September 26, 2024: A’s beat Rangers in the last game at Oakland Coliseum

Oakland Coliseum in 2023. (Courtesy of Jacob Pomrenke)

After Kansas City Athletics owner Arnold Johnson died in 1960, his heirs sold the team to Charlie Finley.1 Finley was unable to make the A’s competitive on the field and decided to move them out of Kansas City. After failed attempts to relocate to Louisville, Dallas, and Atlanta, Finley moved the A’s to Oakland after the 1967 season.2 On April 17, 1968, the Oakland A’s lost their first home game against the Baltimore Orioles, 4-1, at what was then called Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum.3 

The A’s won 17 division titles, 6 American League pennants, and 4 World Series titles in Oakland, as their ownership changed hands several times. In 2005 Lew Wolff and John Fisher purchased the franchise from Stephen Schott and Ken Hofmann. Wolff and Fisher signed a 10-year agreement to lease Oakland Coliseum in 2014, and Fisher became the franchise’s sole owner in 2017.4

The Coliseum’s age, and the decade-long lease, prompted Fisher to pursue multiple venues for a new ballpark after signing the lease agreement. The most promising site, Howard Terminal on the waterfront in Oakland, did not work out for numerous reasons, including questions about the project’s funding.5 Having failed to find a site for a new ballpark, in April 2023 the team announced that it would move to Las Vegas for the 2028 season. The city and the team could not agree on lease extension terms before the 2024 season, and the stage was set for 2024 to be the A’s last season in Oakland. Sutter Health Park in Sacramento, California, was to be the home park for the Athletics for the 2025-27 seasons.

More than 54,000 fans attended the final playoff game in Oakland when the A’s lost to the Tampa Bay Rays in the 2019 AL wild-card game. The A’s lost to the Houston Astros in the American League Division Series after the pandemic-shortened 2020 season, but all four games were played at Dodger Stadium. After a disappointing third-place finish in 2021, the team traded stars Matt Chapman and Matt Olson before the 2022 season and Sean Murphy after the season.

In complete rebuild mode, the A’s won just 50 games in 2023 – a .309 winning percentage, the franchise’s lowest since the 1916 Philadelphia Athletics – and they continued to struggle at the start of the 2024 season, with a 30-56 record at the end of June. But their play improved in July with the emergence of designated hitter Brent Rooker as a power threat and Mason Miller as a flamethrowing closer. Right fielder Lawrence Butler also contributed to the second-half surge with an excellent sophomore campaign. The A’s took a 68-90 record into the final home game of the season against the Texas Rangers on September 26.

In spite of small crowds during the 2023 and 2024 seasons, local fans’ passion for the team was evident. The A’s final game at Oakland Coliseum sold out well in advance, and the ballpark hosted big weeknight crowds for the two night games that preceded the final game on Thursday afternoon. The crowd of 46,889 at the finale was the largest ever for the last home game in a National or American League city.6 The long history of tailgating at the Coliseum was in evidence as the parking lot was crowded early in the morning, hours before game time. Even though it was a somber occasion, there was a festive air, as many fans, rather than bemoan current events, chose to celebrate 57 years of baseball in Oakland. Hall of Famer Rickey Henderson threw out the first pitch, and 2002 Cy Young Award winner Barry Zito sang the national anthem.

Rookie right-hander J.T. Ginn started for Oakland. Ginn, drafted in the second round in 2020 by the New York Mets, came to the A’s in a trade for Chris Bassitt before the 2022 season. He was making just his sixth major-league start and had an 0-1 record with a 4.40 ERA. His counterpart on the Rangers, Kumar Rocker, also threw from the right side and shared rookie status with Ginn. He had the same 0-1 record as Ginn, with a 2.57 ERA over two previous starts.

In the opening inning both pitchers allowed a man to reach first base, but neither runner could advance. The same thing happened to the Rangers in the top of the second, but the A’s threatened in the home half of the inning. Playing in his second season with Oakland, Tyler Soderstrom opened the inning with a single to center. He took second on a groundout and third on a wild pitch by Rocker. Seth Brown’s lineout to right was not deep enough to score Soderstrom, who was stranded at third when Max Schuemann grounded out.

Jonathan Ornelas singled to lead off the third for the Rangers but was erased by a double play. The 142 double plays by the A’s defense in 2024 were the second most in the AL. Josh Smith hit a double after the twin killing but was stranded at second.

The A’s opened the scoring in the home half of the third. Three consecutive singles loaded the bases for JJ Bleday. Bleday’s 43 doubles in 2024 were fourth best in the league and represented about 31 percent of his 139 hits during the season. He grounded out to second, which drove in the first run of the game and left men on the corners for Shea Langeliers. Langeliers, whose 29 home runs as a primary catcher in 2024 were tied for second to Terry Steinbach’s 35 in 1996 among all-time A’s catchers,7 hit a sacrifice fly to left that made the score 2-0, Oakland.8

Both teams went down in order in the fourth inning, and the Rangers went down one-two-three in the top of the fifth. In the bottom of the fifth, another A’s rookie, 2023 first-round draft choice Jacob Wilson, singled to open the inning and went to second on a bobble by Travis Jankowski in left field. Three batters later, Bleday stepped to the plate with two outs and Wilson still at second. For the second consecutive at-bat, Bleday drove in a run, scoring Wilson with a single to left.

That was the end of the line for Rocker. Texas manager Bruce Bochy sent Jack Leiter in to face Langeliers. A single by the Oakland backstop put runners on the corners with two outs, but Leiter induced Soderstrom to ground out.

Marcus Semien, who had spent six productive seasons in Oakland before moving on to Toronto and Texas, flied out to open the sixth. Then Ginn ran into trouble. A base on balls followed by a single brought Adolis García to the plate with men on first and second. Garcia, the MVP of the 2023 American League Championship Series, singled to drive in a run that cut the Oakland lead to two and put men on the corners. That ended Ginn’s outing; Mark Kotsay, the Oakland skipper, brought in T.J. McFarland to face Nathaniel Lowe. Lowe’s groundout to second scored another run, making it 3-2.

With one out in the top of the seventh, Rangers catcher Carson Kelly hit a fly ball into the gap in left-center field that looked like a double off the bat. Center fielder Bleday, sprinting to his right toward the wall, dived at the last second, and at full extension, parallel to the ground, made an outstanding catch.9 Bleday’s feat helped retire the Rangers in order.

Kotsay brought in his closer, Mason Miller, with two outs in the top of the eighth and a man on first. Miller, who had thrown the fastest recorded pitch in All-Star Game history (103.6 mph) in July and 510 pitches over 100 mph during the season, retired García on a groundout to get out of the inning.10 He struck out two of the three batters he faced in the top of the ninth to earn his 28th save. Ginn was credited with his first major-league win.

At most games, fans start streaming toward the exit as soon as the last out is made. That did not happen after this contest. Fans lingered, taking in the atmosphere one last time. Oakland players responded by coming onto the field and saluting the stands. Kotsay, who played for the A’s from 2004 to 2007 and had managed the team since 2022, addressed the crowd in a heartfelt manner. “There are no better fans than you guys,” he told the fans. “Thank you all for loving the game of baseball and thank you all for your lifelong support of the Oakland A’s.”11 He finished by leading the fans in an emotional “Let’s Go Oakland!” chant.

Acknowledgments

Many thanks to John Fredland, Kurt Blumenau, and Gary Belleville for their input on the first draft of this story. The article was fact-checked by Bruce Slutsky and copy-edited by Len Levin.

In spite of the somber circumstances, I am thankful that I was able to attend this game. It was a very special experience.

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, I used Baseball-Reference.com and Retrosheet.org for team, season, and player pages and logs and the box scores and play-by-plays for this game.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/OAK/OAK202409260.shtml

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/2024/B09260OAK2024.htm

Notes

1 D.L. Nelson, “The Reign of Finley,” AthleticsNation.com, accessed August 1, 2013, https://www.athleticsnation.com/2013/8/1/4576930/the-reign-of-finley.

2 Tom Ruane, “Charlie Finley in Kansas City,” Retrosheet.org, accessed September 29, 2024, https://www.retrosheet.org/Research/RuaneT/finley_art.htm.

3 One of the players on the 1968 Oakland team was pitcher Ed Sprague. His son, also named Ed Sprague, played third base for the A’s in 1998.

4 “Oakland Athletics: Owners 1901-2021,” Retroseasons.com, accessed September 29, 2024, https://www.retroseasons.com/teams/oakland-athletics/history/owners/.

5 Roland Li, “Why Oakland Could Lose the A’s: Development Costs and Location Battles Probably Doomed Their Plans,” San Francisco Chronicle, April 21, 2023, https://www.sfchronicle.com/eastbay/article/oakland-coliseum-athletics-stadium-17908610.php.

6 The A’s finale with over 46,000 fans far exceeded the next largest crowd of about 31,000 at the last game in Montréal in 2004. Jason Burke, “A’s Fans Make Huge Statement in Coliseum Finale,” SI.com, accessed September 30, 2024, https://www.si.com/mlb/athletics/news/a-s-fans-make-huge-statement-in-coliseum-finale-01j8vrnhwgva#:~:text=Thursday%20was%20a%20rough%20day,out%20of%20their%20home%20city.

7 Langeliers hit 27 home runs as a catcher, one as a designated hitter, and one as a pinch-hitter. Steinbach hit 35 home runs in 1996, but one was as a pinch-hitter.

8 Sam Connon, “Shea Langeliers Makes Oakland Athletics History Thanks to Clutch Home Run,” SI.com, September 29, 2024, https://www.si.com/fannation/mlb/fastball/history/shea-langeliers-makes-oakland-athletics-history-thanks-to-clutch-home-run-second-most-by-catcher-in-franchise-history-01j8yzkegbrc.

9 “JJ Bleday’s Fantastic Diving Catch,” MLB.com: Film Room, September 26, 2024, https://www.mlb.com/video/carson-kelly-lines-out-sharply-to-center-fielder-jj-bleday.

10 Ronald Blum (Associated Press), “MLB Pitchers Threw Fewer Complete Games but Dominated Batters This Year,” Toronto Star online, October 1, 2024, https://www.thestar.com/sports/baseball/mlb-pitchers-threw-fewer-complete-games-but-dominated-batters-this-year/article_d54213c4-231b-51b7-ab75-d003ddf82ac6.html.

11 Mathew Miranda, “A’s Manager Ends Final Game in Oakland With a Roaring Chant. Here’s What Mark Kotsay Said,” SacramentoBee.com, September 26, 2024, https://www.sacbee.com/news/local/article293106029.html.