Wild Ride

As the seconds tick away for this year and decade, I wanted to take a look back.  While I spent most of this year wallowing in self-pity and heartache, I was wrong.  This year pushed me and tried to break me more times than I care to count.  I spent more time focused on all of the bad things that happened and not enough on the good things.  I experienced loss and heartbreak, but also immense happiness and pride.  I walked away from a job that was toxic and killing me; realizing that my happiness required a much larger salary.  I pushed myself harder than ever by signing up for six half marathons and setting new personal records with each race.

This decade has been the ultimate journey.  I started traveling the world watching baseball in 2011.  I saw beautiful stadiums, enjoyed baseball, experienced the world, and found myself.  When I started this wild ride back in July 2011, I never could have imagined where it would take me.  Baseball has taken me to Sydney, Tokyo, and Canada (twice).  If ten years ago, somebody had told me that I would be flying to Tokyo to watch baseball, I would have thought they were crazy.  Heck, I even did a half marathon in Pittsburgh because “I was already going to be there, so why not?”.

This new decade that is rapidly approaching, is going to be the best yet.  I am set to see the A’s play a game at every single Major League Baseball stadium.  Pinch me because it still doesn’t seem real.  Speaking of my beloved Oakland Athletics, I can’t wait to be there for the new stadium.  I feel it.  We are getting a new stadium this decade.

Thank you.  Thank you to everybody that reads my posts, sorry they have been so few and far between, thank you to my family that supports me and this wild ride, thank you to the amazing friends I have made these past ten years, you are all so very important to me, and thank you to baseball for always being there.  My wish for all of you as we enter this new decade is to soak it all in, step outside of your comfort zone, and live your life.

Life is a wild ride, so throw your hands up and enjoy.

Why not

Oakland

I don’t even know where to start.  I have so many thoughts about baseball, the Oakland Athletics, and the future of sports in Oakland.  If this goes all over the place, my apologies, and enjoy the ride.

Oakland.  The other city in the bay.  Forever disregarded and thought of as inferior to San Francisco.  Let’s be honest, the East Bay as a whole is thought of this way in comparison to San Francisco.  I have never understood why, and even more so now that I work in San Francisco. I would pick Oakland over the city every day of the week.  Oakland has forever had a bad rap, despite it’s beautiful hills, scenic Lake Merritt, and the whole waterfront area which offers breathtaking views of the city (how I feel it should be seen).  However, all of the Oakland sports teams are all abandoning the city that helped make them and supported them when nobody else did.  The Raiders are all set to move to Las Vegas and the Warriors’ new arena will be opening soon in San Francisco.  They are all leaving.  Except one.  The Oakland Athletics.  The A’s have committed themselves to Oakland, Rooted In Oakland, and are willing to do whatever it takes to get a new ballpark built in Oakland.  Last year, team President, Dave Kaval, and the team announced their intent to build their privately funded ballpark at the Peralta sight by Laney College.  It was a prime location, and high on most fans list of the three choices.  However, a few months later, the site plans fell apart.  The A’s were left where they always were, at square one.  Fans lost faith and began to turn on the team once again.

I understand your frustration.  It’s hard.  It’s frustrating.  It’s every range of emotion that you could feel.  The worst, though, is the uncertainty.  What happens if they can’t make it work?  Despite everything they are willing to do and their commitment to Oakland, what if that isn’t enough?  At a recent networking event with members of the A’s front office, they kept mentioning 2023.  To those there that were new to the stadium issues, they were beyond excited and filled with joy.  I, however, was the thorn on the beautiful rose of the new stadium promise.  I’ve been there.  Many of times.  Until there is a shovel in the ground, I’m not believing it anymore.  I can’t.  I know it is going to happen, but the city that we have shown love for and defended, seems to be against us.  Things appear to be making progress in the right direction, but I’ve learned to not get my hopes up.  You can only be disappointed so many times before you break.

In September, riding high on the announcement of the new stadium plan, I looked at my finances and realized that I could afford season tickets.  I wanted to show my team that I supported them, the future of the team, and the future of the team in Oakland.  Do I regret that decision now?  Not for one second.  The team needs my support more than ever now.  It needs all of our support.  We need to show that Oakland needs us and we are going to support them.  The team does a lot to support the Oakland community.  I think my only suggestion would be to branch out to the surrounding communities.  With the nightmare that was the previous reign, the team lost a lot of fans.  Between the Giants winning three World Series, and the A’s seeming to not care about their fans in any way, the A’s have a lot to do to regain the support from fans all over the Bay Area; not just Oakland.  Reclaiming those fans needs to be a higher priority because this new ballpark is going to need all of the fan and community support it can muster in order to have a chance at becoming a reality.

For the fans we lost along the way: I ask you to come back.  Things were bad.  I promise you, it is worth it.  If you want to help keep the players, you have to come back.  If you want to see a new stadium be built in Oakland, you have to come back.  The lack of attendance is hard to witness.  It reminds me of a kids party that nobody comes to.  You feel bad for the players.  Why would free agent players want to come to Oakland, knowing that the fans don’t come out to games to support the team?  I hear and see so many fans complaining about the team never signing free agents, but the reality is, they make offers and the players don’t want to come.  Can you blame them?  Be the change that you want to see.  It all starts with us, the fans.  Dave Kaval is doing a lot to make the fan experience better.  I have one simple request, or so it seems simple.  STOP GOING TO HIM FOR EVERY SINGLE LITTLE ISSUE THAT COMES UP.  It is not the team President’s job to make sure you get garlic fries at a game.  It is not his job to make sure your salad has no mangoes ( I understand you asked for no mangoes, but going to the team President was not the next step).  It is not his job to make sure you get a bobblehead when you show up 45 minutes before the game starts when you know the gates opened two hours before the game.  It is his job to make sure we have a stadium to play at in the future.  Let him do his job, because when he does actual work, he is doing a great job.  I love all of the improvements to the coliseum.  If we are going to be stuck playing there for a few more years, we might as well make it the best experience we can.

All of that said, I would love for the team to stay in Oakland and am hoping for good news tomorrow. Dave Kaval had mentioned on Twitter that he has a City Counsel vote on the stadium, so fingers crossed for a positive vote and plan in the immediate future.