The End of an Era: The A’s leave Oakland -

Tonight, the A’s played their last-ever home game at the Oakland Coliseum prior to relocating to Sacramento for the start of the 2025 season.

They won 3-2 versus the Texas Rangers, meaning the A’s won both the final game and the final series played at the Coliseum. Perhaps fittingly, the game and the series was decided by a pitch from this season’s breakout star, pitcher Mason Miller, extending an A’s rookie record with his 28^th save of the season.

The organisation marked the occasion before the game with a number of different video packages both in the stadium and on the NBC Sports California pre-game show along with A’s Hall of Famers Rickey Henderson and Dave Stewart also throwing out ceremonial first pitches to current stars Lawrence Butler and Mason Miller. During the game, numerous other video packages featuring A’s players of yesteryear aired on the big screens in the stadium and on the NBC Sports California broadcast. After the game, A’s manager Mark Kotsay addressed the crowd, paying tribute to the staff, players past and present, the fans and the Coliseum. Credit to the sell-out crowd at the Coliseum during the game too – the carnival atmosphere they created very clearly came through the TV screen to those watching at home.

Game highlights, including highlights from both the pre and post-game shows

It marks the end of an era for major league baseball in the city of Oakland since the then-Kansas City Athletics moved to Oakland for the start of the 1968 season.

Having moved to The Town in the sixties, the team then became an integral part of the community; it wasn’t just The Swingin’ A’s playing an exciting brand of baseball in the 70s, or what then came in the 80s – Billy-Ball after then-A’s manager Billy Martin – to packed houses at the O.co. Players also visited local schools and children’s hospitals, put on free baseball clinics and the organisation supported local charities. This continued until relatively recently, with the organisation all too happy to promote itself around the stadium and on social media accompanied by the tagline ‘Rooted In Oakland’ to emphasise that it was part of the local community.

That’s what makes the A’s leaving Oakland so painful then; it was a team that was not only proudly saying that it was a part of the Oakland community. By extension, it was also marketing itself as being from the underdog, less fashionable side of The Bay. And I loved all of that, because they weren’t just saying they were part of the community. They were going out and BEING a part of the community. And all of that is over now, and I despair for Oakland as a city because of that.

I’ve written about this extensively in previous articles, but it bears repeating;

I despair for the fans in Oakland who, having been messed about with above-inflation season ticket price rises that then wasn’t spent on either putting a competitive team on the field or making the gameday experience in the stadium nicer for those fans who are paying their hard-earned money to watch the team play, are now losing their team all together.

I despair for all of those people who work in the Coliseum – the ushers and the concession stand operators in particular – who now face uncertainty over their continued employment. While Oakland’s two soccer teams – the Roots and the Soul – will now both be playing games at the Coliseum, the number of total games they will play each year will not even be half of the 81 games the A’s played in Oakland each season.

Most of all, I despair for those small businesses in and around Oakland who relied on gameday trade that now need to be supported more now than ever – they’ve had to deal with not just the effects of COVID in recent years, but they’ll now have to deal with the effect of all three of its major league sports teams having left the city in a five-year period.

The ironic thing is the A’s have actually been pretty good to watch this season too. That is not something that could be said in 2022 or 2023. Having power hitters in the line-up like Brent Rooker (who also got on base in 28 consecutive games this season) and Shea Langeliers hitting over 25 home runs each. Watching the continued development of guys like JJ Bleday and Zach Gelof. Seeing someone like Lawrence Butler in his first full season as a major league player going 22 consecutive games with a hit, during which he also set a franchise record by going nine consecutive games with an extra-base hit. All of this has been great to see, making it all the more painful that the fans in Oakland will no longer be able to see it. On a personal note, it makes me very sad that I couldn’t afford to make a trip over to the Bay Area this season to see the A’s play at the Coliseum one last time.

Finally, don’t get me wrong on this issue; I completely understand the economic arguments for leaving Oakland, and I get why MLB commissioner Rob Manfred is so eager for MLB to have a consistent presence in the Las Vegas market. It just sucks that Oakland has to lose its team for that to happen, and, because of that, I, like many other A’s fans, don’t know if I’m still going to be able to be a fan of the Athletics once they’ve left Oakland and certainly not once they’ve relocated to Las Vegas (if that ever does actually happen).

And so, on that rather downbeat note, the A’s time in Oakland comes to an end.

For more on this, and to hear the thoughts of two Oakland natives who have previously contributed their thoughts to my articles – father and son David and Ian Darlington – check out the latest episode of my podcast, The BCS Podcast, which honours the A’s time in Oakland.

Brett Walker is proud to be the OAKLAND Athletics contributor for Bat Flips & Nerds, and can be found on Twitter @BrettChatsSport.

Featured image – courtesy of Suzanna Mitchell