I feel for Oakland. It feels like a sister city to Detroit in many ways. It seems like a great blue-collar sports town that lost three sports franchises that blazed trails (at times, litrally), broke rules and took the road less traveled. In this case the road led around the bay to San Francisco and across the desert to Las Vegas.
The Raiders were the biggest heartbreak. In their heyday, they were easily the most irreverent, petulant bunch of rogues in professional sports. And the town loved them. Like Oakland, they were everything San Francisco wasn’t. No haughtiness, vanity or refinement in the East Bay. No, sir.
They were philandering pirates, leaving first for LA, where the glamor and money proved an irresistible attraction. But, like a wayward husband, they came back, only to leave again to chase booty in adult America’s desert Disneyland. Well, at least this new mistress is a better match for these barbarians and their Mad Max caravan.
The A’s have a very different story, abandoning two cities on their westward journey, beginning on the East Coast before a stop in the Midwest and a final push to the West Coast. They abandoned two cities on their way to Oakland.
But once they got there, they became a headline-grabbing, title-winning franchise. Bedecked in the ugliest colors and combinations imaginable, Charlie O. Finley’s underpaid troops found young stars and postseason success in the weird, round football stadium they called home. The small-market A’s won three consecutive championships and four of the team’s nine titles. They grew homegrown Hall of Famers Reggie Jackson and Ricky Henderson. And kept themselves in the headlines with controversy and characters and sometimes chaos—an earthquake infused World Series against their Bay Area rivals, a home run record challenger who was the poster boy for the game’s steroid abuse crisis, and, of course, the decades long, ultimately failed quest for a new stadium.
The Warriors betrayal was less dramatic. Those guys never even really admitted they were in Oakland. Instead claiming to represent the whole of the Golden State. Their move after winning basketball’s big prize? Across the bay to toney San Fran, of course.
Now Oakland fans are left to look east and west to see the franchises into which they poured their hearts for so many years.
Meanwhile in sister Detroit, four proud franchises have cemented themselves in a city and region that has been anything but stable. Here we talk about team mismanagement, long droughts between championships, but never the fear of our beloveds packing their bags.
In fact, expatriates like Tom Selleck, J.K. Simmons and Alice Cooper proudly sport the Old English D and stop by the broadcast booth when in town.
We hang banners, wear gear, tailgate and attend games with our dads and children, knowing our teams will be there when the puck drops, the first pitch pops, the first big hit sets Sunday right and the first triple splashes.
Gratitude is now in fashion. Perhaps we should bedeck ourselves. Go Lions!