OAKLAND A’S – 2024 MAKING BASEBALL HISTORY HERE IN OAKLAND
From The Press Box
Amaury Pi-González
There is no doubt this month of September in Oakland will be one to remember, one for the ages, and one to weep for every true Oakland A’s fan. This is the last September at the Oakland Coliseum for the Green and Gold. Come September the A’s will be hosting the Seattle Mariners, Detroit Tigers, New York Yankees, and Texas Rangers. The very last Oakland A’s baseball game at the Coliseum is scheduled for Thursday, September 26, at 12:37. The A’s will then leave for their last road trip as an Oakland team to close their season on September 29 in Seattle.
Fans will not occupy the Mount Davis/Raiders football seats on that last game at the Coliseum on September 26, which has been a sellout for a while and will mark a day of mourning definitely for Oakland, as well as the Bay Area. The A’s relocation ordeal is closer to it’s destination as it seems the inevitable is going to happen, ‘like it or not’ they will play in Sacramento 2025 for three or four years and then move into their new park in Las Vegas, where things are finally looking very good for the A’s in Sin City.
A good friend recently told me, “If the Giants would have been as gracious as the Haas A’s ownership did in the early 1990s, giving San José back their territorial rights to the A’s, it would have been a good outcome, as the A’s would have stayed in the Bay Area. San José is the most populated city in the Bay Area and one of the most affluent areas in the country, with Silicon Valley leading the high-tech industry.
In my opinion the chances of MLB awarding San José an expansion team, are much better than awarding Oakland an expansion team anytime in the future, after the A’s go Adiós. Oakland is not a city that you would call a model of administration or management, their Mayor is about to be recalled, Oakland went through ten Police Chiefs in ten years. They hired a new Police Chief less than a year ago, and ‘The Town’ is not in a “good place” right now. The reputation of Oakland after the A’s leave has been established as a town that cannot keep its Major Leagues sports team. Raiders, Warriors, A’s. MLB, NFL, NBA, NHL, are by far the most popular professional sports league(s) in the country, and you can make an argument that they are also in the world in their respective sports.
We who lived in the Bay Area in the 1970s, when at Oakland City Hall there was a sign that read “Oakland City of Champions,” referring to the 1970s when the A’s, Raiders, and Warriors were all winning championships, have witnessed the demise of big-league professional sports in Oakland.
Oakland, regarding sports, is a punch-line for comedians, and history will not be kind to The Town and what happened to sports there (whichever way you feel on who is to blame) and there is plenty of blame to go-around. But in the end, it is not a pretty picture.
