Kara and I took a road trip to the West Coast. The first stop was Oakland. An absolutely beautiful California afternoon. As soon as we got out of the car in the stadium lot we noticed quite a few Red Sox fans. When we got inside it was very noticeable, but the Oakland folks were friendly.
The Oakland stadium is one of the worst ballparks in America. If you exclude the old ones like Griffith Stadium in DC, where I went in 1958, and old Arlington Stadium, today it would come in 29th out of 30. Tampa Bay’s Tropicana Field bringing up the rear. The venue has changed names several times: Originally called the Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum, then just Oakland Coliseum, then UMAX Coliseum, then Network Associates Coliseum, then McAfee, then back to Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum, then O.co Coliseum (huh?) it was for Overstock.com. The current name is Ring Central Coliseum, then Ithen back to he orig9nal name Oakland Coliseum, and now it’s Ring Central Coliseum. It’s one of the the only remaining ballparks designed to accommodate both baseball and football. Rogers Centre in Toronto is also the venue for the CFL Argonauts. Even tough the coliseum can accommodate both sports, football is gone and Oakland is down to just baseball, as the NFL Raiders have moved again. In 1981 they packed up and headed down The 5 to LA in hopes of cashing in on big market revenues. After winning a Superbowl in LA, owner Al Davis was lured back to Oakland in 1995. To lure him back, the county removed all the outfield bleachers and built a huge edifice in center field – usually referred to as Mount Davis – to accommodate football fans. Notice in the photos below they don’t even open the upper deck. It’s covered with green tarp like no one knows there are empty unsold seats up there. Sad. For 2020 the Raiders have moved again, this time to Las Vegas. Who knows what that means for the A’s.
The A’s almost went to Denver in the 80s – this was before the Rockies existed – even to the point that Denver Athletics tickets were sold. That would be a cool souvenir. Remember that the Philadelphia A’s, an original American League 1901 charter team, gave up on the City of Brotherly Love in 1955 and moved to Kansas City. That got old by 1968 and the team moved again to Oakland.
Because of the football configuration (remember the Raiders preceded the A’s there), the Coliseum has by far the most foul territory in the majors. Many foul balls that would be fan souvenirs in any other ballpark wind up being caught for outs.
The only run in the game was a David Ortiz solo home run in the first inning. Lots of cheers on that one.
My daughter Caitlin had just graduated from Providence College and my wife Kathy, as a graduation gift, wanted to take her on a painting tour in Province, France, which rhymes and also sounds similar to Providence. I wasn’t up for that, so Kara and I took a West Coast ballpark trip to Oakland and Phoenix. Oakland was stop one.
Curt Schilling threw a one-hitter. The were a lot of Red Sox fans there – red and blue garb really stood out against the A’s fans green and yellow. Kara and I were both scoring the game – both noting the line of 0s in our scorebooks – but not mentioning it so as not to jinx.
When Schill he came out for the 9th with a no-hitter on the line there was a standing ovation. From both sides. The only Oakland baserunner to that point was on a room-service grounder to short in the 6th that Julio Lugo booted (the runner never got past 1st). The one hit came with two outs in the 9th inning when Schilling shook catcher Jason Varitek off and Shannon Stewart singled to right on the next pitch. If Lugo hadn’t booted that grounder – and everything else was exactly the same – Stewart would never have gotten up in the 9th and Schilling would have had a perfect game. Schill, being the way he is, blamed himself for shaking off Varitek. But, truth be told, it was Lugo’s fault. Final score, 1-0 Red Sox.
I’ve enjoyed every visit to a Major League ballpark, and this was a really nice day and a very good game. At least for visiting Red Sox fans. Oakland, however, is probably the third worst one that I’ve been to, as I mentioned above. Way too much foul territory, they don’t even open the top deck. They’re covered with green tarps and only used for Oakland Raiders games.
The next day at the airport, we saw some Red Sox fans boarding the same Southwest flight from Oakland to Phoenix. We chatted. They also had been to the game the day before and I commented on the large number of Red Sox fans there. One of them smiled and said, “That’s nothing. Wait till you get to Phoenix!”
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