The Athletics 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, the A’s play their final home 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.”
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:
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.
