Oakland A’s fans excited to be able to root, root, root at the Coliseum
Opening Day brings crowds back to the stands for first time since October 2019
OAKLAND >> All life needed was a little baseball.
It wasn’t all back to normal Thursday evening at the Oakland Coliseum — and the home crowd had little to root for in an 8-1 opening day loss — but as lifelong A’s fan James Sanos observed from his right-field seats under the 80-degree sun, “Walking in here, it just felt like a game in the middle of June.” However, he said, tugging at the logo-adorned mask on his face, “Once we can get rid of these and everybody can be here, then we will feel normal.”
A moment later, Sanos excused himself. He had to boo Houston Astros star Jose Altuve.
Sanos and his wife, Amanda — season ticket
holders in the rapturous right-field seats who were married in a ceremony on the diamond two summers ago — were among the 10,436 lucky fans to witness
the Bay Area’s first professional baseball game in front of a live audience in more than 15 months.
Their presence didn’t go
unnoticed by Oakland’s right fielder.
“It’s a different energy,” Chad Pinder said. “You can’t hear every single thing each dugout is saying and there’s energy in the ballpark. It was fun to have people back out there.”
The Sanoses may have been among the biggest diehards there Thursday night — the crowd also included Coliseum staple Banjo Man (aka Stacy Samuels) — but they weren’t the first.
That title belongs to Bryan Johansen, who disembarked his BART train and plopped down on the pavement outside the stadium at 1:15 p.m., almost six hours before first pitch. No fans were allowed in until an hour ahead of game time because of coronavirus restrictions.
A few days earlier, Johansen was part of the crew that hung this year’s fan-made banners that dot the railings in front of the outfield bleachers. He helped create 11 of them, he said, including two for center fielder Ramón Laureano “because that’s my guy.” Special for this series, fans in left-center unfurled an oversized banner that read “Trash-stros,” a reference to Houston’s cheating scandal, which also attracted a frequent array of boo birds and hecklers.
A proud denizen of Section 138 in left field, Johansen’s opening day uniform consisted of a kelly green Laureano jersey paired with knee-high baseball socks, khaki shorts and a backward cap. He grew up with season tickets, and the A’s are “just a fabric of my life,” he said. He’s collected a pin for every opening day in the franchise’s history — home or away — all of them contained on a vest that weighs in at 12 pounds, he said. That he will don inside the stadium; it stays bundled up for now.
“I assumed with BART, they would at least let you go wait at the gate,” Johansen said. “Then you can run right in.”
Opening day reunited A’s fans not just with the Coliseum but with each other. The federal COVID-19 vaccination site on the other side of the property, however, served as a constant reminder of what kept them apart. (Entering the Coliseum, fans passed a sign directing them toward the game in one direction and vaccinations in another.)
Fans weren’t required to show proof of vaccination or a negative COVID-19 test to enter the Coliseum. Across the Bay Bridge, attendees at Oracle Park will be forced to provide proof of one or the other when the Giants open their home schedule next week.
The Sanoses said their cheering section of a few dozen were scattered throughout the socially distanced stadium, but that they couldn’t resist hugging in the parking lot. It had been more than a year since they were last together with friends James described as family at a 57-year-old multipurpose venue that Amanda called a home away from home.
Johansen had to wait only a little more than an hour before his friend and cheering partner joined him on the BART bridge, second in line. Gabriel Hernandez said he hadn’t seen Johansen since the last time any fan was inside the Coliseum, a loss to the Tampa Bay Rays in the wild-card playoff, Oct. 2, 2019.
All this time, he hasn’t been able to get one thing out of his mind.
“I’ve been waiting 547 days to eat helmet nachos,” Hernandez said. “That’s all I want.” Yes, he got the math right. He really wanted those nachos. (Another quirk of pandemic baseball: To get the nachos, you must order them and any other concession item from your phone.)
To feed his baseball fix over the longest season of his lifetime, Hernandez said he eventually converted his backyard into a makeshift Coliseum, where he would host small gatherings and viewing parties. He said he once pondered what life would be like without baseball.
“Now I know the answer, and I don’t like it,” Hernandez said. “Now, I don’t care what rules I have to follow as long as I’m here. … I just need baseball.”
Felicia Hillberg might have them all beat.
Last year was the first opening day she’s missed since 1969, when her father introduced her to the A’s, she said. This year, she logged on as soon as tickets went on sale to make sure she nabbed hers.
Francisco Mendez is hoping to instill the same tradition in his son, who wasn’t yet born the last time fans were allowed in the Coliseum. Like many fans at the Coliseum on Thursday, Manuel Mendez was also in attendance for that 2019 wildcard game, only he was still in the womb of his mother, Elsa, who was there with Francisco. At 15 months, Manuel finally made it to his first game.
Francisco said Thursday night was different — for a number of reasons.
“It’s my first son. I want to be here taking him to his first game,” he said. “It used to be normal because we used to come all the time. Tonight is special because we missed it. I missed it.”
In Section 149, the drums were pounding as Chris Bassitt fired the first pitch of the season.
Amanda Sanos was concerned she’d be the only person with a noisemaker; a wood block is her instrument of choice. Her husband, James, had a more practical concern after more than a year in a pandemic.
“I was telling her when we got here, I don’t remember how to be social with people,” James said. “It’s been a really long year, man, and the excitement to be back in what we consider our second home, it’s indescribable.”