Sad town, soon to be without a major league team, the Raiders having fled, so too the Golden Stage Warriors. And now the sport of Babe Ruth.
Baseball is the only game I can get caught up in, on the radio, listening now to the Giants. For many years, an A's fan, I went to the ball park often, always for garlic fries and to see some great players, but no longer. The current ownership, ironically "advised" by none other than Billy Bean, carries on in icy cold corporate indifference to one of the most loyal fan bases anywhere. John Fisher is lusting after a new ball park in Vegas, and will for a few interim seasons, park his bottom rung team in a small minor league park in Sacramento. But who can blame him for wanting to get out as fast as he can from a hell hole of an area in Oakland? A dark zone infested by thugs. Fast food restaurants around the coliseum are fleeing. I am even jittery about going out there to take in the New Ringling show.
When I worked for Kaiser Steel, one of the fifty jobs I profile in my upcoming book, one warm fall evening in 1972, we were all treated to an Oakland A's world series game. How the sky glistened that evening. And how perfect the game being played on the field looked -- to me, almost like ballet. Something about the way a first baseman jumped perfectly upright up to catch a ball. And then perfectly down.
They were world series champs, three seasons in a row. For a rare golden period, the club gave off a glamours buzz. Heck, Billy Martin managed the team for three seasons!
Now, they will be playing their last summer in Oakland. Crushing news to a dwindling fan base dumped on by one of the most heartless owners ever to run a team. And the MLB, for whom evidently loyal fan bases count for nothing, backs him all the way.
For the hard-core A's fans, I can feel their acute sorrow. thinking back on how painful was the day in my life when, on the evening news, flashed images of the Ringling big top at its last stand, in Pittsburgh PA.
Nothing lasts forever, they say. I' m not so sure. Some things do go on. But not here in Oakland -- a once beautiful city torn apart by the volatile 1960s. I will leave the details to that. You can fill in the blanks.
Really, it's not much different than San Francisco. But S.F. has a well run ball club that treats its players and fans with class A respect. The reason I fled the A's a few years ago for the Giants. Whatever happened to the lionized Billy Bean? There's a story of moral betrayal the local media should but will not cover.
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