Rebuilding Rob

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A Requiem for baseball’s last dive bar

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NOTE: THE ENTRY WAS STARTED THURSDAY, JULY 26, 2024

I know I won’t do this stadium, this team or their city justice, but I will try…

I’m already kicking myself in the head.

I knew this day was coming, and I never made plans to get out to the Oakland Coliseum to see a game. But today is the Oakland Athletics last game at their home, known as “baseball’s last dive bar” – the Oakland Coliseum.

Particularly over the last two decades, the Oakland A’s have become something of a perennial underdog. The team has struggled with being in what is considered a “small baseball market”. To make matters worse, they have also been hampered by multiple very frugal – if not outright cheap – owners. The Coliseum, as it’s come to be known for short, was also the last of the multipurpose stadiums used in both MLB and the NFL in which both the A’s and the Raiders played games there. That is, of course, until the Raiders moved to Las Vegas; which also happens to be the future home of the Athletics as well.

Even if you’re not a big fan of baseball, or the Oakland Athletics, you may have heard about the team’s economic woes from the 2011 movie Moneyball which was based on a book of the same name.

A’s general manager, Billy Beane, frustrated by a limited payroll and losing homegrown talent to bigger money market teams like the New York Yankees, decided to take on a new approach to the game. He leaned heavily into sabermetrics – a somewhat abstract form of baseball statistics, first pioneered by Bill James. Beane built his teams primarily around offense; specifically one particular statistic: on base percentage. He wasn’t concerned about hitting for power as much as he was simply getting on base. By his rationale, they would eventually score runs if he got enough players on base. And they did.

But the reality was that the Moneyball approach would get a team so far in the postseason. Other teams would adapt to the Moneyball approach. Once this happened – particularly with teams who had greater payrolls – the A’s approach didn’t seem quite as groundbreaking anymore. Bigger market (and therefore bigger payroll) teams were able to strike a balance between homegrown talent and big money for agents; leaving the A’s in the dust

This was probably the beginning of the end for baseball in Oakland.

To make matters worse, both the NFL’s Raiders and the NBA’s Golden State Warriors left Oakland for greener pastures. Ownership was either unable or unwilling to spend money in order to keep up with other major league power houses, fan apathy grew in Oakland.

But it wasn’t always this way. The Oakland A’s teams of the early 1970s are considered some of the best in MLB history; having won the World Series and 1972, 1973 and 1974. Then-owner Charlie Finley paid bonuses to players who grew their hair out. These teams were known for their on-field talent as well as their larger-than-life personalities. layers like Jim “Catfish” Hunter, Vida Blue, Rollie Fingers and a young Reggie Jackson all wore the A’s green and gold. These teams were known for their on-field talent as well as their larger-than-life personalities. The 80s gave us Dennis Eckersley, “The Bash Brothers” – Jose Canseco and Mark McGwire and the self-professes “greatest of all time” Rickey Henderson.

As a Tiger fan, I remember the early 2000s and the Tigers playing the A’s in the ALCS. Oakland had one of the rowdiest, most passionate crowds I’ve ever heard. A the time, I thought they were more like a crowd at a European soccer game than an MLB crowd. Here’s another clip from 2012 as Grant Balfour entered the the division-winning game for the A’s…

Tell me again how these fans “didn’t care”…

I’ll see anonymous keyboard Warriors, calling Oakland “a dying city” and talking about how the Colosseum was such dump. But being a life-long Tiger fan, and growing up in the Detroit Metro area for most of my life, I laugh. People said the same thing about Detroit for decades. For the first half of my life, the Tigers played in a place cold Tiger Stadium, which looked more like a battleship than a ballpark. Furthermore, Detroit has been one of America’s most violent cities for the better part of the last 50 years. despite it all, I still thought my chest whenever someone asks me where I’m from. I will always probably wear the old OD or any shirt that says “Detroit” across it. I imagine the people of Oakland feel the same way. 

It’s an absolute shame what John Fisher has done to this fanbase. He cultivated fan apathy. He pinched pennies and cut corners on this team so badly that fans DID stop attending. Why should they give their hard-earned money to a team that chose to not field a competitive team? The crazy part is that the A’s were STILL quite competitive in spite of all of Fisher’s efforts. But he made no attempt to re-sign any of his top talent once they hit free agency. And there’s no evidence that he’ll spend in Vegas.

As for the move to Vegas, I hope it works out for the city. From what I’ve heard, people in Vegas want an MLB expansion, not the A’s. Maybe that’s out of a sense of identity; maybe that’s because they don’t trust John Fisher. Personally, i see fisher selling the team within 3 years of them settling into their permanent home in Vegas (of which Fisher has not raised $.01 for which to pay). At that point, the team will have tripled in value just for the stadium and all the new revenue.

Oakland fans, my heart bleeds for you. Sincerely. I cannot imagine having my favorite sports team leave town, let alone three of them. 

Long live the Oaklands Athletics. I sincerely hope the city gets an expansion team one day soon.

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The article “A Requiem for Baseball’s Last Dive Bar” first appeared on Rebuilding Rob.

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