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T H E C O L I S E U M
July 27, 2011
Tampa Bay Rays v. Oakland Athletics
7:05pm
Oakland 13, Tampa Bay 4
WP: Cahill (9-9, 3.58 ERA)
LP: Shields (9-9, 3.03 ERA)
Attendance: 18,640
Time: 2:50
65 degrees, clear
The Coliseum, not to be confused with the ruins in Rome nor the Coliseum in Los Angeles. I don’t know how you could confuse it with either. It’s a multi-purpose venue and is the home of both the baseball Athletics and football Raiders. It’s kind of hard to believe how San Francisco has the stadium they do and the payroll they have, and just across the bay in Oakland, they are considered a “small market” team.
The gates open up 1-1/2 hours before game time. That’s okay here because there isn’t much to see. I had a heck of a time just getting to the stadium. My hotel sat less than a mile away, so I’d figure I’d just walk over. Once I made it to what looked like a way in, I realized it was all blocked off. There is a giant fence around this place. I had to walk back around and under a bridge to finally bust through. I know San Quentin isn’t far away but I didn’t think it was this close. You can watch BP anywhere but not many balls go into the stands...they are too far up and away and there are no bleachers. This stadium is built for football.
The Atmosphere: I honestly felt like I was more at a football than a baseball game. Not just with the stadium, but the crowd. It was noisemakers galore...horns, whistles, and even cowbells. Is this Mississippi State? And, it was unseasonably cool. With the size of the crowd, it almost felt like a minor league game...not that that’s bad. It just seems like it’s hard to get a big league atmosphere going here.
The Scorecard: Stuck inside a $5 program. To it’s credit, it was paper you could actually right on. Plus, as soon as you walk in, you can hear the guys yelling, “Programs”. It does crack the top 5, but I would not anticipate it staying there for long.
The Hot Dog: Miller brand dogs...if you’ve ever heard of them. The standard is “The Coliseum Dog”. Shocked? I had the “Big Dog”. $7.25. Reminded me of the dog at AT&T in terms of size but without the onions and the taste. Not much detail to go into. I went to the one place where it looked like it might be grilled, but it didn’t appear to be. At least they had Heinz ketchup. Unfortunately, it does crack the top 5 for now. There’s a lot of bland dogs out here.
The Broadcasters: I enjoyed listening to the tandem calling the game. I don’t have a clue who they were. But, they sounded good and had plenty to talk about. Even went into details about why they thought Colby was out of St. Louis.
Entertainment: They hid ice cream under helmets for their version of the cap dance. They had 2 scoreboard races...one racing what looked like hockey pucks (I didn’t get it) and the other were different BART lines racing (Bay Area Regional Transit). No t-shirts. The mascot is an elephant. I should start a mascot category. Mainly because I don’t get a lot of them...they have nothing to do with the team.
Cardinals = Fredbird. Makes sense.
Diamondbacks = A Cat. You figure that one out.
The Scorecard.
The “Big Dog”.
No authentics items around.
Views from Around the Park:
Other words: You sure the Giants aren’t in town? I know I trashed this stadium but I still had fun. One of the guys next to me had a son waiting his turn in the Tampa Bay bullpen. After almost 10 days of no baseball, I was getting the shakes. This will hold me ‘til I get to Seattle.
Gripes: Not a baseball stadium. Hard to get around. Hard to get to. Build a new one or move the team. One of those will happen.
S T A T I S T I C S U P D A T E
MLB Games Seen
9 of 31
Days
26 of 86
Driving Miles
5,171.3 of an estimated 18,735
Estimated Gallons of Gas
272 of an estimated 1,102
Hot Dogs Eaten
8 of 30
States
8 of 35
Border Crossings
0 of 2
P R E D I C T I O N S U P D A T E
(AFTER 8 OF 30 GAMES)
Runs
83 of 249
Hits
143 of 512
Errors
12 of 36
Home Runs
21 of 65
Doubles
23 of 101
Triples
4 of 10
Sacrifices (Hits & Flies)
8 of 31
Strikeouts
120 of 415
Walks
54 of 189
Home Team Wins
6 of 17
Complete Games
0 of 1
Shutouts
1 of 2
Saves
3 of 15
Blown Saves
0 of 7
Balks
1 of 2
Wild Pitches
3 of 19
Hit Batters
2 of 18
Walk-offs
0 of 2
Stolen Bases
11 of 40
Caught Stealing
2 of 15
Ejections
1 of 4
Smallest Crowd
18,640
The Coliseum, Oakland
July 27th, Tampa Bay v. Oakland
Largest Crowd
44,111
Angel Stadium of Anaheim, Anaheim
July 9th, Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim v. Seattle
B A L L P A R K R A N K I N G S
I’m limiting this to the Top 5,
so some places will start to drop off.
I’ll keep a running tab on “The Stadium”, however.
The Stadium
1. PETCO Park, San Diego
2. AT&T Park, San Francisco
3. Minute Maid Park, Houston
4. Chase Field, Phoenix
5. Rangers Ballpark in Arlington, Arlington
6. Dodger Stadium, Los Angeles
7. Angel Stadium of Anaheim, Anaheim
8. The Coliseum, Oakland
The Atmosphere
1. AT&T Park, San Francisco
2. PETCO Park, San Diego
3. Rangers Ballpark in Arlington, Arlington
4. Angel Stadium of Anaheim, Anaheim
5. Minute Maid Park, Houston
The Crowd
1. AT&T Park, San Francisco
2. Rangers Ballpark in Arlington, Arlington
3. Dodger Stadium, Los Angeles
4. Angel Stadium of Anaheim, Anaheim
5. PETCO Park, San Diego
The Scorecard
1. AT&T Park, San Francisco
2. Rangers Ballpark in Arlington, Arlington
3. Minute Maid Park, Houston
4. PETCO Park, San Diego
5. The Coliseum, Oakland
The Hot Dog
1. AT&T Park, San Francisco
2. Minute Maid Park, Houston
3. Chase Field, Phoenix
4. The Coliseum, Oakland
5. Rangers Ballpark in Arlington, Arlington
The Broadcasters
1. Dodger Stadium, Los Angeles
2. AT&T Park, San Francisco
3. The Coliseum, Oakland
4. Angel Stadium of Anaheim, Anaheim
5. Rangers Ballpark in Arlington, Arlington
T H E C O L I S E U M
O A K L A N D , C A L I F O R N I A
H O M E O F T H E A T H L E T I C S
The game was dominated by the A’s from beginning to end. They had a 9-run 4th inning, and their starter went 7-1/3 without allowing a run. The Ray’s busted through with 4 in the 9th but fell well short. Several A’s players were within a hit of the cycle.
The Crowd: I had read a few months back that they have really good fans here. There was someone keeping score on my row. Like I said above, though, it seemed like a football crowd. I think they were waiting for the Raiders to come out of the dugout. It was $2 ticket night in the plaza level, so they managed 18,000+ people. That’s pretty weak, despite their position in the standings. I’d expect more to show up. It was 101 in Arlington today and 40,000+ showed up.
The Stadium: Simply put, they need a new one. This is not for baseball at all. Hard to get around. Seats were uncomfortable and angled funny. They cover the entire upper deck. I don’t know if they open it up when bigger crowds are around (i.e. post-season). The dugouts are angled funny, too. There is a ton of foul territory. They have manual scoreboards in left and right to tell you how the rest of MLB is doing. The main scoreboards flat need replacement. They are a quarter the size of the scoreboard in OLD Busch Stadium.
Not much else to show.
BP
No upper deck seating here.
The manual board in right.
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