by Amaury Pi Gonzalez

OAKLAND–A 38 minute power light failure during the game this Saturday at the Oakland Coliseum made news. The Coliseum makes news often, a dilapidated place that is not worthy of Major League Baseball. A’s second baseman Eric Sogard says that is one of the things he likes about the place, that “you never know what’s going to happen next”.

Well, the fans, the people that pay Sogard his salary, obviously do not love the Coliseum, if they did, they would have sellouts every day every night. Because they have won two-consecutive Division Titles,and could be under way to a third one, so they are winning, but the place they play is far from fan friendly. The place is a toilet, an embarrassment to this organization and to Major League Baseball.

I never take anything “serious” a player says, they are just ballplayers, not philosophers. Many times they are not honest, they give you the company line, the truth is that every A’s player would love to be playing in a brand new ballpark, a ballpark that would provide them with a spacious dressing room, instead of the Motel 6 type of accommodations they have at the OCO.

I have been covering the Oakland Athletics since the mid 1970’s, only a handful of sports media people that are alive today can claim that, and trust me, the Coliseum was never the issue back then. The issue where the fighting A’s, fighting with themselves, with their former owner the late Charlie O Finley, but at the end they were also winning, consecutive World Series.

The Athletics were the pride of the Bay Area back them, the San Francisco Giants were dying at the box office at Candlestick Park, who was much worse than the Coliseum today. The wind at The Stick would even knock down pitchers on the mound, the freezing wind in the middle of July made Candlestick Park the worse park to play baseball in the Major Leagues for decades.

Anybody who knows the story of Candlestick Park understands what happened there. The Mayor of San Francisco at that time and some contractors built that park on what was land filled by the bay, but they got a sweet deal, a deal that is regarded as “dubious” in nature.

Joe Torre was present at the OCO this Saturday night, he who has the ear of the Commissioner, but this Commissioner has no ear for the A’s, he is concluding his tenure and he could never make a decision about the Athletics wishes on moving to San José. So for me, this Commissioner is not even worth of mentioning as far as this case is concerned. Yes, he made money for the owners, but so did Hayman Roth in The Godfather.
What would happen next at the OCO? Only God knows.
Play Ball!

Amaury Pi Gonzalez is the Spanish radio voice for A’s baseball and does News and Commentary each week on http://www.sportsradioservice.com