By George Devine, Sr.
Once more, the Oakland Athletics are in the American League Division Series, and once more they face the formidable Detroit Tigers. Having ended the season by winning home field advantage, Oakland will host the first two games at O.co Coliseum on Friday, October 4 and Saturday, October 5. The first game, scheduled for 6:37 p.m. PDT, is already a sellout and as of today there are only a thousand seats available for the second, in which the first pitch will be 6:07 p.m. PDT. That reflects the fact that the top-deck tarps have been removed, except those covering the “Mt. Davis” seats which do not afford a good view of the baseball outfield in the dual-purpose stadium.
All-Star right-hander Bartolo Colón (18-6, 2.65 ERA), who ranked second in the league in wins and ERA this season, will start Game 1 while right-handers Sonny Gray (5-3, 2.67) and Jarrod Parker (12-8, 3.97) will start Games 2 and 3, respectively. Right-hander Dan Straily (10-8, 3.96) will take the mound in Game 4 if necessary.

Max Scherzer (21-3, 2.90) favored to win the American League Cy Young award this year, will start for Detroit in Game 1. Justin Verlander, who won that award in 2011, is designated for Game 2. Anibal Sanchez and Doug Fister are slated for Games 3 and 4, respectively. Should he be needed for Game 5, Scherzer could conceivably start given the rest he would have after Game 1. Oakland manager Bob Melvin could be considering a similar placement for Colon based on the same reasoning.
Both teams’ players have acknowledged the impact of the fervent Oakland crowd in the beginning games of the series. Scherzer has described the atmosphere as “rowdy” but says he is prepared to deal with it. The A’s Brandon Moss says he hopes the roar of the fans will more than drown out some of the negative talk that has circulated recently about the Coliseum.
Meanwhile, those attending the games at Oakland may find it easier to utilize the internet and various related forms of social media, based on an announcement made today. The Oakland Athletics are using Comcast Business Ethernet services to deliver high-speed Internet at Oakland’s O.co Coliseum, which also houses the team’s executive and administrative offices. The fiber-based Ethernet connection from Comcast allows the team to support daily operations for front office staff as well as spikes in demand caused by local and national media covering each game.

The Athletics finished first in their division at the end of the 2012 season and needed additional bandwidth to support four times as many members of the media covering each game during the playoffs. Up to 175 employees already utilize the team’s Internet connection on non-game days, and that number more than doubles to 400 when the team is in town, necessitating a fast, reliable connection that allows them to work efficiently without any drops in performance.

Previously, the organization consistently ran at 98% utilization of its old 9 Mbps Internet connection from early in the morning through the end of night games played at the stadium. Large uploads of files needed to be scheduled during off-hours to avoid impacting employees’ ability to conduct business during normal work hours. They needed fast, reliable Internet service that could scale easily as new initiatives were started and as temporary spikes in bandwidth demand presented themselves during the playoffs and other special events. The team was also looking for a service that would enable them to easily add bandwidth as their IT staff transitions to tapeless disaster recovery technology and as other bandwidth-intensive needs arise.

“Like any other business, the Athletics are heavily dependent on technology to operate efficiently and that dependence only increases as time passes,” said Nathan Hayes, director of information technology for the Oakland Athletics. “It goes without saying that we needed a fast, reliable connection that would allow us to focus on other aspects of the business. With our previous connection, we couldn’t even let our staff stream away games at their desks due to its limited capacity. Our current service from Comcast Business not only provides a dramatically faster user experience for our staff and members of the media, but it is also able to scale easily, allowing us to pursue additional projects without fear that we’ll outgrow its capacity anytime soon.”

The Oakland Athletics now have a 100 Mbps Ethernet Dedicated Internet connection at O.Co Coliseum, providing bandwidth for employees and media. This is more than 10 times the bandwidth of their previous 9 Mbps connection at the same price. With the ability to scale up to 10 Gbps by making a single phone call to Comcast Business, The Athletics are now better equipped to meet any additional bandwidth needs that may arise in the future such as the team’s planned move toward the use of cloud-based disaster recovery technology, which will allow for additional cost savings as well as greater security and efficiency.

“Comcast Business has established a proven track record in supporting professional sports franchises that are looking to leverage technology to improve how they do business,” said Ted Girdner, regional vice president for Comcast Business. “With so many moving parts that are critical to the success of every event hosted at the stadium, we can provide the peace of mind that comes with fast, reliable Internet service, allowing the team’s staff to focus on providing the best experience possible for attendees.”