From Ballpark Roadtrip
Network Associates Coliseum
Oakland, CA
Toronto Blue Jays @ Oakland Athletics
July 20, 2004
The Road Trip
We left immediately after the Angels game in Anaheim and drove through the night up to the Oakland area to crash at Ed's place. Oakland is Ed's home ballpark, where he lives now and where he grew up. We got up the next morning pretty late and headed to the park with plenty of time to spare.
The Park
We think Steven Urkel has a gig at The Colosseum when he's not working in Hollywood.
At The Colosseum, the bullpens are on field, in the foul territory.
The Colosseum is a dying breed. It's engineered to host both baseball (Oakland A's) and football (Oakland Raiders), but only when Al Davis is warm to the Oakland area and/or pissed at L.A. Curiously enough, Ed spends a lot of time at the Colosseum, not just as an A's season ticket holder, but he also works there. Ed helps convert the monstrosity of a stadium from ballpark, to football stadium, to concert arena and back again.
As parks go, the Colosseum is pretty much what you can expect from a dual purpose stadium. There are way too many seats for baseball, so most of the park feels a little empty, especially if your gaze wanders upward toward the upper decks. Typically, they don't even sell tickets for the uppermost decks or open up access to them. We saw a similar trend in Minneapolis at the Metrodome with the added feature of the Twins blocking off many of the seats with tarps and curtains to give a more intimate, smaller feel.
We think we may have had a brush with fame. Not just some of the players that were so close warming up on the field, but in the stands. What appeared to be Steven Urkel was ushering our aisle and standing guard in between innings. Ed neither confirmed or denied that Urkel was on the A's payroll.
The Game
Locals put their feet up and soak it all in.
One of the local 9 taking a cut.
The game was pretty cool given the east-west matchup. The fans were classic Bay Area laid-back...literally. Many of the fans had their feet up on the seat in front of them, soaking up the California sun. We walked up to the window and got prime box seats day-of. The crowd was into the game and very aware of the action on the field. Oakland fans don't seem to be too much of the stereotypical California fan-type. They cheered and groaned with each play, if not each pitch. Maybe it's an AL thing, but it seems that the AL West teams have fans who pay better attention than those from the NL West, even without having visited Seattle (yet).
L-R: Joker, Ed, Lumpy, Mike
