Tag / MLB

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Ballpark Tour: A’s

With just under a month to go before pitchers and catchers start reporting to spring training camps, we continue our tour of all of the different baseball stadiums I’ve been to over the years. This week, we head to the Bay Area to look at the former Oakland A’s. So, without further ado, let’s take a deeper look at my history with the Oakland Coliseum.

Stadium Name: McAfee/Network Associates Coliseum

Years in Service: 1968 – Present

Visits: 2

The Oakland–Alameda County Coliseum opened in 1966 as the home of the Oakland Raiders.  Two years later, Charlie Finley moved his A’s from Kansas City to Oakland and became the baseball tenant of the stadium.  In 1998, the stadium became known as Network Associates Coliseum.  In mid-2004, Network Associates was renamed McAfee and the stadium was renamed McAfee Coliseum accordingly.  Following the 2008 season, the name reverted back to Oakland–Alameda County Coliseum until April 27, 2011, when it was renamed Overstock.com Coliseum. Just over a month later, the Coliseum was renamed O.co Coliseum, after Overstock.com’s marketing name.

Both times I’ve traveled to the Bay area, I’ve taken in both Giants and A’s games.  My first trip to what at the time was called Network Associates Coliseum was on September 6, 1999 while I was out west visiting my friend Scott.  The Tigers triumphed over the A’s that day, and my one memory of the stadium is that the seats were not necessarily positioned in such a way as to face the field for baseball purposes.

My second trip to the Bay area, for the JavaOne conference in 2008, actually started out with a BART trip out to Oakland for a 2-1 A’s victory over the Orioles on May 5th.  The A’s had opened up three sections of the third deck as designated All-You-Can-Eat seats, where, for the price of the ticket, free ballpark fare was included.  While I enjoyed the novelty of the free foodstuffs, the seats, while directly behind home plate, were horrible.  Leaving early in order to catch the train back to San Francisco led to the problem of trying to get out of the stadium, since none of the gates were open.

The A’s bid this stadium, and the city of Oakland, farewell following the 2024 season.  They plan to play their home games in Sacramento while a new stadium is being built in Las Vegas.  The funding for said stadium isn’t as secure as MLB and the A’s would lead you to believe, so the future home of this franchise is anyone’s guess.

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Ballpark Tour: Red Sox

With the offseason underway, we continue our tour of all of the different baseball stadiums I’ve been to over the years. This week, we look at the Boston Red Sox, owners of the oldest stadium in Major League Baseball. So, without further ado, let’s take a deeper look at my one game history with Fenway Park.

Stadium Name: Fenway Park

Years in Service: 1912 – Present

Visits: 1

In 1911, Red Sox owner John I. Taylor purchased the land bordered by Brookline Avenue, Jersey Street, Van Ness Street and Lansdowne Street and developed it into a larger baseball stadium, which he named after the Fenway neighborhood where it was located.  The first game was played April 20, 1912, as the Red Sox defeated the New York Highlanders, who would become the Yankees the following year, 7-6 in 11 innings.

I attended my first (and, so far, only) game at Fenway Park in August of 2017, cashing in my birthday gift from the year before.  The hope was that Angelina would be moving into Boston University around that time, but her gap year put a kibosh on that.  The ballpark was… a little underwhelming.  From the outside, you could barely tell that it was a stadium.  Michael even asked where it was as we were standing outside it.

The game went about as you would expect.  With James Shields on the mound, the White Sox did not put up much of a fight.  We were sitting down the left field line, with a good view of the Green Monster.  The seats, which may or may not date back to the stadium’s opening in 1912, were not really designed for people well over 6 feet tall, so there was a lot of uncomfortable shifting as Danny and my knees were smooshed into the seats in front of us.

I would have added an additional game or two in 2020, as the plan was to take Michael to Boston for his birthday and enjoy the monster seats, but a little global pandemic got in that way of that.  Now that Angelina is done with school and working full time in Boston, there is still an opportunity to increase my number of visits in the years to come.

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Which Way To Sacramento

As the 2024 baseball season draws to a close, so too does the era of Major League Baseball in Oakland.  The A’s, who first moved to Oakland prior to the 1968 season, will be spending the next three (or four) years based out of Sacramento while waiting for a stadium to be built in Las Vegas.  I’ve seen the A’s at least 35 times over the years, first at some unknown date at old Comiskey Park and most recently at Guaranteed Rate Field in mid-September.  In between, I saw them at two other ballparks, including trips to their home ballpark in 1999 and 2008.

 

Team Name Won Loss Winning Pctg
Chicago Cubs 3 0 1.000
Detroit Tigers 1 0 1.000
Chicago White Sox 16 14 0.533
Oakland Athletics 15 20 0.429
Baltimore Orioles 0 1 0.000

The A’s, who are going location-less name-wise while they are based in Sacramento, will make their first visit to Chicago in April.  They will open their stay in Sacramento against the Cubs on March 31, while the White Sox make their first visit at the end of April.

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The Wrong Kind Of History

After staving off their ignoble date with history for the final homestand of the season, the White Sox met their date with history on Friday night, losing 4-1 to the Tigers to notch their 121st loss of the season, a total unmatched in modern MLB history.  Owner Jerry Reinsdorf had his fingerprints all over this one, on both sides of the field.  The Tigers, managed by A.J. Hinch, who was then-GM Rick Hahn’s leading choice to manage the White Sox before Reinsdorf insisted on hiring Tony LaRussa for a second go-around, and announced by Jason Benetti, who Reinsdorf and henchman Brooks Boyer drove away from the White Sox booth this past off-season, clinched a playoff berth while handing the White Sox their record-breaking loss.

Last fall, when Reinsdorf promoted Chris Getz to General Manager after firing Hahn and Kenny Williams, he said, “One of the things that I owe the fans is to get better as fast as we can possibly get better.”  He later added, “I realized that if I brought someone in from the outside it’s going to take them a year. He’s going to have to evaluate everyone in the organization.”  Well, both Reinsdorf and Getz now own this year.  The most losses in the 124 years of modern baseball history and second of all-time to the 1899 Cleveland Spiders.  In the conversation for the worst team of all time.  And outside of a handful of promising pitching prospects, most of whom have already debuted and contributed to this season’s history-making finish, very little help on the way from the minor league system.  Speaking as a fan, I would have gladly traded that year for competence.  Something that is sorely lacking on the corner of 35th and Shields.

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21 Is The Loneliest Number

Following last night’s 5-1 loss to the A’s, the White Sox have now tied the 1988 Orioles for the longest losing streak in American League history with 21 losses.  Only five teams in the history of Major League Baseball have lost more than 21 games in a row and only one of those streaks, by the 1961 Phillies, have come in the modern era.

197 pitchers have notched a win in the 26 days since a White Sox pitcher last won a game.  In the history of Major League Baseball, only seven franchises have had a stretch worse than the season record of the 2024 White Sox, who will try to get back on track tonight against the A’s.

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Stretching To 19

The White Sox extended their franchise-record losing streak to 19 games last night, losing to the Twins 6-2.  They are now tied for the 12th-longest losing streak in MLB history and have tied the 2005 Royals and the 2021 Orioles for the longest losing streak in the Wild Card era.  They are two games away from tying the American League record, set by the 1988 Orioles, and four from the modern record, owned by the 1961 Phillies.

The White Sox will look to snap their losing streak this afternoon by sending Chris Flexen to the mound.  They have lost Flexen’s previous 15 appearances, last winning a game he pitched on May 8th.  It has been 24 days since the White Sox last won a game and Pedro Grifol is still employed.

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Selling Your Soul

The Cubs made their deal with the devil, Motorola in this case, on Thursday, agreeing to add an advertising patch to their jerseys as part of a multiyear deal to make the company the team’s “official smartphone.”  The patches made their on-field debut Thursday night against the Cardinals at Wrigley Field.

For the home pinstripes and road grays, the Motorola logo will have a blue background with a white M.  The alternate blue jerseys will have a white background with a blue M, while the City Connect jerseys will have a white background with a navy-blue M.  Motorola is also the jersey sponsor for the Padres in MLB and, in Chicago, the Bulls.

The Cubs become the 23rd MLB team to strike a uniform patch deal, worth an average of $7-8 million with the largest deals, believed to be with the Yankees and Blue Jays, worth over $20 million.

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Looking Ahead To 2025

Last week, on the extra off day in the All-Star break, Major League Baseball released their tentative 2025 schedule while I was away in Amsterdam.  For the third year in a row, MLB is keeping with a balanced schedule, playing 52 games against division opponents, 64 games against non-division opponents in the same league, and 46 interleague games, with series against every team in the opposite league.  With the White Sox about to cement the worst season in franchise history and the Cubs trying to figure out what went wrong on their way back to contention, the 2025 season looks like it could be a long one for the city of Chicago.  So, for one day, at least, let’s turn our attention to next summer for both teams.

The White Sox celebrate the 125th anniversary of the franchise, opening their season on March 27 at home against the Angels, kicking off a six-game homestand that also features the Twins.  They will make their first visit to Sacramento, the new home of the A’s, in the last weekend of April.

The interleague schedule sees the Phillies, Marlins, Cardinals, Brewers, Diamondbacks, and Padres coming to Guaranteed Rate Field, while the White Sox will go on the road to face the Pirates, Reds, Dodgers, Braves, Mets, Rockies, and Nationals.  The rivalry with their north side foes continues with a three-game weekend series at Wrigley Field in mid-May followed by another weekend at Guaranteed Rate Field the last weekend in July.

After wrapping up the home portion of the schedule in mid-September against the Orioles and Padres, the White Sox wrap up the 2025 season on the east coast, battling the Yankees and the Nationals to finish up the year.

On the north side, the Cubs head to Japan to open their season on March 18 with a two-game tilt against the Dodgers in Tokyo.  They return to the US to face the Diamondbacks on March 27 before heading to Sacramento for the first time to face the A’s.  They open up the home portion of the 2025 season on April 4 against the Padres.

Aside from the A’s, the Cubs will head out on the road to face the Twins, Angels, Yankees, Blue Jays, and Tigers, while the Mariners, Orioles, Guardians, Red Sox, and Royals will be coming to Wrigley Field.

Only ten of their 25 games in September are against their NL Central rivals, which could make a difference should the Cubs find themselves in contention.  They end the year with a six-game homestand, facing the Mets and the Cardinals.

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A Half Of Futility

As the 2024 season reaches its midway point, the White Sox are a wretched 21-60.  Assuming they replicate this effort in the second half, they would finish 42-120, which would be the worst season in franchise history and one of the worst in MLB history.  But, with the trade deadline fast approaching on July 30, anyone playing well will likely be shipped off to a contender, making the White Sox even worse down the stretch.

The worst team in White Sox history is, depending on your definition, the 1970 squad, which lost 106 games, or the 1932 team, who lost “only” 102 games but, due to the shorter season, had a lower winning percentage at .325.  The current pace of the 2024 team would blow both of those records away.

Post-1900, the high-level mark for losses in a single season is 120, reached by the expansion Mets in 1962.  The 1916 Philadelphia A’s managed a .235 winning percentage, holding the futility mark in that regard.  The 2024 White Sox currently have a .259 winning percentage, so they do have some breathing room, but not a whole lot.

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Heading To Vegas… Via Sacramento

Last November, MLB owners approved the relocation of the A’s from Oakland to Las Vegas, where the team hopes to have a stadium built by the 2028 season.  A fine plan all around, except that the team’s current lease in Oakland expires after this season, leaving them in a bit of a bind for the 2025-2027 seasons.  After failing to reach a deal with Oakland for an extension, the Sacramento Kings announced today that the A’s will play the next three seasons in Sacramento.

Sutter Health Park, the current home of the Sacramento River Cats of the Pacific Coast League, will house the A’s for through the 2027 season, with an option for 2028.  The River Cats are expected to continue to use the stadium as well, which I’m sure will cause no scheduling issues whatsoever.

The move will end the team’s stay in Oakland at 57 seasons, after previously calling Philadelphia and Kansas City home.  Assuming they ever make it to Vegas, and that seems less likely now than it did in November, the A’s will become the first franchise to have played in five different municipalities while using the same name.  On a personal note, removing Oakland Coliseum from my active stadium count means I would now have eleven parks to get to in order to finish off the set.  I’ve made two trips to the stadium once known as Oakland–Alameda County Coliseum, first in 1999 and again in 2008, seeing the Tigers and Orioles respectively.