Usually when I want to unearth my love of baseball, I call my good friend Carlos Jackson. Nobody in my circle of life loves baseball more than him. His dad took him to the 1990 World Series when he was 7 years old. Some days when school ended at Encinal High, he’d make his way by himself to the Coliseum and just go to the A’s game. If he wasn’t a man of faith, he’d fight you over Ken Griffey Jr.
So on the cusp of the A’s final game in Oakland, allegedly, I called Los. To hear his passion for baseball and the A’s. My best attempt to summon some kind of emotive vibes to match this historic moment. He told story after story. About catching batting practice home runs in the bleachers. About being interviewed at the A’s game by local TV, which happened to be when baseball returned after 9/11, which happened on his 18th birthday. About getting booed by a packed Coliseum after dropping an easy pop-up from New York Yankees slugger Paul O’Neill on the third-base side. About the significance of the A’s, for most of his life, being the only Bay Area jersey he could wear that plastered “Oakland” on the chest — where people from the Town most wanted it plastered.
I listened to him rue this pending day, and the significance of what will be lost. The conversation prompted a moment of reflection and digestion of his thoughts.
I still felt nothing.
This is not a perspective to represent A’s fans. That contingency is too large and diverse to be defined by any one purview. Nor is this declaration on behalf of Oakland natives, though yours truly is such.
This is but the revelation of one. The occasion of the A’s final game in Oakland isn’t sad. It isn’t infuriating, though I could feel reputed sports broadcaster Larry Beil when he went off. It isn’t even disappointing.
The search for sentiment on this occasion, instead, revealed a heart that resembles a typical Thursday afternoon game at the Coliseum. Empty.
It’s all dried out over here.
It’s not for a lack of trying. Went and bought the classic A’s hat. Tried to start writing my favorite A’s player at every position. But fond memories of games, of players, of moments are being drowned out by the fatigue of this stadium saga. Memories of the Bash Brothers, mimicking Dave Stewart’s stare while playing strikeout at the park, the 20-game win streak — as Ken Korach said in his final Coliseum call, those memories live forever. But nostalgia is no match for the numbness born of MLB’s abandonment as the A’s try for a heist on a struggling city.
I’ve been reading the great pieces about better days. Listening to people share their memories. But the pangs for the ownership are just too loud. It’s hard to care when it’s so blatantly not reciprocal.
That’s not an insignificant evaporation. I used to walk from Sobrante Park to the Coliseum for the Safeway Saturday Barbecue. I’d wait until first pitch to do my chores so I could listen to Bill King call A’s games on the radio. I’ve broken a couple of dishes frustrated at Dave Kingman strikeouts. I joined half the Oakland kids of my era who claimed Rickey Henderson was my cousin. I still believe the gray road A’s jerseys that said Oakland on the chest is the coldest baseball jersey ever. I’ve had aunts and uncles and homies and neighbors work A’s games at the Coliseum. From middle school field trips to high school fundraisers to boys nights out as adults, attending A’s games was a staple of community.
Now? In the words of the legendary Oakland philosopher on matters of the heart, Keyshia Cole, “I just want it to be over.” Extract them from our presence as the imitators they’ve proven to be.
Perhaps this absence of sentiment is the organic jadedness of being in the industry, 25 years of seeing the sausage get made. Maybe it’s the decades of the A’s threatening to leave, attempting to leave, followed by a couple of unserious pursuits of stadiums in Oakland — one of them included getting owned by a community college district — with conditions and qualifiers that revealed their true feelings about this place. Perhaps it’s a developing disposition, matured by a society increasingly bent to the whims and wishes of billionaires.
All of the above is reasonable.
Either way, the Oakland Athletics are not worth the emotional investment this moment warranted. Not from me. John Fisher has been a treacherous steward over one of the gem franchises of sports. Everything about the A’s has crumbled under his leadership — winning, fandom, reputation.
Major League Baseball forfeited its right to tug these heartstrings one last time. They’ve allowed this all to happen, preferring frugality and profit margins over culture and history.
That’s why this Athletics’ goodbye to Oakland is lacking in emotion, for me. What made them special to this region has long been squandered. They’ve disparaged the city and fan base for years, blaming their mediocrity on insufficient support from the fan base and the local leaders. As if it isn’t their job to inspire such support.
They’ve refused to pay every player fans love. They’ve opted to rebuild every time they’ve been close to contending. They’ve eroded the relationship for years, all to acquire public funding.
The A’s are leaving now, but they’ve been gone. The recipes lost.
Sports franchises, in our billionaire’s paradise of a country, are no longer a public trust. Not as the norm. They’re big business with little room for municipal motivations. They buy franchises and inherit allegiance, passion and loyalty. Many have forgotten fans’ hearts weren’t part of the purchase.
The A’s actively extinguished the adoration of a proven fan base and then blamed the absence for forcing them to leave. They had a fervent fan base — diverse and affluent and nostalgic — and actively, annually, undermined it.
I do understand the hearts that bleed over this. Cognitively, it registers. A’s manager Mark Kotsay walking out to center field with his wife before the final game, it was a poignant illustration. Mason Miller throwing 104 miles per hour on the last pitch in Coliseum history, securing the final out and setting up one last Kool & The Gang “Celebration” outro, was storybook.
But as Kotsay said, it hits everyone at different times. For me, and perhaps others, it hit some time ago. This is but a chance for the nation to remind us of our loss, to be portrayed as unworthy for not unconditionally supporting an unworthy steward in an industry bent on cutting out the less-loaded.
If this final homestand showed anything, much like the reverse boycott, and the grassroots campaign to vindicate the fanbase, and even the energy generated by the Oakland Ballers, the love for baseball lives here. The love for community lives here. The love for history, for relevance, for championships, is here.
The Athletics had it, took it for granted, and had a chance to get it again. But they’d rather take the free money, even if it means crashing on the Sacramento River Cats’ couch for three years. The billionaire A’s owner and his enabling fellow billionaire owners have no interest in earning devotion. Just dollars. They don’t care about cultivating community. Just cash.
My heart, it seems, has grown as cold as theirs.
(Top photo of the Oakland A’s mascot saluting the fans during the team’s final game at the Coliseum: Ezra Shaw / Getty Images)
