Thursday was a difficult day for baseball fans, as the Athletics played their final game at the Oakland Coliseum in front of 47,000. This turned out to be the highest attended game for any team in the sport on its journey out of its hometown.
With an extra 8,000 seats available atop Mount Davis, the A’s could have had even more people in attendance if they had planned better. We’re not here to argue whether the team should have made those tickets accessible, but it’s worth mentioning that the fans snatched up all of the seats available to them and were likely to keep going.
That’s a fitting farewell for the fans, who have been told for years that they aren’t good enough by both A’s owner John Fisher and MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred, who stated that attendance for the “reverse boycott” game in 2023 was roughly league average for most ballparks across the league.
The official attendance for the home finale was 46,889, which exceeds the capacity of Yankee Stadium and most other major league stadiums. Only the Blue Jays, Dodgers, Mariners, Rockies, and Diamondbacks have a larger attendance than the A’s did on Thursday. However, if Mount Davis were open, the A’s would have no competition because the Coliseum holds more than any other MLB park, with a maximum capacity of 56,782, narrowly edging out the Dodgers’ 56,000.
It’s easy to imagine how Manfred will spin this event, stating something like, “It was beautiful to see the passion exhibited by the fans,” or anything similar to that. Then he’ll shift the blame for why this won’t exist next season to the city of Oakland, possibly even repeating Fisher’s letter in which he stated he attempted. during least, that is how the playbook instructs how to handle the question when it arises during the World Series next month. Manfred occasionally thumbs the fans just for fun, so it’s never quite clear which way he’ll go.
Regardless of how the rest of the relocation saga plays out, with questions about the viability of the Sacramento plan still hanging in the air (though MLB says the A’s will play in West Sac in 2025) and the public having yet to see the financials for the proposed ballpark in Las Vegas, Oakland’s role in any of this saga is pretty much over for the time being.
A’s fans turned up, did not cause any mayhem, and simply enjoyed their team in their hometown, like they have for every fan event over the last two seasons. That’s a powerful message that demonstrates that not everything published about the supporters and the city is accurate, and many eyes have been opened during the last two seasons to the type of fan base that exists in Oakland.
Maybe someday they’ll be able to cheer again.
