Detroit Tigers catcher Dillon Dingler, center, makes a one-hand catch on a foul ball hit by Oakland Athletics’ Lawrence Butler (4) during the fifth inning of a baseball game Saturday, Sept. 7, 2024, in Oakland, Calif. (AP Photo/Tony Avelar)
OAKLAND – Managers Mark Kotsay of the Oakland A’s and A.J. Hinch of the Detroit Tigers got a chance to sit down and talk inside the Coliseum on Sunday before their two clubs played each other. The two former Major Leaguers shared memories and told stories about the 57-year-old stadium that will host its final big league game later this month.
“It’s a special place, because it’s the first time I ever called myself a big leaguer,” said Hinch, who made his MLB debut in Oakland as the A’s catcher on April 1, 1998, “and there’s only one place that I’ll ever feel that way, and that’s here.”
The A’s concluded their penultimate homestand in Oakland on Sunday afternoon with a 9-1 loss to the Tigers before an announced crowd of 11,250 at the Coliseum. The loss clinched a third consecutive below-.500 season for the A’s (62-82), who now have won just one of their last five games.
Now only six games at the Coliseum remain after the A’s and the City of Oakland earlier this year were unable to reach an agreement on extending the team’s lease at the gray and aging facility beyond this season. The A’s have played in the city since 1968.
After the A’s upcoming road trip with three games in Houston, followed by six in Chicago — three against the White Sox and three against the Cubs — the A’s will return home, to Oakland, for presumably the final time.
The A’s host the New York Yankees from Sept. 20-22, and the Texas Rangers from Sept. 24-26.
Then it’s probably all over for MLB in the East Bay, with the A’s scheduled to play at Sutter Health Park in Sacramento from 2025 to 2027 while they wait for construction on their planned $1.5 billion ballpark next to the Strip in Las Vegas to be completed.
The A’s organization’s goal is to open the park by Opening Day in 2028, although questions about how owner John Fisher will fully finance the stadium’s cost remain.
For now, it’s hitting home for Kotsay and A’s fans that the team’s final games at the Coliseum are rapidly approaching.
“Definitely, the closer it gets, the more it comes to a realization,” Kotsay said. “As I’ve always said, you don’t know what kind of emotion you’re going to have when the final day comes.
“It’s going to be a tough homestead. I do. I think the weekend series will be a little bit easier, obviously, than the final series. And I still think that, as each day goes by, there’s probably more emotion that goes along with it.”
To mark their final year in Oakland, the A’s have been bringing in a handful former players for each Sunday home game. Before their series finale against the Tigers, the A’s hosted outfielder Eric Byrnes and infielder Adam Rosales, who were joined on the field for a ceremonial first pitch by Dallas Braden, now television color analyst for the team.
Byrnes, the Redwood City native who made his MLB debut with Oakland, played for the A’s from 2000 to 2005, relished the chance to come back to the Coliseum, where he attended numerous games as a kid with his dad, maybe for the final time.
“It’s certainly cool to come and maybe get a little closure,” Byrnes said. “But most importantly, I think it’s not about the building, it’s about the people, right?”
Byrnes and Rosales certainly established themselves as fan favorites with their hustle and blue-collar approaches to their craft. Those two and Braden signed autographs for hundreds of fans before Sunday’s game, with a few hundred more stuck in line by the time they left for their pregame duties.
It’s fair to say several of those fans, and others, might have been attending a game at the Coliseum for the final time.
Tim Petropulos, 64, of Fresno, said he’s been coming to A’s games at the Coliseum since the team’s first season in Oakland in 1967. He attended the game with his son, Daniel, lined up for autographs, and said it’ll likely be his last time inside the facility.
“The people here that are here, they’re die hard,” Daniel Petropulos, 35, said. “Whether they come to the games or not, they love this team, and they live and breathe it. It’s kind of a dagger to the heart.”
“I’ve been coming here since my mom was pregnant with me,” said Mathew Moorhead, 41, of Antioch, adding that his family held season tickets from 1968 until the MLB player’s strike in 1994.
“This is going to be hard for me,” Moorhead said, “because this is going be my last day game.”
There is little disagreement between anyone associated with the A’s that the team needed a new ballpark. But years of negotiations between the city officials and the A’s never resulted in an agreement for a new stadium, and the A’s announced in April 2023 that they had a binding deal to purchase land in Las Vegas.
The A’s could have stayed in Oakland while their Strip-adjacent ballpark was being constructed. But the team rejected a reported five-year lease extension at the Coliseum in April. The deal included an opt-out clause after three seasons and required the team to pay $97 million as part of an extension fee.
Now, there’s one homestand at the Coliseum left, and the goodbyes are well underway.
“I walked around the ballpark today,” Hinch said. “I went up to Mount Davis. I remember coming here as a super young, pretty naive guy of what the big leagues were all about, and this was the first introduction. So it is bittersweet to come here for the last time.”
Originally published at Curtis Pashelka