By Reinaldo Oliveros
26 Sep 2024, 18:48 PM EDT
The Athletics team last played at the Oakland Coliseum before its move to Las Vegas. Oakland was home to a Major League team and this Thursday said goodbye after 56 years and four World Series.
The Oakland Athletics closed with a 3-2 victory, more than 45,000 fans and legends who paid various tributes during the meeting. The first of them was Barry Zito, former pitcher for the team, who sang the United States national anthem.
The opening ball was thrown by Rickey Henderson and Dave Stewart, important part of the franchise. This stadium even had the name Rickey Henderson Field in honor of the player with the most stolen bases in the history of the Major Leagues.
According to multiple reports, fans lined up to enter from 7:00 am, prior to the last game against the Texas Rangers. Even though the team did not have much success in recent years, 46,889 fans came to the last game of the season.
The A’s beat the Texas Rangers 3-2 and manager Mark Kotsay took the microphone then to give a heartfelt thank you to the more than 46,000 spectators before leading a final chant of “Let’s go Oakland!”
Third baseman Max Schuemann grabbed a huge A’s flag and ran it down the field, stopping to wave it in front of different sections.
“I’ve never been to a World Series before,” Kotsay said. “But I feel like today is one of those days where you can experience the emotion of it, the magnitude of it. Driving through the doors today and seeing the fullness of a parking lot, feeling the energy and excitement is something I will treasure for the rest of my life.”
“It’s a day that will come and go very quickly,” he said, “and you don’t want to miss any opportunity to express your gratitude to the fans, to the people who mean everything, the stadium workers. Sharing moments with them today was difficult. There are a lot of people here who have invested their lives and souls in this organization, in this stadium and in the game of baseball. “The love for the game of baseball, but even more so the love for the people and the relationships that have been built over 57 years in this stadium.”
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