Liberal Arts Blog — Oakland, CA — Ghost Town (The Golden Seals, The Raiders, Golden State Warriors, The As)
Liberal Arts Blog — Saturday is Sports, Dance, Fitness, and All Things Physical Day
Today’s Topic: Oakland, CA — Ghost Town (the Golden Seals, the Raiders, Golden State Warriors, the As)
Last time, a farewell to Raphael Nadal. Two weeks ago, the phenomenal rookie quarterback for the Washington Commanders, Jayden Daniels. Three weeks ago, the Dodgers and the Yankees. Today, a trip to Oakland, CA.
As of September 24, 2024 Oakland, CA is a ghost town of major professional sports teams.
That’s the day the Oakland Athletics (“A’s”), with 9 World Series, the second highest in the American League after the Yankees, played their last game at Oakland Coliseum. For the 2025–7 season their temporary home will be Sutter Health Field in West Sacramento before moving to their permanent home in Las Vegas.
This is the fourth time since 1976 that a major league sports team has abandoned Oakland.
Their National Hockey League (NHL) team (the Golden Seals) left in 1976 to become the Cleveland Barons. The National Basket Ball (NBA) team, the Golden State Warriors moved to San Francisco in 2019. The National Football League (NFL) team, the Raiders, left in 2020 to go to Las Vegas.
Today, a farewell to the A’s, the Raiders, and the Golden State Warriors. Were you ever a fan of one of these?
Experts — please chime in. Correct, elaborate, elucidate.
THE ATHLETICS — started as the Philadelphia Athletics in 1901, winning five World Series (1910,1911,1913, 1929,1930) Below: Reggie Jackson (#9), Mark McGwire (#25), Rickey Henderson #24), Jose Canseco (#33)
1. “The team’s owner and manager for its first 50 years was Connie Mack, and Hall of Fame players included Chief Bender, Frank “Home Run” Baker, Jimmie Foxx, and Lefty Grove.”
2. “The team left Philadelphia for Kansas City in 1955 and became the Kansas City Athletics before moving to Oakland in 1968.”
3. “Nicknamed the “Swingin’ A’s,” under owner Charlie O. Finley they won three consecutive World Series in 1972, 1973, and 1974, led by players Vida Blue, Catfish Hunter, Reggie Jackson and Rollie Fingers.”
NB: “After being sold by Finley to Walter A. Haas Jr., the team won three consecutive pennants and the 1989 World Series under the “Bash Brothers,” Jose Canseco and Mark McGwire, as well as Hall of Famers Dennis Eckersley, Rickey Henderson, and manager Tony La Russa.” “In 2002, the Athletics set the record for most consecutive wins in a season with twenty, an even that would go on to be the pioneering step in the application of sabermetrics in baseball.”
THE OAKLAND RAIDERS (NFL) — Based in Oakland from 1960–1981 and then again from 1995 to 2019; Super Bowl Champions in 1976 and 1980. In Los Angeles from 1982–1994 when won the Super Bowl again in 1983. The Raiders have played in Las Vegas since 2020. (Below Al Davis and John Madden)
1. Al Davis (1929–2011) was “the only executive in NFL history to be an assistant coach, head coach, general manager, commissioner, and owner.” He was the “de facto general manager” for 39 years.
2. ”The franchise enjoyed their greatest successes during the 1970s and 1980s where they were perennial playoff contenders and won three Super Bowl titles.”
3. “Davis was active in civil rights, refusing to allow the Raiders to play in any city where black and white players had to stay in separate hotels. He was the first NFL owner in the modern era to hire a black head coach (Art Shell), the first to hire a female chief executive (Amy Trask), and the first NFL owner to hire a Latino head coach (Tom Flores).”
NB: John Madden (1936–2021) was head coach of the Raiders from 1968–1979 having been the Raiders’ linebacker coach from 1967–8). He led the Raiders to their first Super Bowl victory in 1976. Tom Flores (1937 — ) played for the Raiders from 1960 to 1966 and was the first minority head coach in professional football history to win a Super Bowl (in 1981 for the Oakland Raider). He won again in 1984 leading the Los Angeles Raiders).
THE GOLDEN STATE WARRIORS — started in Philadelphia in 1946, played in Oakland from 1971 to 2019, when they moved to San Francisco. Below: Draymond Green, Klay Thompson, Stephen Curry
1. Wilt Chamberlain played for the Philadelphia Warriors for five and a half years before they moved to Oakland.
2. In May 2015, Stephen Curry won the NBA Most Valuable Player Award — the first time for a Warrior since Wilt Chamberlain in 1960.
3. The foundation of the “Golden State Warrior dynasty” has been the trio of Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson, and Draymond Green.
NB: The Warriors reached five consecutive NBA finals between 2015 and 2019.
Golden State Warriors — Wikipedia
QUOTE OF THE MONTH
“Make your own Bible. Select and collect all the words and sentences that in all your readings have been to you like the blast of a trumpet.”
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
My spin — then periodically review, re-rank, and exchange your list with those you love. I call this the “Orion Exchange” because seven is about as many as any human can digest at a time. Game?
For the last four years of posts organized by theme:
PDF with headlines — Google Drive
ATTACHMENTS BELOW:
#1 A graphic guide to justice (9 metaphors on one page).
#2 “39 Songs, Prayers, and Poems: the Keys to the Hearts of Seven Billion People” — Adams House Senior Common Room Presentation, (11/17/20)
YOUR TURN
Please share the coolest thing you learned this week related to sports, dance, fitness. Or the coolest thing you learned about Sports, Dance, of Fitness in your life — whether on the field, on the dance floor or in the gym, whether from a coach, a parent, a friend, or just your own experimentation.
This is your chance to make someone else’s day. Or even change their life. It’s perhaps a chance to put into words something you have never articulated before. And to cement in your own memory something cool you might otherwise forget. Or to think more deeply than otherwise about something dear to your heart.
