I was lucky enough to be hired by the Oakland A’s in 1980 as vice president of business operations and spent 14 years working to help Oakland grow as a sports city.
It’s a city that has celebrated championships in baseball, football and basketball, and has been home to several hall-of-famers. All of this success occurred amid confusing political maneuvering by elected officials and changing team ownerships that left tens of millions of loyal fans trying to figure out what happened.
The NFL’s Oakland Raiders have left twice, most recently for Las Vegas, while the NBA’s Golden State Warriors moved across the bay into their San Francisco Hoops Taj Mahal. The A’s are navigating a Bermuda Triangle cruise through their “parallel path” on the good ship “Groundhog Day” between Oakland’s Howard Terminal project and a yet-to-be-determined location for a domed baseball stadium in Las Vegas.
I asked several Bay Area sports media mavens if anyone had written the decades-long story of how all this played out since the 1960s, when professional sports franchises made Oakland their home at the Oakland Coliseum/Arena sports complex. The answer: No.
That led me to call the No. 1 source of Oakland pro sports history, Dave Newhouse. The award-winning sports columnist spent decades with the Oakland Tribune and is a prolific author of sports books. He quickly agreed to a writing partnership to tell the untold story of the Oakland pro sports conundrum.
“Goodbye Oakland: Winning, Wanderlust, and a Sports Town’s Fight for Survival” debuted April 11 (Triumph Books). As national sports media icon Chris Berman said, “The book takes us through all of it, from when the sky was the limit to when the bottom fell out.”
In addition to the Raiders and Warriors, Oakland has been home to a host of pro teams that have either left or are closing shop: the Oaks, Larks, Invaders, Panthers, Golden Seals, Clippers, Stompers, Aces, Breakers and Skates.
Dave and I dedicated our book to the millions of Oakland sports fans who remained loyal to their city when some owners didn’t.
To order the book and for more information, visit tinyurl.com/wyyhvv7x.
Andy Dolich operates Dolich & Associates, a sports consultancy, in Los Altos. A local resident, he has more than 30 years of experience as an executive for professional baseball, basketball, football, hockey and soccer teams.
