California Baseball: Day 4
Oakland A’s
OK, let’s get straight to the point here: Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum — currently and almost certainly transiently named RingCentral Coliseum — is not a wonderful stadium. For anything. But especially for baseball.
Built in 1966, the Coliseum was, in 2019, the only stadium in America still shared by football and baseball teams. And you can feel every bit of that clash in this space: a collision between stadium and ballpark, between the massive curves and straight lines of an enormous football stadium vs. the crooked edges and bucolic quirks of a baseball field.
The chief contributor to this architectural calamity is Mt. Davis, an overbearing upper deck snapped onto the stadium like a misfit LEGO. Oakland Raiders owner Al Davis pushed the project to increase the size of the stadium, which in 2019 was still the second-smallest in the NFL and is one of the reasons the Raiders are moving to Las Vegas in 2020. Mt. Davis looms over center field during Oakland A’s games, facing most fans, covered in tarp in an attempt to reduce the feeling of an empty stadium. It doesn’t really work.
The actual attendance figures don’t help, either. The A’s ranked 24th in Major League Baseball attendance in 2019, with an average of 20,521 per game — this for a team that would finish 97-65 and make the playoffs for the second straight year.
But I’ve been a bunch of A’s games over the years, and the fans are passionate. They’re into it. They bang their drums and keep their chants going even when their team has lost its steam. Their stadium may not be glamorous, with all the latest amenities and gourmet food options; their payroll may be one of the lowest, keeping established stars from joining the roster; and their team may be second-favorite in the Bay Area to the Giants, but the fans that do support their team do so like it matters. Like the city of Oakland itself, this is a working-class, underdog team, one that has had a lot of success of late.
We had arrived at the Coliseum via Bay Area Rapid Transit to see the A’s take on the Seattle Mariners for the fourth game of our 15-game trip. The A’s were sitting 11 games behind the division-leading Houston Astros with a record just above .500. The Mariners were in last place, 18 1/2 games out, and were coming off a dismal stretch in which they had won just 16 of their last 57 games. A promising night for the home team.
We perused the two rows of food trucks just outside the entrance to the stadium, on a concourse between the Coliseum and Oracle Arena, former home of the Golden State Warriors. Then we headed inside, climbing first to the top deck for our panoramic view of Mt. Davis. Next we dropped back down a level and walked around to The Treehouse, a big gathering place in left field that has been recently refurbished.
The Treehouse includes indoor and outdoor bars, a redwood patio deck, a seating area with cushioned couches, and a huge indoor space with a woodsy bar — remember, we are in “Oaktown” — plus pool tables, foosball, ping pong, a video batting cage, and other games.
Further along in right field is a children’s play area and an open seating section made for more active youngsters. Danny and I paused there for a quick snap, sporting sunglasses we had won at a spin-the-wheel station outside The Treehouse.
We didn’t find many exotic food options in the Coliseum, but I was confident with my pick for the occasion: a Philly Cheesesteak, in honor of the birthplace of the Oakland A’s. The team began life as the Philadelphia Athletics in 1901 and was managed for its first 50 years by the legendary Connie Mack, who won five World Series titles. The A’s moved to Kansas City in 1955, then to Oakland in 1968, where they have won four championships.
It was Mack who adopted the elephant as a mascot for the team, after New York Giants manager John McGraw told reporters that the controlling owner of the A’s had a “white elephant on his hands.” As a light-hearted act of defiance, Mack handed McGraw a stuffed elephant before they met in the 1905 World Series, and the animal has stuck as an icon for the persistently underdog team. (The Giants won that series, by the way, 4-1.)
In the 1980s, the on-field elephantine mascot was known as Harry Elephante. In 1997, the mascot was given an update and renamed Stomper.
The cheesesteak? It was fine. Just fine. The bread was…. there. And the meat was… fine — I mean, totally fine, not fatty or anything, and not bad at all for being entirely unseasoned. Very lean and… well, lean… and plain. There were bits of cheese loitering about in the margins, not exactly heralding the importance of its role at the very beginning of the name of the sandwich. The peppers and onions were also… you know… present.
Fueled for the evening, we took our seats. The A’s were wearing their Kelly green uniforms, a Friday night tradition. Time for some baseball.
Both teams started a couple of workhorses. The Mariners led with Chris Bassitt, who had spent eight seasons in the minors with brief big-league stints before starting 25 games in 2019. The Mariners sent 34-game starter Marco Gonzales to the mound. A first-round pick of the Cardinals in 2013, Gonzales gave the last-place Mariners more than 200 innings in 2019, with a respectable 3.99 ERA.
J.P Crawford
The teams traded runs in the early innings, but the Mariners hung a crooked number in the third when J.P. Crawford’s double to right field fueled a three-run outburst. The 16th overall pick in 2013 out of Lakewood High School in California, Crawford reached the majors in 2017 but had not yet shown that he could consistently handle big-league pitching. Despite hitting .319 in 31 games at Triple-A Tacoma to earn another call-up to the majors early in 2019, he produced a modest .226 average for the year in Seattle.
We took a walk in the middle innings down the left field line to get a few other viewpoints of the action. The night had turned gray and chilly, as it often does in the Bay Area, even when it is roasting hot just 25 miles inland.
Between innings, like a lot of Major League Baseball teams, the A’s do a lot of scoreboard-based entertainment: dot races, people dancing in the crowd — little features where everyone is looking at the scoreboard. It’s so much less communal than Minor League Baseball, where all those little competitions take place directly in front of the crowd on one side or another, much closer and more connected.
One exception to that rule in Oakland is the race between the giant-headed likenesses of A’s greats Rickey Henderson, Dennis Eckersley, and Rollie Fingers, which is always a good bit of fun. On this night, the team was also promoting the hit TV series Stranger Things, with a waffle-eating competition (the main character in the story loves her Eggos), scoreboard graphics in the style of the show, and other tie-ins to the “Upside Down.”
We made it back to our seats just before Hal the Hot Dog vendor arrived, leading a chant of “Let’s Ketch-up” (Catch Up, for the trailing A’s) as he held a condiment bottle aloft. Hal is a man who clearly loves his job at the ballpark, and he makes something that is meant to be fun a lot more fun.
The game stayed close until the seventh inning, when Seattle catcher Omar Narváez hit a two-run home run to right field off A’s reliever Wei-Chung Wang. Light-hitting Mallex Smith of the Mariners followed it up in the eighth with a two-run homer of his own against Aaron Brooks, who gave up another earned run in the ninth. Both A’s relievers would finish the season with an ERA around 6.50, but they would do it elsewhere: Wang would be waived by the team in July, Smith in August.
The A’s did not push another run across after the third inning, falling 9-2 to the Mariners. It had been a sloppy, listless performance for the home team. And it would be a rarity for the remainder of 2019. Following this game, the Athletics would finish the season with a blistering 62-30 record and make the playoffs.
Our consolation? Fireworks! Fans were invited onto the outfield grass and along foul territory to spread blankets and enjoy the show, which continued the Stranger Things theme. Accompanying the fireworks, flame emanated from the foot of Mt. Davis, timed to the beat of the music. A strong effort.
When it ended, we joined a mass of people, shoulder to shoulder, shuffling slowly across the bridge leading to the Coliseum BART station. We had finished our last game commuting from our Bay Area home. Time to hit the road.
