Last moments for fans and players: The Oakland Athletics Play Final Game at the Oakland Coliseum
The Oakland Athletics play their final home game Thursday, after 57 memorable years at the Oakland Coliseum. The team will move to Sacramento for next season and ultimately transition into a new ballpark in Las Vegas by 2028. But few are feeling it like the fans–and those who put on the uniforms–who have captioned memories of Polo Grounds for decades, and now want pieces of it back.
A Last Memento: Field Dirt
One of the best-selling extras at the Oakland Coliseum is a mundane as it gets — dirt from the field. At Wednesday’s second-to-last game, the stadium’s grounds crew were spotted assisting fans in scooping dirt into water bottles and plastic bags.
Athletics players even get in on the fun of bringing home a piece (Photo by Dave Lavery) Their All-Star closer, Mason Miller, even went as far to offer his own blueprint for what he would do: “I’ll bring some jars of dirt,” Miller said. “Just because I made my debut here.” I really appreciate it coming back to where it all began.
Hitting specialist Jacob Wilson said the same: “Being able to get dirt from where I took my first big league steps — that would be great. That is the one thing I will search for.
Lot of Dost — Farewell by Fans
A’s fans have dreaded this day since April, but that doesn’t make the final game any less tough to swallow. Fans have staged rallies, chanted “Sell the Team!,” and also unfurled signs in protest of team owner John Fisher’s relocation threat. Try as they might, the onslaught could never be quelled and thus the exodus to Sacramento, and next on the Las Vegas Strip.
The stadium is expected to be filled with approximately 46,000 fans Thursday one final time. Activity this week showed at least a few fans have tried to smuggle tools into O.Co so they could pry out seats as mementos, err … memories, and there will be 200 Oakland police officers in the stadium.
Former A’s Greats Make History on Same Day
As much as auto fans (and certainly the car-crazed current A’s players) will feel the emotional weight of a goodbye we all knew was coming, so too will longtime A’s legends. A special ceremony before the game will include Hall of Famer RICKY HENDERSON and former right-hander DAVE STEWART, a four-time 20-game winner who grew up in A’s country near the Coliseum lot.
The occasion is deeply personal for Stewart, who admitted, “It’s hard to hold back emotions. So many memories in this stadium.
The Athletics are scheduled to play in Sacramento for a few years before playing in their new home in Las Vegas in 2028. To Most Fans, It Means the End of an Era Sixth-grader who will skip school to be at historic final A’s game of 2019 “Yeah, our anger phase is done,” he says. We will, however, savor it for what it is.
Conclusion:
The memories throughout the downtown ballpark between the fans, players and legends alike will last forever as the Oakland Athletics wave seventy-five plus wonderful years of hosting ballpark nostalgia goodbye one final time. When the new team in a new town is playing as an away team, they are most at home in the Coliseum.