This is one team whose fans have truly earned the right to call themselves “long-suffering.”
Via: Ezra Shaw / Getty Images
If you have lived in the Bay Area for any measure of time, you most likely have your own Oakland Coliseum Story (or Stories). It could be baseball-related or involve some big concert you attended there, but the erstwhile Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum itself is so decrepit, so uninviting that everyone's got a tale. I've got several, but this is my favorite:
September 2011: I meet up with some out-of-town friends at Guadalajara, a greasy spoon Mexican joint just off the Fruitvale BART station, for enchiladas and Negro Modelo(s). We lose track of time and finally make our way to the A's-Tigers game at the Coliseum. We get inside and start toward our seats. As we're ducking beer and nachos, hopping through the crowd, we all suddenly slow down and notice that there isn't a game being played because the lights have gone out. Not all the lights, but enough of the lights that the game had to be delayed and the crowd started making those bored sounds you don't normally hear during a sporting event, a collective murmur that is oddly sports-free.
Now, if the lights can go out at the Super Bowl, then they can damn well go out anywhere, but it's just another example of the bad juju that haunts the bowels of the O.co Coliseum, née Overstock.com Coliseum, née McAfee Coliseum, née Network Associates Coliseum, née Oakland–Alameda County Coliseum. When you hear that the city of San Jose (without the direct endorsement of the A's) has decided to sue Commissioner Bud Selig and the 30 Major League Baseball teams for dragging its heels for years on a possible relocation to San Jose (40 miles away), you completely understand, especially if you have an Oakland Coliseum Story.
Cisco Field in San Jose was the dream, you see. A $500 million ballpark that would be among the most tech-savvy buildings to ever be erected. The A's were supposed to have moved there by now, and it was going to be amazing. A's owner Lew Wolff had basically moved the team there already in spirit. "Remaining in Alameda County and having an exciting venue will also impact the A's ability to attract and retain Major League Baseball talent," he said — note the certainty with which he used the future tense. Well, that never happened because Major League Baseball never let its owners vote to approve such a move. The (San Francisco) Giants don't think it would be fair to let the A's move in on what the league had previously designated as Giants territory in San Jose. The league has done more or less nothing to resolve this dilemma. And the land that had been earmarked for the structure that would save the A's fans from Coliseum mishaps like the sewage overflow was sold last month.
