium that the A’s would have wanted you to believe was going to happen.
Instead, manager Mark Kotsay gave a speech and the players – all in their kelly green Oakland jerseys – huddled around the mound for a team photo. You could feel the history in the air all afternoon. Pitching coach Scott Emerson and another coach came over to right field and tipped their caps to the fans, who held up their drums and waved their flags. Schuemann took a victory lap with a big, green Athletics flag, stopping in center field and behind home plate.
After some final “LET’S GO OAKLAND!” and “SELL THE TEAM!” chants, folks started filing out of the Coliseum, the shadows getting longer.
I’ve never seen so many grown men crying than I did on my walk from the bleachers to behind home plate. Deep sadness and welled-up eyes that could only be caused by so much love and true heartbreak.
The grounds crew came with a pickaxe to dig up the pitcher’s rubber from the mound and ripped up home plate from our hearts one last time and sent it to Cooperstown, like ashes for an urn.
— Jason Burke (@ByJasonB) September 27, 2024
A groundskeeper shoveled up dirt for anyone who wanted it, asking fans if there was a particular part of the infield they wanted it from. I sat there with my brother and some friends for about an hour before a loud security guard walked up to us complaining.
“I’ve been here all day and my feet hurt and y’all are being disrespectful!” she yelled.
“This is bigger than your feet hurting,” I told her.
She didn’t like that. Then her supervisor came over and started yelling at us like we were kids in the principal’s office, telling us how he’s been there since 5 a.m.
Grief suddenly turned to anger and I had an ugly exit from the Coliseum, as I yelled a hearty, “Fuck you!” to the male security guard as I walked up the steps. I should have listened to a third security guard — who struck me as a patient, caring woman — who told me, “Don’t let this be your final moment here,” but I felt I was rid of my proper moment of closure. Now, I feel awful to have thrown that language at a dude who worked a long day and was about to get laid off, I could have handled it better.
The glimmer of the parking lot had dimmed by the time we got back out there for a final Coliseum toast. Less people, more trash, more desolate.
We toasted one last time, “OAKLAND FOREVER!” but I couldn’t help but look around everywhere and think, ‘Welcome to hell. Welcome to life after the Oakland A’s.’
A huge group of us met for beers at ‘The Wake’ at Line 51 in Jack London Square, which is walking distance to Howard Terminal. We laughed and processed and toasted. I finished my ‘Sell and Stay IPA’ and then it was time to go home.
I gave a few more hugs, said a few more goodbyes and then walked to BART. I don’t know when I’ll ever see these people all together again.
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If there’s one prevailing thought I’ve had this final week of Oakland A’s baseball, it’s that it didn’t have to be this way. As I looked around Tuesday night’s crowd of 30,000 people — I couldn’t help but think, ‘Damn, it could be like this every Friday night if Fisher actually tried.’
In some alternate reality in the cosmos, I’d like to believe that there’s an Oakland A’s lineup where Lawrence Butler is leading off, Brent Rooker’s hitting second, Matt Olson’s hitting third and Matt Chapman’s in the cleanup spot. Maybe even Marcus Semien and Sean Murphy in the lineup. Instead of threatening to move the team to Las Vegas, John Fisher could have made money and filled the seats by investing in his starting lineup.
Alas, in the end, A’s fans didn’t have a team that loved them back. This whole time, we only had each other.
