WARRIORS’ WILD PARTY
Fans go bonkers at Oakland parade celebrating 2nd straight title
Oakland went stark, raving bonkers yet again, and the raving seemed even louder this time.
Otherwise normal people had blue and yellow paint on their faces. Ordinary folks screamed. Normally quiet street corners were jammed 10 deep, and deeper.
Even people who didn’t know what a 24-second clock or a pick-and-roll were ditched work to revel in the Golden State Warriors’ NBA Finals victory over LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers with a celebratory parade.
“Go, Warriors!” the crowd roared spontaneously, as if there were more games to be played in this second straight championship season which, unfortunately, there weren’t.
Fans began turning up by the thousands as early as 6 a.m. in anticipation of what’s now practically an annual tradition. A million spectators were expected. But nobody counted. People had more important things to do, such as snap a selfie and hope its image was not obliterated by a blast from a confetti gun.
“I never think it’s boring,” said Dennis Nakamura, who became a Lakers-to-Warriors convert after moving to the Bay Area. “I wish it had been more competitive, but I just like it when they win.”
The parade kicked off about 20 minutes late. Players rode in pairs atop a string of double-deck buses interspersed with antique cars, classic convertibles, pedicabs, motorized cable cars, fire trucks and any number of other conveyances.
Klay Thompson and Zaza Pachulia tossed T-shirts from on high. Fans grabbed at the flying haberdashery as if it were real gold instead of Golden State gold-colored cotton. Stephen Curry waved the championship trophy at the crowd as if it were a red cape at a bullfight, drawing a
similar response. Then he climbed down and plunged into the crowd. Nobody tried to defend against him.
Nick Young climbed down from his bus as well and ran alongside it, mugging for fans along the barricade. He was decked out in a black silk bathrobe and smoking a cigar. Several other players sported fat cigars, too. It was not a day to criticize anything done by a Golden State Warrior, including smoking in front of children.
The parade slowed down as more and more players left their buses to mingle with the crowd, pass out T-shirts, scribble their names on scraps of paper and pose for selfies. They were fueled by the energy of the crowd and perhaps by the contents of the omnipresent Champagne and cognac bottles.
Confetti shot from confetti dispensers in a never-ending fusillade. Screams shot from throats likewise.
There were balloon arches and bouncing beach balls. There were placards and posters. There were kids sitting on adult shoulders and people clinging to lampposts, signposts and traffic signal posts.
Even the notion that the Warriors are breaking Oakland’s heart with their 2019 move to San Francisco was forgiven. On this day, the team could do no wrong.
“It’s cool to have a nice new stadium,” said Francisco Davis of Oakland.
Among the various hangers-on in the parade were Mayor Libby Schaaf and would-be Gov. Gavin Newsom, hoping the Warriors’ pixie dust had the potential to rub off. Schaaf rode atop her fabled fire-breathing snail car. Newsom, in a convertible, brought up the rear, threw no T-shirts and praised Oakland fans for “showing up when the (team) was losing” during the lean years. He drew applause that could be classified as polite.
The crowd behaved itself. Fans were too committed to being happy to be anything else.
“I’ve been a fan since forever,” said Clarence McElhaney of Oakland. “I remember the championship in ’75. My hair was black then. I’m here to celebrate.”
Unlike an actual Warriors game, which cost three to four figures to get into, attending a victory parade is affordable. No ticket is required, only patience, a bottle of water and a tube of sunscreen.
The Cal Band had a prime spot at the head of the parade and it played the Cal fight songs over and over. The Cal Band does not usually get to play at championships, Cal being Cal.
BART trains took an allhands-on-deck approach to the day. They ran at rushhour capacity when it wasn’t rush hour. Two hours before the parade kicked off, ridership was up by nearly 8,000 passengers. They all had to be going somewhere, and the downtown Oakland stations were where they were going.
Sylvia White, 70, and her grandson Xavier Boiler, 16, rode BART from San Francisco to arrive early in Oakland.
“It’s a grandmother-grandson team,” said White, who now lives in Los Angeles. She visited to watch the series and stayed for the parade.
“Last year I was very sick when they won, so this is my first opportunity,” she said.
Jenita Towns, 29, from San Francisco, said she has been a lifelong Warriors fan, but never before had a job with the flexibility to come to a parade. She thanked her employer, Good Eggs, for letting her take the day off. Presumably, Good Eggs knew that it had done so.
“I haven’t moved from this exact spot in five hours,” she said at a prime shaded location on Broadway. “My feet hurt.”
Sophie Haigney, Kimberly Veklerov and Steve Rubenstein are San Francisco Chronicle staff writers. Email: sophie.haigney@sfchronicle.com, kveklerov@sfchronicle.com, srubenstein@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @sophiehaigney, @kveklerov, @SteveRubeSF
“I’ve been a fan since forever. I remember the championship in ’75.”
Clarence McElhaney of Oakland