Following the last A’s game ever at Oakland Coliseum, Mr. October hosted one last game. It was softball, not baseball, and featured names well known to Oakland and the Bay Area.
It’s no secret the Athletics ownership was actively hostile to fans and the city over the past few years. The fans responded in kind with a right field section dedicated to chanting “sell the team”. A’s management didn’t even bother to spend enough on players to fully participate in revenue sharing some years, failing to spend the required 1.5x of the revenue share. While plenty of fans showed up to close out the 2024 season, the final home stand wasn’t the kind of love fest for the city the fans deserve.
Reggie Jackson gave the fans a special farewell with his celebrity softball game on October 27.
He got so many greats in one place, in a casual setting, that it felt like the players and the crowd were one big family.
“I’ve been in baseball for 55 years and I’ve always said no matter where I’ve been, no matter where the success was, this is my home,” Jackson said of Oakland.
One-by-one, Jackson called other players out to the microphone to share stories about what Oakland means to them. Barry Bonds, Rickey Henderson, Jose Canseco, Dennis Eckersley, and Tony La Russa were among the baseball royalty in attendance. At the time I didn’t realize that game would be one of the last public appearances by Rickey Henderson.
The afternoon started with a home run derby. Jose Canseco crushed softballs into the upper deck, with no one else coming close to racking up a similar number of home runs. I’ve previously mentioned that I remember him as a jerk, but it’s hard not to soften my opinion after watching him hobble to the plate on a bad hip and still swing for the fences like the Bash Brother he used to be.
Baseball players weren’t the only ones to pay tribute. Terrell Owens and Matt Barnes represented Bay Area football and basketball. Too Short was among a small crew of musicians taking the field. It was rumored that Mark McGwire might make an appearance, but that turned out to be incorrect.
Bip Roberts and Coco Crisp, two household names in Oakland, were among the more active players during the softball match.
I didn’t grow up in Oakland, or anywhere near the Bay Area, but my connections to the A’s and to the Colosseum make me sad to see the A’s leave. The A’s were my brother’s favorite team when we were growing up in Iowa, which meant our household rooted for Oakland in the 1989 World Series. Before that, in 1987 we saw Reggie Jackson play in Kansas City during his farewell season with the A’s. The Colosseum became the place I watched the Mariners every season since I moved from Seattle to Santa Cruz.
The afternoon ended with players throwing most of the game-used softballs into the crowd. It seemed appropriate that my nephew was one of the lucky ones to take one home.
I’m going to miss baseball in Oakland. I feel thankful Reggie Jackson gave me a chance to properly say goodbye.
