The Whitening of A's Brand Baseball

"Honey? Great news. The A's are moving to San Jose! It's safe for us to watch baseball again!"

The Oakland Athletics have reportedly been granted permission to move to San Jose, and upper middle class white folks are all atwitter. Am I overstating the situation? Yep. Am I using race in an inappropriate manner? Most assuredly. Doesn't make what I'm saying any less true. Yes, A's fans are not strictly white. I know that. But the ones who would be willing to drive to and afford tickets to the San Jose A's would, by and large, be white. I know what you're saying, "Well, where are all the A's fans at right now? They have to move to survive!" I'm well aware of that. Here's the thing: I know that the A's playing in front of huge crowds in a city whose fans have deeper pockets is good for the franchise. I know that having a huge TV contract will enable them to keep their free agents, rather than selling them off to the highest bidder. I know playing in a nicer, potentially more hitter-friendly ballpark will make them a destination free agent sluggers will consider, rather than one they have their agents put into writing in their no-trade clauses. I will still go to 3-5 games a year, despite the extra hour of drive time each way. I'll still watch games on TV more often than not. I will still be an A's fan. But here's the thing: Just because a move to San Jose will be a game changer for my team that will enable them to drastically change the way the franchise operates, doesn't mean I can't hate it. Nowhere is it written that I can't bitch and whine about my team picking up and leaving behind the city where they won 4 World Series titles. I get that it is vital, I just don't like it, and likely never will. Why? Because now Lew Wolff has succeeded in accomplishing his one goal he's had since his first day of ownership: He's killed off the poor fan.

You see, the O.co is one of the last big league ballparks where you can walk up to the ticket window 5 minutes before the first pitch and get seats on the 3rd base line for less than $40. You and your kids can sit in the bleachers for less than $40. The downtown cookie cutter stadiums have taken over, and there's no turning back. Gone are the days of a family of 4 being able to go to a game for less than the average monthly car payment. How many working class stiffs will be able to afford a night out at the new, shiny, named after some corporate entity or another ballpark that the people of San Jose will end up building? Not many. No, instead of being the "blue collar" team in the Bay, the A's will have decided to do the right thing from a business perspective and chase the almighty dollar. They will become pale impersonators of the Giants, and be glad to sell suites and boxes to their sloppy seconds. The Coli stood firm as the last of the concrete, dilapidated shit heaps from the 60's; a remnant of simpler times. And now, her death warrant has all but been signed.

I have no doubt the A's will be successful in San Jose. I've always wondered what Billy Beane could do with a payroll, and now we're about to find out. And while I will be cheering them on, my heart will never be all the way into it, like it was at 7000 Coliseum Way.

Proposed Stadiums of the Past

The great thing about architectural firms is they make like a ton of money just to imagineer shit before anything is done, so they have a whole slew of Mike Bradys sitting around making models on computers, out of Fimo clay, on drawering papers, every which way possible to dazzle and delight the eventual builders (usually govt. officials allegedly acting on behalf of the local citizenry) into taking their offer and gitting her done, so to speak. Well here is a website with a collection of such undeveloped proposed developments.
For example, look at what a wonderful, happy experience the New Fenway was going to be! It's almost as if they forgot it was going in Boston, around Bostonians. That place would smell like piss and hate any black guy who couldn't hit home runs by the time the fifth row of bricks was laid, at overpriced union labor most likely.

And scope out what they would've done to the Mets stadium had NYC gotten the 2012 Olympics. Knocked the left field wall out, extended the stadium to Olympic size, turned the parking lot into a stretching area, and then undone it all after the Olympics. And paid the Mets off in the process.

Below is what would have been had the Oakland Athletics become the Fremont Athletics. You see that guy mid-lower right in the giant colored cowboy hat? That would be early on in Fremont's ownership of the A's, with a Raiders Black Hole type guy not yet finding his way through this new sub-urban green and yellow green and yellow green and yellow AIGHT way of things. He will find his way, mostly because he is standing up now to get three more beers. By the end of the game he will be fighting security guards over an altercation with a overly homosexual tiny black dude pretzel salesman.

And my favorite is the proposed MLB stadium upgrade for Norfolk, Virginia. There is a AAA team there, and watching baseball in Norfolk is one of my favorite spots to see it, especially because I'm one of those contrarians that is all like, "Minor League ball no millionaires fans can get autographs more like old timey America when we cranked up our cars literally and women had sex when and where you wanted it and if they didn't, they were sluts and you would send them off to a home run by the state and find you a new younger model, just like cars, and we ate for real appley pies not pre-manufactured ones in boxes at Wal-Marts made by Chinamen with malevolence in their hearts. There was no DH, no $10 beer, and no dumbass like Brian Williams because he would get chloroformed at night and wake up on a Thai freight ship to work for the next six months, to try and learn that stupid shit out of him, or at least get it off our sacred soil!" Virginia will never get a baseball team, which is fine because now I have the Nationals, to constantly give me hope and then have it crashed in tragedy.

The Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum: Smells Like Pee, But It's Home To Me

As I was doing a Google image search for "Oakland Coliseum" I couldn't help but look at each picture that came up and say EH, THAT ONE LOOKS KINDA UGLY. About a half hour later I came to the realization that literally every picture of the Coli was, well, ugly. It is an old, run down building with narrow concourses, limited concessions, bathrooms that a homeless man would be hesitant to piss in and pretty much nothing in the way of modern amenities. Oh, and it's in a really sketchy part of a town known for it's epic sketchiness. And that is precisely why I love it so much. I have been going to games there since I was 4, and I have had so many major life moments happen there that it is forever a part of me as a person. The first baseball game I attended was in '81, and all I remember was being surrounded by people smoking all game long and wanting to go home. That's pretty much what all 4 year olds think of baseball. Since that day I have attended somewhere in the neighborhood of 100 games stretched out over close to 30 years. I have seen them all. Rickey. Armas. Murphy. Kingman. Steinbach. Canseco. McGwire. Stewart. Lansford. Giambi. Chavez. Tejada. From Billyball all the way through Moneyball, I have been lucky enough to watch my favorite team while having to travel a little over an hour each way.

The Coliseum is very much a sacred place to me, and that doesn't even cover the Raider games I have attended over the years. The parking lots are filled with Porta-Potties, which often times are the only functioning bathroom facilities in the entire place. The mens rooms feature the ever-so-classy porcelain urinal troughs and haven't had the paper towels or hand soap restocked since the Reagan administration. Actually, come to think of it, that's the last time I actually used the mens room there. I have a cast iron bladder and I do all my beverage consumption before the game, so I usually hit up the aforementioned Porta-Potties post-game. The mens rooms may very well have undergone a renovation of sorts since then, but I really doubt it. Where was I? Ah, the Coliseum has a sort of urban grittiness to it that, while not pleasing to the eye, gives the customer a true sense of the amount of history that has gone down there. For example, murals like this can be found at the 4 entrances.

For all of her faults, the Coli has some character. Unfortunately, character and historical significance mean precisely dick in terms of ticket sales and free agent allure. It lacks the timelessness of Fenway. It doesn't have the hitter friendly dimensions of the new cookie cutter parks and it has a ton of foul territory, so when you're a team already working with a shoe string budget it makes it nearly impossible to get big bats to willingly come here. The harsh reality is that for the A's to be able to be to achieve long term success where they can develop and actually keep their young talent while also bringing in free agents and playing in front of more than 2,000 fans, well, the Coli is going to have be left behind. It's a shame, but it's the truth.

The sad thing is that this new park in all likelihood won't be in Oakland. We've already seen poseurs like Fremont make failed attempts at building the A's a new yard, and Sacramento is somehow always getting thrown in the conversation despite the fact that getting sports facilities built here is impossible. Just ask the Kings. Don't get me wrong, I'd love nothing more than to get off work at 5 and be able to go home, shower, eat dinner and be able to leave by 6:30 and still make a 7:05 opening pitch, but they've been teasing us with baseball coming here to my hometown since I was 6 and the best we can get is the A's AAA team (whose ballpark is AMAZING). And that's in West Sacramento, which is another city entirely. There have been many suitors for the A's, but no one has ever stuck a shovel in the ground. The new name being tossed about is San Jose. This would more than double my drive time both ways, but would be interesting in that it's a city with a lot of corporate infrastructure to sell the luxury suites to and there would be no shortage of potential advertisers. Unfortunately, the Giants have territorial rights to the city and have shown no interest in being flexible on the matter. So that leaves the A's right where they are. Eventually Bud Selig is going to be forced to do something, and as long as the A's stay in Nor Cal I'll be happy. I haven't given any thought to them going down south because it probably isn't a feasible option, but I have often wondered how or even IF I'd be able to root for them if they moved out of state. It's hard to say, and I hope it's a bridge I never have to cross. It's just a shame that some day in the not-too-distant-future, baseball will no longer be played in a facility that has become almost like a family member to me.