Thursday September 26th 2024 was the last scheduled home game for the Oakland A’s major league baseball team at Oakland Coliseum. Barring an 11th hour Milagro this will be the fourth and final big league sports franchise to exit our beloved Oaktown ( Raiders, Warriors, and the Oakland Seals , also known as the California Golden Seals of the National Hockey League) and it’s a god damn shame ! It didn’t have to work out this way. The A’s (short for Athletics) franchise originated in Philadelphia, with Johnny Stallion’s relative Frank Hough one of the original owners. They were managed on the field for many years by the legendary Connie Mack and won several World Series… they were so fucking good , the cries of “ Break Up the A’s !” rang out all over baseball. They were eventually aced out of the City of Brotherly Love by the popularity of the crosstown Phillies and in the 1950’s wound up in KC under the ownership of a Hoosier insurance mogul named Charles O. Finley , a cheapskate with an eye for talent and a gift for promotion . Finley moved the A’s to Oakland and the relatively brand new multi-use Coliseum in 1968 and that’s where I came in. Along with the A’s ballclub, Finley brought his green and gold colors , his mule, orange alert baseballs, white shoes, mustaches, and the designated hitter idea with him….and what great players ! Cap’n Sal Bando . Reggie Jackson , Rick Monday, Dagoberto “Campy” Campaneris ( sensational Cuban shortstop), Dick Green, Joe Rudi, Jim “ Catfish “ Hunter and Johnny “ Blue Moon” Odom to name a few. When this team jelled in the early seventies, they won three World Series in a row... the 1971-1975 A’s were the greatest baseball team I’ve ever seen play , just unbeatable ! Excellent in every facet of the game. Finley gave out World Series rings to the players inscribed with S+S= S , which Charlie said stood for: Sweat plus Sacrifice equals Success, but Manager Dick Williams and his ballplayers , upset with Finley’s tight fisted ownership, said it signified Shit plus Shit equals More Shit ! We must also remember the wonderful Haas family of Levi’s jeans who owned the A’s after Finley and provided excellent and generous stewardship of the ballclub and the 1989 World Series earthquake championship. A collection of fine broadcasters called the Oakland A’s games over the years, the best being Lon Simmons, Bill King, and Ken Korach… recall also the late Dick Callahan, , the classy PA announcer for the A’s and the Warriors. Served Dick many scotch and sodas at Petar’s in Lafayette. Dick succeeded “The Voice Of God” Roy Steele , perhaps the greatest public address announcer of all time. Today’s A’s announcers at the ballpark and on TV are mediocre at best, so sayonara !…memories are now surfacing…going to the Coliseum that first ’68 season with Dave McCullough or Brett Smith ( if memory serves) and the late Bob Nelson from the band Beggar’s Opera ( I was schooling Bob on band management or mismanagement if you prefer)…we were longhairs watching the All American pastime of baseball. Going to games with Johnny Stallion and Rick May and watching the spectacular rookie southpaw fireballer Vida Blue , fresh from Louisiana , warming up in the bullpen throwing blue smoke…There were one dollar admission nights on Mondays that drew 50,000 fans… Finley hired a couple buxom and busty teenage blondie chicks as “ball girls” to sit on each side of the field and retrieve errant foul baseballs. You betcha every red-blooded male’s eyes were glued to those jiggles… at a “ turn back the clock” night in the 80’s featuring cheap beer, Krazy George, a bizarro hippie cheerleader wearing t shirt and cutoffs and banging a tom tom drum climbed to the top of the scoreboard to get the fervor started, later a drunk fell from the third deck to the second and survived ! Krazy George originated “The Wave” for better or worse. So many memories of the A’s and the Coliseum. The late great Cab Calloway singing Minnie The Moocher during the 7th inning stretch with the crowd singing “ Hidy hidy hidy de Ho” to the call and response…so much hipper than cornball anthems like God Bless America or Take Me Out To the Ballgame ! I approached Cab’s daughter and expressed my admiration for her dad . having recently read a biography of Cabell Calloway at the time. If anyone called him the N-word he’d automatically punch ‘em in the chops. I was even a beer vendor there in 1986 ,the last year of legal beer vending in the stands in California. Now I’m loyal to the San Francisco Giants as a fan. After 56 years in Oakland and so many great players, it will be strange and very sad without the A’s and their loyal fans who deserved so much better than a greedy no-class scumbag owner gave them…Viewing on TV these last couple games, I was saddened for the young kids cheering on their hometown team , only to have them depart for Sacto or Vegas. One small redemption for yours truly : the pride of seeing an A’s hitter stride to the plate with the letters OAKLAND across his chest, if only for the last time.
Lotsa Jabs and Punches + Slings and Arrows : From Russ Yarrow’s Substack Blog, Just Exactly Perfect comes the tale of Trump screwing a Chicago beer brewer on a business deal, so the brewery came out with a product Chinga Tu Pelo ( Fuck your hair ! ) with a depiction of the Donald’s phony hair-do on the cans …heh heh heh heh heh !… another assassination attempt on Donny, the would be gunman hidden in trees on Trump’s golf course with a rifle… Secret Service on the job saved the day … Brittany Mahomes ( Patrick’s wife) is back in Taylor Swift’s KC luxury box after she dropped her support of the Trump campaign…who really gives a damn ?…speaking of football, I am now hating NFL Red Zone, a premium channel I’ve subscribed to for years which used to be great, showing all touchdown plays on a given Sunday…now the have “ Multiview” which has double, triple, and quadruple boxes televised simultaneously… I wanna watch one fucking play at a time ! who is the Multiview bullshit aimed at ? …video game Gen Z kids who are now degenerate gamblers thanks to on-line gambling interests that have bought out pro sports? How the fuck can you watch two three or four plays at once ? A major irritating distraction of the one game I’m trying to watch...a taste of sports fan hell… Watched the KQED San Francisco Mayoral debate last week, despite me having no vote …I lived in Frisco for ten years and worked in The City for maybe 35 years, as a bartender, cabbie, actor, and street vendor… there were five candidates including ineffectual incumbent Breed, once Farrell and Lurie bragged of collaborating with the late Mayor Dirty Ed Lee I was turned off to them. I thought the ineptly amateurish Daniel Lurie, a very rich Levi’s heir would be incorruptible, but he would be a dismal failure in that job IMHO that leaves Supervisors Aaron Peskin and Asha Safai , both who acquitted themselves very well in the debate , but are they electable ? The likeable Peskin was once on CBS Sixty Minutes after coming out of the Bay as a Dolphin Club swimmer. He revealed his super hairy , “missing link” upper body in that segment. Soon after, I was driving through the alley behind Gino And Carlo’s in North Beach as Aaron was walking by . I quizzed him about what he was doing about Uber and told him to keep his shirt on in front of a camera… NYC is even more corrupt than SF with that city’s mayor on the hotseat with the disgraced bum of a former NY Guv Cuomo angling for the gig…you can’t make that shit up !…All American Greed and Gluttony : before and after corporate raiders exploited and gutted the Red Lobster seafood restaurant chain they initiated an all day-everyday policy of “$20. All the Shrimp You Can Eat” and the American piggies came out in force, many eating over a hundred shrimp at a sitting and sneaking in Tupperware to take extras home. a nightmare for cooks and servers who quit in droves. A Red Lobster manager hired 17 servers one day , everybody who answered the ad , and none showed up for work the next day. It wasn’t long afterwards the promotion bankrupted the chain and the Corporate villains could’ve cared less… like I said before, you can’t make this shit up !… I waited several months on the Fairfax library for my turn to come up to borrow a copy of Farewell, Amethystine by Walter Mosley, an Easy Rawlins detective novel. I realized reading the first pages that I have read upwards of forty of Mosley’s book over the past thirty years and totally love the Easy Rawlins series, just a small portion of Mosley’s total output as an author… zipped through the 300 pager in a few days the savored the last few chapters over a week. Ezekiel “Easy” Rawlins is an African American Private Eye in 1970 Los Angeles in this novel laced with LAPD racism of the era, a beautiful dame and some murders. The Easy Rawlins series original, Devil in a Blue Dress, set in 1948 LA was adapted into a great Carl Franklin directed movie starring Denzel Washington as Easy and Don Cheadle as his deadly pal, Mouse. I envision Washington as Easy and Cheadle as Mouse when reading Farewell Amethystine (or any Easy Rawlins novel) which also resurrected a great Mosley character Fearless Jones. Loved this book ! I once met Mosley at SF’s Mystery Book Store on 24th St. ( now defunct) and he signed my copy of his RL’s Dream about an aged Bluesman aided by a young white girl. I told Walter “ Thanks for all the reading pleasure !”…Sadly, Soul singer extraordinaire Frankie Beverly of Frankie Beverly and Maze has moved on at 77. When we both lived in Lafayette California in the 80’s and I worked part time at a liquor store on Moraga Road, Frankie came in and I sold him a rare, obscure bottle of French Cognac. He was a real nice guy, a soft spoken gentleman. Rest In Peace.
Mighty Bonanza of Autumnal Viewing : To Kill A Mockingbird(1962) From the Pulitzer Prize ( PULL-it-sir ! ) winning novel by Harper Lee and adapted screenplay by Horton Foote and starring Gregory Peck as Atticus Finch ( both awarded Oscars for this effort) , a small town Southern lawyer in a racially charged trial. A powerful classic film and a joy to revisit, especially in light of today’s schlocky overdone movie offerings… Days Of Heaven (1978) Winner of an Oscar for cinematography, the Terence Malick directed fantasy of hard times , romance, and greed is a little bit fascinating …starring Richard Gere , Sam Shepard, and Brooke Adams in a love triangle that is a subtly morbid and twisted. something a little different for an American movie… The Steel Trap (1952) the great Joseph Cotton as a bank vice prez who figures a way to heist a million cash from the vault at closing time on a Friday and flee to Brazil ( no extradition treaty) over the weekend with his loyal unsuspecting wife( Teresa Wright). The suspense builds to a high pitch as we cheer for Cotton to get away with his totally implausible caper, but we are sucked in anyway and entertained to this well made yarn…The Cincinnati Kid ( 1965) Norman Jewison’s masterpiece of 1930’s New Orleans and the unofficial 5 Card Stud poker Championship of the World. This is one of my very favorites, seen it at least 20 times and never tire of it, an old faithful friend. I view it as a perfect picture and what makes it so? The African American funeral march and second line dance over the opening credits , perhaps the greatest film opening of all times, the photography, writing ( Terry Southern, Ring Lardner Jr. of a Richard Jessup novel), editing, and the very best of acting… stars Steve McQueen and an aging Edward G. Robinson bring their AAAA games as Stud Poker masters in a high stakes contest. Their facial, vocal work and eye movements are the highest quality the thespian art has to offer an audience. Add character actors Cab Calloway, Karl Malden, Jeff Corey the acting master coach, Dub Taylor, Joan Blondell, Rip Torn, and Jack Weston to sexpots Tuesday Weld and Ann-Margret and you’ve got a dynamite cast. Close the picture with Ray Charles singing the title song as credits roll , and to me, it’s Hollywood storytelling perfection…Above Suspicion(1943) Joan Crawford and Fred MacMurray as newlyweds on a Euro honeymoon but engaged by British Intelligence to spy on German Nazis on the side in 1939. Kind of a ridiculous premise, but after Double Indemnity and Caine Mutiny, I’ll watch the great Fred in most anything. One thing intrigues me, in 1943 the free world was aware of Dachau concentration camp, if not the atrocities performed there, and yet the camps weren’t liberated until 1945, after six million had perished. We must never forget or allow a repeat… Streaming : 60 Minutes the venerable CBS news magazine of more than a half century returned to air with an exposé of corporate misdoing and the usual intriguing and engaging subject matter well presented…Stopping The Steal (2024) a documentary of Trump’s attempt to subvert and reverse the 2020 election results and his crew of horrid and repulsive lawyers and spokespeople all lying through their teeth… ugggh ! …Van Der Valk ( Season 4 PBS Masterpiece) A tough no nonsense Amsterdam police detective Pieter Van Der Valk and his sexy Lesbo partner Lucienne ( played by Marc Warren and Maimie McCoy, Brits going Dutch). Well done entertainment in the PBS Masterpiece mold. 60 Minutes and Van Der Valk make for a pleasant Sunday evening.
Songs Of The Day :
Celebration - Kool And The Gang
Before I Let Go- Frankie Beverly and Maze
Everybody Got to Change Sometime- Sleepy John Estes
West Side Baby- T-Bone Walker
Shapes Of Things- The Yardbirds
( all on YouTube)