Last call at the Coliseum: A’s faithful turn out in Oakland, bid their team farewell

OAKLAND, Calif. — Funerals don’t usually smell like bacon-wrapped hot dogs.

The scent — mixed with the high emotions – was prevalent late Thursday morning on the pedestrian bridge between Oakland Coliseum’s transit stop and the stadium’s entrance.

Sellers took advantage of the strange combination, hawking commemorative gear next to a graphic tee of Peanuts character Charlie Brown saying that John Fisher, the Oakland Athletics’ owner, “sucks.”

No matter the sadness, anger or nostalgia, everyone’s destination was the same.

After 57 years, the A’s, the last “big four” franchise left in the city, played their final game in Oakland on Thursday, a 3-2 win over the Rangers. After a stint in Sacramento, the team is scheduled to play at a new stadium on the Las Vegas Strip starting in 2028.

Esperanza Uruena has been a fan of the Athletics since she moved to the United States from Colombia in 1988. Uruena’s life has gone through the Coliseum, from a first date to contractions in the upper deck when she was pregnant with her first son.

It took a lot of pain to get Uruena to leave that day; 1989 World Series MVP Dave Stewart, she explained, was playing. The pitcher joined fellow A’s legend Rickey Henderson for Thursday’s ceremonial first pitch. Another A’s legend, pitcher Barry Zito, sang the national anthem.

Uruena spent the game in right field, banging on the same drum she’s played at nearly every home game this year.

Each player, another member of the family, has their own tune. She used to be joined by around a dozen other drummers, but this season she’s been on a team of two.

“I just hope they come back,” she said of the team. “The players deserve people who love them, and we do. I mean, (the) fans are here.”

First, Oakland’s Warriors moved across the Bay to San Francisco in 2019. Then, with the Vegas Golden Knights proving that Las Vegas was a viable market, the Raiders left for the Silver State the next year.

Lifelong fan Allen Tang, 46, was hoping to bring his 6-year-old child to Athletics games. He’s not from the city, but he said games in Oakland just felt different.

“We’re not going to be able to match this environment anymore,” Tang said. “This team relates to the community more than any other team. They give the grittiness of it.”

For fans wearing “SELL” shirts or wearing a similar flag around their neck, there was no love lost for the team’s owner. After years of mostly silence, Fisher, whose parents co-founded The Gap, published a letter Monday apologizing for the team’s move to Las Vegas.

“Though I wish I could speak to each one of you individually, I can tell you this from the heart: we tried,” Fisher wrote. “Staying in Oakland was our goal, it was our mission, and we failed to achieve it.”

ABC7’s Larry Beil called the letter a “work of fiction” on air, launching into a tirade against Fisher for his lack of spending and transparency in a video that now has over 300,000 views on X.

“Because you were born into a billionaire family, (you) apparently never learned you have to spend money to make money,” Beil said. “John, we’ve been trying to interview you for years but you always choose to remain invisible unless you’re begging politicians for public funding.”

The sports director then ripped the letter up.

Many fans in attendance Thursday felt similarly. “That was a slap in the face,” Uruena said. “He did that to make people angry. … It’s ridiculous.”

Tang said the team’s future in Sacramento also left a “bad taste” in his mouth.

Fans’ frustrations can extend to the team’s payroll: $63 million, $22 million behind second to last among major league teams and more than $250 million behind baseball’s biggest-spending team, the New York Mets.

The shallow spending is matched with a similarly dismal under .500 record this year. It’s not the Moneyball era anymore; every other team knows Billy Beane’s game. Despite being a pioneer in analytics, the A’s last year had the smallest analytics department in Major League Baseball, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.

“Like any good fan base, you have fans that root for the team regardless of how they’re doing,” said Blake Guerrero, 42. “Oakland A’s fans have always been like that. It’s unfortunate to see them leave.”

The team has bought into the community’s spirit, wearing their kelly greens for the Coliseum’s last home series. Instead of having “Athletics” draped across their chest, the classic jersey spells out “Oakland.”

The franchise has plans for a $1.5 billion, 33,000-seat ballpark on Las Vegas Boulevard, where the Tropicana is being demolished. Nevada is contributing $380 million in public funding for the stadium project.

Athletics executive Sandy Dean told the Las Vegas Stadium Authority in July that the club planned to finance $300 million of the stadium cost, but no lenders have been secured. An update is expected at a meeting of the authority next month.

‘That all leaves today’

Brian LaFountain, 45, flew from Las Vegas to Oakland Thursday morning, calling out sick from a conference he was attending to make the historic game.

For LaFountain, the A’s are a family affair. His grandfather was a parking attendant at the Coliseum and he previously worked for the A’s then-minor league affiliate in Modesto, Calif.

The only piece of gear LaFountain didn’t bring to the game was Modesto’s 2004 championship ring from his old job.

“(Las Vegas is) not getting the A’s. Whatever’s going there, it’s not the A’s. It’s something different. It won’t be my team,” LaFountain said. “It’ll just be a baseball team. It won’t have all the history. We’ll lose all of that. That all leaves today.”

Longtime supporters and kids alike stole away from work or school to be here for the matinee finale, a sellout crowd of 46,889 turning out under a cloudless September blue sky.

Hundreds of fans spent recent days walking through the concourse snapping photos or taking videos of all the pictures and memories spanning the decades. The parking lots were filled before breakfast with tailgaters taking it all in just once more.

Former A’s fan favorite and current Rangers second baseman Marcus Semien expected 10 to 15 family and friends — including his parents and grandparents — in the stands for the special occasion.

“Thank you to all the security guards, concession workers, everyone who made this place a major league stadium,” Semien said on the field. “I really appreciate you welcoming me as an East Bay kid to your place of work. I feel very sorry for anybody who can’t continue with Oakland, but keep on grinding like you always have been.”

Longtime manager Bruce Bochy became emotional in the visitor dugout. The Coliseum matters so much to him, too.

“Big day,” said Bochy, a former catcher who guided the San Francisco Giants to World Series titles in 2010, ’12 and ’14, and the Rangers last season. “Memorable day for, I think, so many people, but for me, it’s starting to hit me now that baseball’s done here. It’s kind of sad. Because I love this place, love the field and everything.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.