The Coliseum



The exterior of the Oakland Coliseum, Aug-2009.

Looking down from halfway up “Mount Davis” in center field.

The view from directly behind home plate, which used to be of the hills but is now mainly of the football stand.

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Quick Facts: Rating: 2 baseballs
There were those who said this was one of the nicer parks around, at one time, perhaps shortly after the Athletics arrived from Kansas City. By the time I got to this place, though, the football Raiders had moved back in and caused the outfield to be filled in with a bank of prime football seats which destroyed the view from home plate. On the day I attended, for a fireworks night against the cross-bay San Francisco Giants, the football stands were opened and the attendance was close to 55,000, a rarity. For most baseball games, the majority of the upper deck is covered by a tarp.

What saves the Coliseum (which has had several naming rights sponsors in the last few years) are two things: grass, which is particularly important for a multi-purpose facility, and the perception that yes, this was a special place at one time. After all, there was some history here, particularly in the early 1970s, when the Athletics won three straight World Series. Unfortunately, upon my return trip in August 2009, the Raiders had already played a preseason game, and parts of the outfield grass which had been covered by football stands had turned yellow.

The Athletics had been talking about moving their act down the freeway a few miles, to Fremont, near San Jose, leaving the Coliseum to the Raiders. However, that proposal was officially terminated in early 2009, leaving the ultimate fate of the Athletics in doubt. As of 2021, the club was exploring the possibility of building near Jack London Square in downtown Oakland, but those negotiations have not been smooth and so the club is now looking at a potential relocation to greater Las Vegas, where the Raiders moved in 2020. In either case, the Coliseum site (which also includes a basketball arena now abandoned by the Golden State Warriors, who moved across the bay to San Francisco in 2019) would likely be repurposed for industrial development.


Game Date League Level Result
288 Mon 1-Sep-1997 American * MLB San Francisco 8, OAKLAND 2
1012 Fri 14-Aug-2009 American MLB Chi White Sox 8, OAKLAND 7, 10 inn
2389 Mon 7-Aug-2023 American MLB Texas 5, OAKLAND 3
* Interleague play.
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This page updated 7-Aug-2023