Elegy for Oakland Coliseum on the day of the A’s last home game

Today is the Athletics’ last game at the Oakland Coliseum and I find myself wistful about the time I spent in northern California watching them — particularly a trip I took for a friend’s wedding in 2006.

After a wonderful weekend celebrating in Half Moon Bay, I housesat for the newlyweds while they went on their honeymoon. Their starter apartment, complete with slanty hardwood floors and an oven you had to light, straddled Berkeley and Oakland, right off Telegraph Avenue. Beside breaking a butter dish and taking a tenuous bus ride up to Whole Foods to replace it, I explored night and day as anyone in their 20s who felt invincible might. Other than short daytime walks to Bakesale Betty’s for pastry and Global Video to rent a Doris Day flick, I rode the BART to AT&T Park and the Coliseum to catch games my first games in those venues. The nearly new home of the Giants was incredible, especially the walkway around the park showcasing the bay, but the Coliseum was the stadium I felt I had to see.  

On a recent episode of Chicago Cub Ian Happ’s “The Compound” podcast, co-host Zach Short said of the Coliseum, “That place has something.” It’s not easily pinpointed, like garlic fries or a boardwalk, but the Coliseum has presence. You can feel the history and gravity of the building. Of course, as a Midwesterner, those memories started collecting as I watched late-night West Coast baseball on ESPN during the week, as those games often featured the A’s.

The teams were good, armed with the Big Three, including my favorite curveball (Barry Zito’s), and wild man Eric Byrnes or Eric Chavez captured my attention. The stadium was rattletrap loud, with the open dugouts and the drums adding to the echoes. I remember watching the devastating Jeter “flip” on tv while my dad droned on about Mt. Davis ruining the stadium, and how the NFL always screws baseball teams somehow. Later, I was captivated by Matt Chapman and the way he seemed to constantly live in the shadow of his former high school teammate Nolan Arenado. I’m a diehard Cub fan, but when the A’s came to Wrigley one year, I snuck out to the plaza after the game to get my “I Rooted for Oakland on the Road” pin, like a traitor. In the years the Cubs weren’t competitive, all those playoff runs on budget odds made them a team I rooted for in October. And hey — green is my favorite color. 

When I finally attended that first game at the Coliseum in 2006, the place imprinted itself on me. I’ve been to over 20 major league parks, but tromping over a pedestrian bridge from the BART to the window, buying a ticket on the spot and making my way to a seat just left of home plate with a surprisingly great view reminds me of a time in my life that is now long past, when I had the freedom of just going out somewhere and not thinking about it in advance. The concrete fortress deserved better. Here’s my elegy for the Coliseum: 

From the BART

for the Oakland Coliseum 

You walk across

this bridge wrapped

in chain link trimmed

with chicken wire,

smack amongst masses

navigating the peddlers

and trying not

to look down.

~

Underneath the banners

and it’s more concrete

but my seat wasn’t

bad, though I would

rather have listened

to the drums from

atop a water cooler

in the wide open 

third base dugout. 

~

What I’ll remember

is that late hour when

I traced a home run ball

hitting the left center

field stairs and rolling 

down into darkness,

a demonstration of physics.