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.
For just the second time, the Midsummer Classic lands in Arlington, Texas. As the stars of the baseball world gather at Globe Life Field for tonight’s showdown, it’s time to take a look at the team records for the 18 games, featuring 60% of the teams in the league, that I attended in the first half of the baseball season, a disappointing one on both sides of town.