Oakland’s lineup went crazy on Thursday.
It’s shaping up to be another long season for the Oakland Athletics as they struggle to win games amid uncertainty surrounding their future. But on Thursday, the Athletics offense drove a 10-9 win over the Colorado Rockies as they did something not seen since the 1939 New York Yankees, per OptaSTATS:
“The @Athletics have had two different games this month in which hitters starting 4-9 in the lineup all had multiple hits (May 4 & today). They are the first team to have two such games in a single calendar month since the New York Yankees in May 1939.”
On Thursday, the Athletics’ 4-9 hitters combine to go 12-49 against Rockies pitching in the extra-innings win. That comes on the heels of a 20-4 win over the Miami Marlins on May 4 that saw their 4-9 hitters go an astonishing 16-29 from the plate.
The last time a team did that twice in a month was back in 1939 when the Yankees accomplished the feat. On May 2, in the game that snapped Lou Gehrig’s 2,130 consecutive games streak, Joe DiMaggio and company crushed Hank Greenberg, Charlie Gehringer, and the Detroit Tigers 22-2. Gehrig never played again, and just six weeks later was diagnosed with ALS.
Athletics’ stadium drama continues
After serving as a routinely criticized dilapidated laughingstock that rich sports owners used to force not one, but two beloved sports franchises out of the Bay Area, the Oakland Coliseum is back in the news, and it almost looks like it’s for a good reason.
Oakland officials told reporters earlier this week that the city will begin selling its half of the Coliseum site to a Black-owned private developer: the African American Sports & Entertainment Group.
The city has negotiated with this Oakland-based organization in the past, entering into an exclusive negotiating agreement over development of this site last year, but fast-tracked this decision as a result of a budget shortfall. With the agreement set for a minimum of $105 million paid out over the next two years, the city and AASEG are making a monumental deal with each other.
In the wake of the Athletics’ temporary move to Sacramento as they prepare for their unpopular permanent move to Las Vegas in 2028 — becoming the third professional sports team to leave Oakland in the past decade — this deal looks like a solid move for a city in desperate search of revitalization and some extra cash.
Here comes an opportunity to tackle both problems in one fell swoop with a cadre of successful Black business owners interested in supporting the local community some of them grew up in. The end goal is a $5 billion redevelopment plan, though that still faces a major hurdle of getting the A’s to sell their half of the Coliseum site, a separate sale that is being contested in court.
