Fare Thee Well, Oakland Athletics

    I saw the game after work; I flipped it on. Later, talking to my son in college far away, he with a big sports fan by his side, an 18 year-old who gets hyped up for athletes and teams and the significance of sports, I realized it was historic and memorable, yea, nostalgic, to have the game on and share some images. A day like few we have seen before or since. Someone hurled a green smoke bomb in the outfield, on a sunny early fall California day. The stands were filled with passionate fans, clad in bright green and gold of their program. Most had known it most of their lives. And now departing...

    An older woman held a hand marked placard that stated: "There is crying in baseball!"

    This venue has been known as the Oakland Coliseum.

    An Athletic player was seen removing a rather leaky beer can cast on the field. Protest, a parting message directed at ownership and the powers that be. Or were.  A fan, or fanatic, rather psychotic, was witnessed running onto the field of play, dodging security, reality, or sanity, cementing his (not likely a female) place in history. They did not let the cameras alight on him too much, because this is what many of these whackos seek, this ridiculous limelight shaded in a putrid disgraceful green, but at least he was clothed. 

    The last game in Oakland for the As. Mark it, 2024. However, I could imagine seeing the future Las Vegas club of As swinging by again someday, after their two-year transition up the road in Sacramento. On to the City of Sins! Or, the American dream town of luck and fortune. The once and ever future of our ways. Money, power, swag.

    Poor, broken down Oakland. Oaktown. A place caught by the times and economics, the ways of life in all times. Cannot make it work: sack it up and move it out. Someone else will take care of the hot dogs, the merchandise, the talented runners and hitters and hurlers, the boys who make millions playing a childhood dream sport. In the spirit of the greats: Cobb, Ruth, Robinson, Dimaggio, Williams, Mantle, Aaron, Clemente, Rose and a thousand more titans of the diamond, the American field of dreams. Some were short, and had shorter careers, like Puckett. Others were huge and gossamer, like the Big Unit Randy Johnson, but they all made their marks like David and Goliath and all the Israelites and Philistines of the ever-crossed heroic battlefield. We recount the stories and the lore. There is a place for these warriors of the field where blood and lives were not lost, but only the one who could not make it to home plate more.

    George Carlin was right about baseball. It is a sport for the peaceniks who wish to be safe. Safe at home. That is what this place was for fifty-seven long and short years.

    A place where 57 seasons of the game of major league competition and events can leave some indelible images and memories. I saw their great years with the Bash Brothers on T.V., mostly Mark McGuire and Jose Canseco, but with some dominant pitching from some really good starters and the unforgettable closer Dennis Eckersley, a scorching hurler who could finish with a flourish and flair. Dave Stewart was a fierce thrower, a man to step up in close moments of the October clutch moments.

    Learning the history of the game before my own memories of observation in the middle to late 1970s, I heard or read about the championship teams with guys named Vida Blue, Rollie Fingers, Catfish Hunter.

    Classic. 

    Then, those bash brothers and Dave Stewart, and Carnie Lansford, and a few others that I can recall as making them to the team to beat. I missed their upsets and the Bay Area earthquake series because of my mission for my Church (the Lord). A time when I myself left childhood and transitioned into the bigger, grittier, adult world.

    I had a chance to see my favorite player of all time with the As when he joined them in 1999, but he, Tim Raines, came down with Lupus and almost died, going into early retirement. Before I moved to California nearing the last month and half of the season. I might have seen my best baseball hero there! It would have been slightly hard to make the four-hour trip before October, anyway. Me, new at my high school teaching job in San Bernardino, committed to being a money maker of my own way. Later in 2007 when I moved to central California along the coast, an even closer drive to the Oakland Stadium, I could have seen my second favorite player, Frank Thomas, wind down his career there. I did not take advantage.

    I failed, in my small ways, to support the team, as in the bigger sense the fans and the management of Oakland did in retaining them. C'est la vie. The Athletics wended their way there from the east, originally Philadelphia, then Kansas City from 1955 to 1967, next the Golden State where the Gold and Green became the team of the East Bay.

    Enter this far into the 21st century when Las Vegas is still pushing growth and upward economic momentum, something that Oakland and the surroundings could not manage.

    Such is life, as they say more poetically in French. Deja vu? All over again? Say it ain't so, Yogi Berra. And just for the record, most of the things Yogi ever said he really never said. Or something to that effect. Google some Yogisms, I dare you. 

    I am glad I saw the last few innings in far off suburbia of the east coast this afternoon. On a rainy and cloudy overcast day locally, I was reminded of a shinier, purer yesteryear. These things, these events, these moments, can return us home. It makes me wonder about Raines, and Thomas, and all the great ones there in northern California. Ricky Henderson, Reggie Jackson, and few already mentioned. There were some good ones this century, too. No champs for the last decades, but competitors and loyal ones. Worthy of our respect and acclaim.

    What else to say? You were there 57 years, but many of us are lucky to live even half those years.

    Peace, you formidable and plucky As- Oakland Athletics, and baseball fans in all times. Living and gone. Hold on to those memories, as they are fleeting and wistful.

    In many ways, you will always be there. Because you were with us, and we were with you. The As of Oakland have achieved eternity. Whether we were Dodgers or Yankees or Reds or even Giants. If you never saw them play, perhaps you missed out. I did not. I caught them decently, albeit from my electronic distances, or the pages of a magazine, or the scripts of the digital world, and the trackers of my smart phone. Fare thee well, golden ones. Thanks for the times that we shared.