A’s fans lingered long after the third out of their 3-2 win over the Texas Rangers, soaking up every last minute inside the massive concrete Oakland Coliseum one final time. Now the club, one of Major League Baseball’s most storied franchises – founded in Philadelphia before a stint in Kansas City – is set to abandon the city of Oakland and its colorful fanbase after 56 seasons. The Athletics aren’t departing for greener pastures, but potentially – and we still don’t really know for sure – for a desert locale that didn’t ask for them. Oakland-born Dave Stewart, an All-Star hurler on the city’s last World Series champion in 1989, posed the question of the day on the A’s pre-game broadcast.
“What happened?” Stewart said. “There’s no real explanation for it. And any explanation that you give, it doesn’t cover the impact, and it doesn’t cover all the details of what really took place, for the Oakland A’s to be leaving this city, playing [in at] minor league baseball [stadium] in Sacramento for three years, and then eventually ending up in Las Vegas.”
Impact is the word that stands out, especially when you consider the emotional investment fans make in ball clubs and what it means to lose a franchise to another city. Kristin Young was not one of the over 46,000 price-gouged supporters that sat through cliché-soaked, disingenuous pre-game “tributes”, that begged fans to not “be sad it’s over” but to “be happy it happened”, and to “celebrate and have a good time”. She had already made the decision to stay away for the final game and the season which preceded it.
“Everyone’s like, ‘Kristin, you’re going to do it, right? Like, don’t regret it.’ I’ve literally gone back and forth up until like last week. And even [my friend] Tara was like, ‘I’ll get my husband to set up a TV outside. So you don’t have to go into the stadium. Just tailgate with us.’ I was like, no, it’s going to be worse for me …. I’ve pushed past the anger. So now I’m just sad.”
Related: Baseball’s last dive bar: Farewell to the crumbling Oakland Coliseum
Like so many baseball fans in the East Bay, the club has been part of her makeup from the start. Her grandmother, Eva Young, purchased season tickets in 1988, taking her grandkids to games as soon as they could walk. Memories were built over decades, including learning…