Park #11

August 21, 2005: Oakland, California
Title: “I met the nicest guy in the history of time”. Well I decided to title this post, because I did meet the nicest guy in the history of time at the Oakland Athletics game. We’ll get to him in a second, because I want to talk about the stadium first. As I rolled up to the stadium around 11:30 today, I had severe flashbacks to my thuggish-ruggish experience at Dodger stadium. As I got there, all I saw was concrete parking lots and a highly indiscriminate stadium. The only difference between this concrete jungle and Dodger stadium was that next to the Oakland (well, now it’s called “McAfee”) Coliseum was what I believe is the convention center. Well, if you had unknowingly wandered into this vast and veritable wasteland that was called a parking lot, you would have no idea that this was a baseball stadium. Until you get about 50 feet from the main gates, there are no banners displaying the team name, nothing about the players, no statues, no nothing. I was thinking that here we go again with a giant blob of poop that has been disguised as a baseball stadium. I went to will-call to pick up my bleacher seat, and I saw a teeny tiny little fountain that had small bronze plaques that were like two feet by one foot commemorating the A’s retired players and World Championships. Oh, the despair, I started feeling bad about this game.
Then it happened, an event that allowed me to rise, like a mighty Phoenix out of the ashes of baseball-stadium-mediocrity, I was approached by an old man. No, he did not molest me. This guy, who looked to be in his late 50s comes up to me and says “Are you here alone.” Well, bells went off that I was in trouble, I immediately thought to scream “I need an adult”, but instead I just said “Yes”. He then told me that his wife was supposed to go to the game with him, but had to leave town right away, so he had an extra ticket and wanted to know if I wanted it. I told him I already picked mine up from will-call. He then asked where I was sitting, and when I told him, he said “this is a great upgrade.” So I said “how much?” He then pulled out the ticket. Now, for those who don’t know, with baseball tickets, AND ONLY BASEBALL TICKETS, size DOES matter. Shitty tickets are small, but the good seats come on these big tickets. This guy pulled out a ticket that was the size of a beer bottle. He showed me the ticket, the price was $170.00. I started to say how I couldn’t afford that, and he said it was his pleasure, and that he didn’t want the ticket to go to waste. I was shocked, I didn’t know what to say. So, I agreed.
He then takes me down to the “special entrance” where these “Diamond level ticket holders” go. This was unreal, we went in the players entrance, and down a long ramp that passed like 8 security guards, THEN went past both the A’s and visitors locker rooms, and then went to the seats. All the ushers and security guards knew this guy by name, and he introduced me to all of them, and by the end of the game, they all knew my name too. Well as we are passing the visitors’ locker room, Mike Sweeney comes out and literally pushes me out of the way. It was awesome. So we get to our seats, they are right behind home plate. You wouldn’t believe it, I was actually closer to the batter than the pitcher was. Also, all the food/beer/snacks was free and in abundant supply, it was awesome. I could go on and on about this, but you get the picture. The seats were great, and this guy was a real mench (that’s Yiddish for a gentleman). He was really cool and such a nice guy.
Anyway, I could digress for a while about the seats and the guy who gave me the seats, but I won’t. The stadium itself was very interesting. As you look into center field, you see a number of levels, including some really high seats where no one sits. Since McAfee Coliseum is also used by the Raiders, these really high seats are kept out even though no one sits there for baseball. However, this giant section of unused seats really makes the whole field look small and closed in. It was really weird, but the stadium just looked tiny under this massive block of unused seats. I also think that the stadium is a perfect circle, it looked like a giant donut with green in the middle (we’ve all had donuts like that, right?). After I got to my awesome seat, I decided to walk among the commoners and view the rest of the stadium. I noticed two things. First, about 1/3 of the inner part of the stadium was just nothing, no concession stands or things to do, its like that whole part of the stadium is meant to suppress all human contact. Secondly, for every one Men’s bathroom, there are like 4 Women’s bathroom; which is quite an anomaly. However, the Men’s bathrooms did have the giant tubs you piss in, which get two thumbs up from me.
What I thought was really interesting about the stadium is the baseball field itself. Since it doubles as a football field, and the dimensions are quite different, there is a LOT of foul ground territory. First of all, both teams bullpens are in foul ground. I think that is great, because it scares the crap out of your starting pitcher when your possible relief is warming up in your direct line of sight. Second, the foul areas for the first baseman, third baseman, and catcher are HUGE. You could fit an entire army of penguins in the area that the first baseman can cover in foul ground.
I gotta say, other than that, there is nothing special about McAfee coliseum itself. It has some weird features, but it really doesn’t scream “baseball”. I mean, you couldn’t tell that the team which has the best record in the 2nd half of the season over the last 5 years plays there. The fans adopt this apathy. There were about 26,000 people there, and at teams, the stadium was eerily quiet. I was not impressed with Oakland fans.
The game itself was pretty cool. For the first six innings, nothing happened at all no runs. But then the A’s scored three runs in the bottom of the 6th. Well,. Joe Blanton pitched a hell of a game, pitching 7 scoreless, with only throwing 94 pitches. So, for the 8th, they pulled him: STUPID. The bullpen gave up 4 runs in the blink of an eye, capped off by Mark Kotsay losing a fly ball in the sun to give up 2 runs. After that the A’s managed to tie it. The game went to extra innings, and in the 12th, the bullpen cracked again, giving up a run. I gotta tell you, even though the Royals just lost 19 straight, they looked pretty good against the A’s. Their bullpen was almost perfect, their fielding was great, and they were very patient with the A’s bullpen. The A’s, however, did not impress me. They could not hit at all with runners on base, and their bullpen was awful. The A’s one strong suit is that their players have really cool names. Here’s a few notable ones: Nick Swisher, Kiko Calero, Marco Scutaro, and Huston Street (which I think is a Bruce Springsteen song).
As for the food, since it was all free, its really hard to complain. The hot dog was really good, it was grilled right, and the bun was not one of those crappy ones you usually get, it tasted like a Kaiser roll, but for a hot dog. The A’s also have a few of their own microbrews, I had one called “Pyramid Curve” which was pretty good, but I think might have just been Killians with like one extra hop or something. The pretzel I had was stale, so that sucked ass. But I also got mini egg-rolls, which were quite tasty.
As hard as it is to equate a poor rating with the amazing seats I had, I’m gonna have to give McAfee stadium a B-. I had a great time, and those seats were primo awesome, but the stadium itself was nothing great, and I did not enjoy it. Well, I’m sitting in my hotel at Berkeley right now, this place is so ghetto. I think it may be that hotel room from the movie “Big”, you know the one where Tom Hanks starts to cry and pushes the dresser in front of the door. Oh, good times. Well, next stop is San Francisco.
11 down, 9 to go.
LAZ