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Arts & Culture

Photos: The End of Green-Collar Baseball at the Oakland Coliseum

Alan Chazaro
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Oakland will never be the same without the Golden State Warriors, the Oakland Raiders — and now, the Oakland Athletics. (Briana Chazaro)

It’s not until you’ve lived through the trenches of fandom that it hits you: Local sports teams are like extended family. And when you’ve lost one of your childhood homes, there’s nothing but grief left in its place.

The loss of the Oakland Athletics at the Coliseum is the saddest collective mourning I’ve ever known. The hole that it leaves is enormous. Both my wife and I grew up attending the outdated, mostly dilapidated stadium. Over the past two years, we’ve started to bring our toddler along, too.

Recently, and before the madness of the Thursday’s final game, the three of us went to a typical home game together to say goodbye. A sense of abandonment permeated the Coliseum, in stark contrast to the vibrancy of A’s games in decades past.

Walking across the BART bridge, through the gated entrances and around the barren gray concourse, we documented the stadium’s vacant ghostliness following the team’s announcement to leave Oakland after 57 years.

Getting to the Coliseum has always been easy. Due to its unbeatable proximity to Bay Area Rapid Transit and Highway 880, it has long stood as the most easily reachable sports venue in all of California. (Briana Chazaro)
Since 1972, countless Oakland sports fans have crossed the BART bridge to attend games, while bootleggers and buskers have endearingly converted it into a site of pre- and post-game action. (Briana Chazaro)
The Coliseum isn’t the most beautiful sports venue out there, but it’s definitely the realest. (Briana Chazaro)
The neglect and abandonment of the Coliseum by the team’s ownership is pure Shakesperean tragedy. (Briana Chazaro)
Walking into Oakland’s baseball sanctuary for a final time. (Briana Chazaro)
The Coliseum has always been imperfect, but its unfinished edges have appealed to fans for decades, and highlight Oakland’s unadorned authenticity. (Briana Chazaro)
Discarded peanut shells littering a row of empty seats. (Briana Chazaro)
The beloved bleachers and the controversial Mount Davis and luxury suites above. (Briana Chazaro)

A graffitied message of gratitude in the second deck of the right-field seats, thanking the city of Oakland for 57 years of baseball memories. (Briana Chazaro)

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