Fuck the Oakland Athletics

So today my girlfriend Debbi and I were all pumped up to go see a spring training game: The San Diego Padres playing the Oakland Athletics at the Oakland Coliseum. First game of the year, lovely weather, 1:05 start time. Their last preseason game, I got tickets from a friend who couldn't use his. And with any luck I'd get to see Padres über-prospect Sean Burroughs play (I'd seen him play in Portland last year). Sounds like the perfect afternoon, yes?

If only.

Getting to the park was unusually smooth, maybe because of light traffic due to it being Easter Sunday. We grabbed some breakfast to eat in the car, and drove over to the Fremont BART station. I took a different route to get there (rather than going over a bridge), since it's convenient to do so from my new home. Despite not being sure all the interchanges would be present (they've been working on one of them for a year or two now, and who knows what state it would be in?), everything went smoothly and we got to BART around 11:30. The train left not long after, and we got to the Coliseum a bit after noon.

And then the trouble started.

It turns out they weren't letting anyone into the stadium carrying a backpack or a large bag - including large purses. Which definitely included my nifty Apple backpack which I used all last year (or, for that matter, my smaller backpack which I'd used the year before; even small backpacks aren't allowed). They had nowhere I could check my bag.

We were fucked.

The gate attendants said this was a new policy put in place due to the September 11 terrorist attacks, though left open the question of why I was able to attend games after September 11 last year with my backpack. They claimed this change in policy had been "all over the news", although why I hadn't read about it in the San Jose Mercury News' baseball articles was unclear. (It's also not clear to me if this is specifically a Coliseum policy or a Major League Baseball policy, though it hardly matters. More on this later.)

Unless I wanted to just throw away my backpack (including my camera, my Handspring, my hardcover copy of Vernor Vinge's A Fire Upon the Deep which Debbi's reading, my 2002 Baseball Prospectus and my binoculars), we had no recourse but to go back to my car - parked 20 miles south in Fremont. Not being idiots, that's what we did.

I spent the whole trip back fuming. It's been a while since I've been this pissed off. When we got back to the car it was 12:55, and I decided that not only would we be getting to the game half an hour late - or more - if we headed back, but that I was so pissed off that I wouldn't be able to enjoy the game. So we bagged it, came home and had lunch, and went to see movies at the Stanford Theatre instead. (More about them later this week, maybe.)

Fuck the Oakland Athletics.

This whole deal is such a piece of public relations and logistical incompetence; I blame the Oakland Athletics ownership and management, the Oakland Coliseum management (if there's any distinction), and Major League Baseball equally for this. Changing policy like this - between season - is ridiculous. Doing so without accommodating fans who were not informed of the change (and we were hardly the only ones; a number of fans with bags returned to the BART station while we were waiting to head south) by having a way for fans to check their bags at the stadium is simply irresponsible.

Hell, the whole policy is irresponsible. The correct thing to do is to hire enough staff to properly check all the bags of the people entering the park, but of course Major League Baseball in general and the A's in particular are too fucking cheap to do that.

So I want to thank the Athletics and Major League Baseball for doing their level best to ruin my Easter Sunday. I already have tickets to tomorrow night's opening game at Oakland, but I don't think my heart will be in it, and I question whether I want to attend any more ballgames while this asinine policy is in place. Certainly my interest in organizing any outings with friends to see games is substantially diminished.

Major League Baseball hates its fans. It really does.

And you know what? Even if I feel less loathing of this incident tomorrow or next week, it's going to be the Athletics, specifically, who are going to have a long road to go to win me back. Because even if every other ballpark in America has the same policy, it's at their park and at their hands that I was turned away at the door. The Oakland Athletics have told me in no uncertain terms that they don't want my business. "Not ready for the pop quiz, kid? Tough luck. Get the hell back on that train and go away." Talk about being ridden out of town on a rail.

The hell with them.

On the bright side, I'd like to thank the Stanford Theatre for their good taste in running a series of Cary Grant films, as well as their low prices and friendly atmosphere, for helping to salvage my day. And of course I'd like to thank Debbi for putting up with my stewing and ranting today. You're the best, lady!