The A’s are one of the oldest franchises in Major League Baseball. Established in 1901, they won three World Series through the 1913 season as the Philadelphia Athletics. In 1955, they became the Kansas City Athletics and then moved out west to become the Oakland Athletics in 1968. On Thursday, in front of 46,889 fans, they played their last game in Oakland before moving to Sacramento for a few years and then Las Vegas.
“This day is here and I’ll be honest I don’t know what to do with it, how to think,” Dave Stewart, who played for the A’s for eight years and also worked under Sandy Alderson in the Oakland front office, tweeted Thursday. “What I feel is hurt. A huge piece of my life is being transplanted to someplace else. This is not your fault, but it sure hurts to my core. I hope it’s not the end of our relationship, just our relationship as Oakland Athletics. I love you Oakland Coliseum and A’s Baseball.”
To honor the last game, the A’s put together a farewell video to their ballpark:
Fans lined up hours before gates opened for the afternoon game, wrapping down the street for one last look. This tandem of fans had an interesting idea for jerseys to wear to the final game:
Former A’s pitcher and current broadcaster Dallas Braden made some time for the fans outside the ballpark before the game.
Here’s an inside look under the hood, so to speak.
A’s manager Mark Kotsay likened the atmosphere to a postseason game.
Groundskeepers were also spotted collecting dirt for fans to take home with them, a piece of Oakland Coliseum as they once knew it.
For the game on Thursday against the Rangers, the Oakland grounds crew is using a new set of bases for each of the nine innings, creating 27 new pieces of memorabilia. Kotsay is getting a set, according to the San Francisco Chronicle’s Susan Slusser, and head groundskeeper Clay Wood is taking one home as well.
Three-time All-Star and 2002 Cy Young winner Barry Zito sang the national anthem before the game.
World Series champions Dave Stewart and Rickey Henderson threw out the ceremonial first pitch(es).
Henderson set the MLB record with 130 steals in a season for the A’s and won the 1990 MVP. The majority of his career as the greatest leadoff man ever was spent with the Oakland Athletics. Stewart won 20-plus games in four straight seasons for the A’s, finishing in the top four of Cy Young voting all four times. He won the 1990 ALCS MVP and 1989 World Series MVP.
