My Dad’s house is high on a hill in the small city of San Leandro, in the San Francisco Bay Area. Every morning when I visit, I pick up the morning paper, the East Bay Times, and check out the sports section to read about the local teams.
I often put the paper down to glance out the window. A few miles distant, down in the flat lands of Oakland near San Francisco Bay, I can see Oakland Arena and the Oakland Coliseum.
I was born in Oakland. My parents were raised there. We moved to the suburbs when I was five. I have memories of visiting family there, and I enjoy my visits, especially with my Dad and sister, but I don’t really feel like an Oakland kid. Unless you talk sports.
We had season tickets for then AFL and later NFL Oakland Raiders and did tailgating parties in a friend’s motorhome before the word “tailgating” was invented. The parents drank gin fizzes and other fancy concoctions while us kids played touch football in the parking lot. I saw Kenny Stabler and Gene Upshaw and Fred Biletnikoff and all the Raider greats.
I was a San Francisco Giants fan, but our family went to the first A’s game at the Oakland Coliseum, where Rick Monday hit a home run in a losing effort. I would later go to games and see the likes of Sal Bando, Jim “Catfish” Hunter and other stars. There were occasionally only 2,500 or 3,000 people in the stands, which was awful. I remember saying the A’s should establish “a foul ball for every fan” as their slogan. I used to laugh at the team, but my buddies who preferred the A’s to the Giants had the last chuckle when the A’s won the World Series in 1972, 1973 and 1974.
Matt Dodd – Unsplash Photo
We often went to Golden State Warriors games, where I saw Nate Thurmond swat opposing shots away from the rim and watched Rick Barry with his ridiculous but incredibly effective underhand free throw shooting. They won the NBA title in 1975 with Barry and Keith Wilkes and Jeff Mullins and other top players, and I was so happy for them I was thrilled when Steph Curry and the modern Warriors won in 2015 (but even more pumped when the Raptors beat them in 2019).
I don’t remember the Golden Seals departing. But the Raiders broke our hearts when they moved to L.A. To this day, the name “Al Davis” is a swear word in our house. I was sad to see the Warriors pack up for the big, glamorous city across the bay. And, even though I’m a Giants fan, I hate seeing the A’s leave Oakland. As a low-budget team, the A’s always seemed perfect for a scrappy city like Oakland. Their departure for Las Vegas (with a stop in Sacramento on the way) is a crushing blow to a city that never seems to catch a break. I don’t think the A’s owners ever really wanted to stay in the city, and that’s tremendously sad.
I know that the next time I’m at my Dad’s place, I’ll look out and see an Oakland Arena without a big-time pro sports team, and the forlorn Coliseum. I will try to remember the good times and not dwell on the departure of the big sports teams. I likely won’t succeed.
