In the end, what they wanted was the dirt. Some fans snuck in wrenches to try to remove seats, and some joked about walking off with urinals, but when 57 years at the Oakland Coliseum came to a drawn-out, then abrupt end, they pushed their way to the front row of seats; they stood, green shoulder to green shoulder; and they begged for the scrapings from the A’s white shoes.
Members of the grounds crew filled dozens of shovels from home plate, the bullpen mounds, the warning track, then decanted the soil into the plastic cups and sandwich baggies and souvenir helmets of the people who waited nearly an hour after the final out for something they could take home with them, something they could touch when they struggled to believe this was real, something they could venerate later.
“It’s like ashes,” mused one, a 30-something lifelong A’s named Gryphon.
Everyone wanted a piece of this place. Except John Fisher.
It was the dirt that they loved, and it was the dirt that they’ll miss now. With a final 3–2 win over the Texas Rangers, with a final dance to “Celebration,” with a final round of “Let’s go, Oakland” cheers, the Oakland A’s are no more. If Fisher, the A’s owner—in both the original sense, of possession, and the newer one, of embarrassment—gets the Las Vegas ballpark he covets, it will be one of those sterile new stadiums, all glass and chrome and artificially distressed brick, artificial-intelligence renderings come to life, satellite offices for mid-level executives to take a break from their email jobs and discuss EBITDA. At the Coliseum they calculated ERA. Fans came straight from the night shift to day games—sometimes showered, sometimes not—and ran their hands along concrete walls stained with six decades of celebrations.
Dirt is evidence of life. And what lives they lived here! Shannon Riddell and his wife, Meg, who work in education, came here on their first date, 11 years ago; on Thursday, they brought their 9-month-old daughter, Clara, to her ninth game. Jorge Leon, who runs the fan group and nonprofit the Oakland 68s, met his wife in the bleachers here. Bobby Tselentis, who works in security at a casino, estimates he spent more of his childhood at the Coliseum than at his own house. He brought his 12-year-old daughter, Bailey, and 8-year-old son, Braden, here Thursday for one last reunion with what he calls his fan-ily. (Yes, the kids are named for Andrew and Dallas.) A tattoo of three elephants—the A’s mascot—covers his left arm. “I don’t know what our fan base did to deserve this,” he said.
Nothing, of course. Perhaps no city deserves this less than Oakland, which has watched first the Warriors, then the Raiders and now the A’s ditch the working-class, multiracial underdogs for those collections of luxury suites elsewhere. The A’s could have had a new ballpark in Oakland, or they could have refurbished this one. It is no longer worth relitigating the ways Fisher failed these people.
The 46,889 in attendance—the A’s final sellout crowd—showed their frustration in the creative ways typical of Oaklanders: regular SELL THE TEAM chants, signs reading VEGAS BEWARE; IT’S NOT US, IT’S YOU; and DORIS GET UR KID (a message to Fisher’s mother). Many of them wrestled with the idea of supporting the team financially by buying tickets. Some only bought from the secondary market. And some decided not to pay at all. T.J. Hamilton, a former Warriors ball boy and lifelong A’s fan who came here straight from his graveyard shift for the postal service, said he planned to sneak in; he did not want to give Fisher his money. But he did intend to tip the concessionaires $20 each.
Some tepidly committed to following the team to Sacramento and perhaps eventually Las Vegas. Some will turn their backs on the franchise that turned its back on them. “The Oakland A’s are sort of like my dad,” said Leon. “They never wanted me.” He added, “It’s fine. I don’t want them. I have a better thing going with the [independent baseball team] Oakland Ballers and the [division two soccer team] Oakland Roots.”
Perhaps a dozen knuckleheads threw garbage onto the field as the game ended. But most just watched and cheered. They loved this team and this place. It’s dirt that gives fruits and vegetables—and eventually the animals that consume them—their distinct essence. You can drive through a town and learn from the buildings how the local wine will taste, because the rocks from which they construct houses are the same ones that flavor the grapes. The A’s were not just in Oakland, they were of Oakland.
Little leaguers watched games in the top deck for $2 apiece. The players served root beer floats to fans. Even now Rickey Henderson owns a home in Oakland. “I still see him around Lake Merritt,” said Hamilton. “I’m like, ‘You know you’re Rickey, right? You’re just driving around and you’re at the store and you’re getting a beer?’”
Rickey grew up here. So did Ean Avila, a high schooler who said he sold his clothes to pay for his $140 upper-deck tickets to Thursday’s game. “My dad used to work three jobs to take us to A’s games,” he said. “He’d come home tired, and in the same, greasy clothes, he’d take us to the game. I don’t see my dad anymore. I don’t see my brother anymore. So this is the last thing I have to connect them to me.”
He left with a plastic cup of dirt, the only souvenir he wanted from the last day of his childhood. Many people came to the Coliseum today hoping to take something with them. Thia Bonadies, who works for an environmental nonprofit, wanted to leave something behind. Her father, Christopher, took her to hundreds of games here when she was a child. “This is where my dad taught me all about life,” she said. “Suit up and show up. It doesn’t matter if you win or lose, it’s how you play the game. Rely on your teammates. It’s always a beautiful day when you’re at the ballpark.” He died in 2020.
She cried as she watched the game today. “They won for you, Dad,” she whispered. When it was over, she carried a small white pouch down the left field line, just past third base, and tipped it over and scattered his ashes on the warning track, where they will mix forever with the dirt of the place that meant so much to them all.
This article was originally published on www.si.com as A’s Fans Hold Onto Old Memories, New Keepsakes in Team’s Farewell to Oakland.
