I have never been a baseball fan, but I did attend some of the A's games during the Bash Bros years. The Colosseum was a BEAUTIFUL place to see a game. It was purpose built for BASEBALL
Actually it was multi purpose from the beginning. And architecturally it was beautiful. The whole site is. But, it wasn't purpose built for baseball and many of the sight lines inside are not so good.
and had great sight-lines from every seat.
Not so great. The seats were quite a ways back from the field down the lines and the view from those seats in the lower deck was terrible. The great view of the hills beyond the stadium was blocked by an addition put in for the raiders during their second term in Oakland. which is in center field in the baseball configuration and not needed in the least. It was unceremoniously dubbed Mt. Davis.
It was easily accessible via BART, back when BART was still a safe, comfortable way to get around (not so much anymore).
The walk from the Bart Station to the stadium via the bridge is a long one that goes for about a block, then across some railroad tracks, and then drops you off behind the outfield. To get to behind home plate or to Oracle, you then have to walk around the stadium itself. Bart still is safe.
It was far better than Candlestick on the other side of the bay. That was a dual purpose stadium that was better for football (though not great) and terrible for baseball.
Actually it was Candlestick that was originally built for baseball and then renovated to accommodate football. The reason Candlestick was terrible for baseball is they built it facing the exact wrong way to deal with the wind. Unfortunately, the wind there comes in off the ocean through the Alemany gap and deflected off the adjacent hill blowing right into the face of the fans as it blew in from left field. It even caused balks. The deflectors they had built into the stadium to deflect the wind worked.... to deflect the wind right onto the rest of the fans of course. And when they enclosed it for football, it just made the wind swirl worse. And heaters built into the stadium never worked making it freezing there at night. It was so bad, if you survived for extra innings at a night game you got a special button
The Latin words translate as I came, I saw, I lived. The ice on top of the SF is a great touch. I have earned some of those myself. Oh and if you got "lucky" and the wind wasn't blowing, the fog would roll in and because of the humidity, it was still freezing. Twain once quipped, the Coldest winter I've ever spent was the summer I spent in San Francisco. He must have visited a place near where the ballpark ended up built.
The Raiders played in the original Colosseum, then Al Davis moved them to LA when Oakland refused to renovate the Colosseum to add luxury box seats. The Raiders played for a number of seasons in LA, then moved back when Oakland acquiesced and added the box seats. This absolutely ruined the Colosseum for baseball.
Not really. It just ruined the nice view of the hills. The baseball configuration other than the monstrosity in the outfield was the same.
It's more complicated, but that is about the time that the A's went from a big budget team to a small market team. See Moneyball if you haven't yet - it's excellent! To absolutely no surprise to anyone paying attention, the Raiders moved again when Las Vegas agreed to build them a shiny new stadium.
The A's cheapskate tendencies date far back beyond then. It was present even before the A's were in Oakland. During the Johnson era, they colluded with the Yankees sending virtually every budding young star to the Yankees for an aging washed up player and cash. They were essentially run as a low budget Yankees
AAA farm team, but instead of being in AAA, they were in the Major Leagues. By the way, such collusion was against the rules. During the Finley era prior to free agency, Finley was notorious and outspoken about how a player would play for Finley what he offered, or he wouldn't play for anyone. Despite winning 3 World Series, attendance lagged. Nobody wanted to give their money to Finley. He was seen as that big of a jerk. And once free agency came about, the A's were gutted, the few great players that hadn't been traded left as soon as they were free agents. In fact, the bash bros era for the A's was not typical in either payroll (high for the A's anyway) or attendance (good)
Problem now is it's not just the Raiders leaving, but also the Warriors leaving (who also got shiny new digs across the Bay) and the progressive law enforcement (total lack thereof). Oakland has a decent airport, but also has ridiculous crime. It is home to the ONLY In-n-Out Burger that has ever closed - ever. It is not hard to find video of people brazenly breaking in to rental cars in the parking lot, stealing luggage. OAK also issued warnings to NOT gas up rental cars at the gas stations nearest the airport - just too much crime. Try and name any other city where this is the norm - it just doesn't exist.
Crime is down in Oakland just like it is in the rest of the country. And it is nothing compared to what it used to be Violent crime in the 70s and 80s, was twice what it is today.
So yeah, it does leave me sad to see the A's leave, especially since I did get to experience them at their absolute apex. It has been a stunning fall. The fans blame the owner, but Oakland is far more the reason. The fact that they are choosing to play in a minor league ball field in Sacramento until the stadium is ready in Las Vegas...well...not sure what to make of that.
Terrible ownership. And it has been that way with this franchise throughout most of its history.
