As an era ends, the city that was home to the Oakland A's comes to grips with their departure
The A맥스카지노s exodus from Oakland will give the team the dubious distinction of being the first Major League Baseball franchise to have moved on four different occasions.
The A맥스카지노s exodus from Oakland will give the team the dubious distinction of being the first Major League Baseball franchise to have moved on four different occasions.
The A맥스카지노s exodus from Oakland will give the team the dubious distinction of being the first Major League Baseball franchise to have moved on four different occasions.
The Athletics had long ago carved out a Jekyll-and-Hyde legacy as one of Major League Baseball맥스카지노s most successful 맥스카지노 and sad-sack 맥스카지노 franchises. Under their belts: nine World Series titles and 19 seasons of futility punctuated by 100 or more losses.
This, though, is different. Now, legions of A맥스카지노s fans view the team as the sport맥스카지노s most treacherous under the ownership of billionaire John Fisher, an heir of the family that founded The Gap in 1969 맥스카지노 one year after the A맥스카지노s moved to Oakland, California, from Kansas City, Missouri.
Video above: The Oakland Athletics' move to Las Vegas has been approved by MLB owners
Just a few years after embracing 맥스카지노Rooted In Oakland맥스카지노 as their motto, the A맥스카지노s this week are coming to the end of their 57 see-sawing seasons in a city regularly overshadowed by the mystique of its storied neighbor, San Francisco.
맥스카지노I know these times coming to the games are always going to be among the best years of my life,맥스카지노 longtime A맥스카지노s fan Will MacNeil, 40, rued as he contemplated the end of an era that맥스카지노s crushing a community맥스카지노s soul. 맥스카지노And for a billionaire owner to rip it away from me, it맥스카지노s frustrating.맥스카지노
A baseball team that has moved twice moves again
The A맥스카지노s exodus from Oakland will give the team the dubious distinction of being the first Major League Baseball franchise to have moved on four different occasions. After starting in Philadelphia in 1901, the A맥스카지노s moved to Kansas City in 1955, then to Oakland in 1968, with California맥스카지노s capital city of Sacramento and Las Vegas next in the peripatetic pipeline.
No place has been the A맥스카지노s home for as long as Oakland, where they맥스카지노re the last professional sports team in a two-county region known as the East Bay 맥스카지노 home to 2.8 million people living across the water from San Francisco.
Through the years, the baseball team became an emblem of East Bay맥스카지노s grit and flair. The A맥스카지노s glory years have included the colorfully attired, mustachioed during the first half of the 1970s, the muscular and swaggering of the late 1980s, and the scrappy underdogs of the 2000s that yielded a real-life fairy tale based on the Michael Lewis book that ushered in the era of data-driven analysis.
Through those decades, the A맥스카지노s stadium 맥스카지노 the now-crumbling Oakland Coliseum 맥스카지노 became an East Bay hub where people of all races, ages, incomes and backgrounds rallied around a common cause.
맥스카지노It was really like the public square,맥스카지노 lifelong A맥스카지노s fan Jim Zelinski said earlier this year. His father brought him to the team맥스카지노s first game at the Oakland Coliseum on April 17, 1968 맥스카지노 a 4-1 loss to the Baltimore Orioles before a crowd of 50,164.
Rooting for the A맥스카지노s connected everyone from longshore workers at Oakland맥스카지노s bustling port to the tech geeks of Silicon Valley to hippies from nearby Berkeley to technology to subversives forged in the cauldron of a city where Huey Newton started the Black Panthers and Sonny Barger led a notorious chapter of the Hells Angels.
맥스카지노The A맥스카지노s are such an indelible part of this community,맥스카지노 Zelinski said. 맥스카지노Everybody was so proud of not only the teams, but there was also this sense of, 맥스카지노Hey, this is us! This is the East Bay!맥스카지노맥스카지노
The bond between fans and a community is strong
Other beloved sports teams have spurned their devoted fans by moving elsewhere through the decades, but none of them have been jilted in quite the same way as the East Bay.
The NFL맥스카지노s Raiders already turned their back on Oakland twice. They did it first in 1982 when they moved to Los Angeles before coming back in 1995, only to leave for Las Vegas in 2020 맥스카지노 the year after the National Basketball Association맥스카지노s Warriors hopped over the bay to San Francisco.
맥스카지노It맥스카지노s taken so long for this move to evolve that it맥스카지노s been like a slow death eating me up very single day,맥스카지노 said A맥스카지노s fan Mike Silva, 72, wiping away tears as he showed some of his old ticket stubs.
After the A맥스카지노s decided to follow the Raiders to Las Vegas, Fisher poured more salt into Oakland fans맥스카지노 wounds. Rather than stay in the Coliseum, Fisher choose to move the A맥스카지노s 85 miles northeast to a minor-league ballpark in West Sacramento for at least the next three years while waiting for the new stadium in Nevada to be built.
"I know there is great disappointment, even bitterness," Fisher acknowledged in an open letter to fans released Monday. " I can tell you this from my heart: we tried. Staying in Oakland was our goal. It was our mission, and we failed to achieve it. And for that I am genuinely sorry.맥스카지노
Some are coming out to the bitter end
Many devout A맥스카지노s fans have been boycotting games in disgust this season. Those who still come, like Will MacNeil, regularly lead chants of 맥스카지노Sell the team!맥스카지노맥스카지노 before lobbing a profanity at Fisher.
MacNeil, known as 맥스카지노Right-Field Will맥스카지노 after being a fixture in the Coliseum맥스카지노s bleachers for nearly 20 years, has accumulated about 200 A맥스카지노s jerseys during his fandom. He estimates only 20 fit him now because of the weight he put on while drowning his sorrow about the team맥스카지노s move in beers.
맥스카지노This move really destroyed me,맥스카지노 MacNeil said as he cheered the A맥스카지노s on to a victory in May.
Zelinski, the fan who attended the A맥스카지노s first game in 1968, spent nearly 30 years fighting to keep sports teams in Oakland. When the season started, he still didn맥스카지노t want to believe it would all be to no avail.
맥스카지노I had some of the greatest memories of my life at the Oakland Coliseum,맥스카지노 Zelinski, 65, said in April. 맥스카지노The A맥스카지노s are such an irreplaceable part of the East Bay culture that I don맥스카지노t think people can quite grasp what incredible sadness there is going to be like at that final game in September.맥스카지노
He will never find out. After a long battle with bladder cancer, Jim Zelinski died June 7 맥스카지노 the same day that A맥스카지노s outfielder JJ Bleday slugged a home run in the bottom of the ninth to catapult the team to a 2-1 victory.
Here in Oakland, as a quiet end approaches, that sets us up to leave you with that former Baseball Commissioner A. Bartlett Giamatti once made about the sport. It hangs over Oakland this week like a misplaced curveball: 맥스카지노It breaks your heart. It is designed to break your heart.맥스카지노