Father’s Day in conjunction with Athletics relocation hits home with wave of nostalgia

OAKLAND — The sun was out, there was a decent-sized crowd and even the specter of the Athletics’ intention to vacate Oakland for Las Vegas following the 2024 season couldn’t ruin the atmosphere of spending Father’s Day Sunday at the Coliseum.

The concourse was filled with fans, hundreds of fathers with their sons and daughters, many wearing A’s Hawaiian shirts as part of a giveaway that helped fuel an attendance figure of 24,326. Many were still around after it was over, with families afforded the opportunity to run the bases.

The bottom line is the Athletics lost 3-2 to the Philadelphia Phillies for a series sweep and their fifth straight loss.

Yet there are worse ways to spend a summer day.

“Beautiful day, big crowd, a lot of energy,” catcher Shea Langeliers said. “That kind of atmosphere is always a lot of fun.”

If you didn’t know any better and ignored the signs critical of management in right field and the occasional chants of “sell the team” it would be like any other afternoon at the yard. Fans were in good enough spirits to even break out “The Wave” in the eighth inning of the Athletics’ latest loss.

But now there’s a deadline attached, and unless the A’s happen to be at home in 2024 on Father’s Day, it could be the last game of its kind in Oakland.

Rick Nishijima, an East Bay resident, came to the game with his now-adult daughter Michelle, something they’ve been doing for more than a decade.

“I’m very sad that my oldest daughter can’t come to A’s games with her friends and relive being here and relive all the moments of getting here for tailgating, seeing great players, seeing true fans that come and sit in the seats and watch the games,” Nishijima said.

The arrival of Father’s Day, coming as it did on the weekend following the “reverse boycott” and the club’s agreement to move to Las Vegas, had some A’s players reminiscing about their own experiences with their fathers and how their lives were shaped by a sport that became their passion.

Pitcher James Kaprielian, who attended Angels games with his father Doug while growing up in Orange County, urged fans to put aside whatever animosity exists with A’s ownership and concentrate on what remains.

“Whenever I didn’t have baseball practice or football practice it was, `Hey, let’s go to a baseball game tonight,’ ” Kaprielian said. “The memories and joy you get from going to a baseball game as a young kid, it gives me chills thinking about it.

“I think the biggest thing I would encourage fans to do now is bring your kid and come to the game because you’ve got to enjoy it while it’s here and it’s not going to be here forever. I hate to see it taken away but you’ve got to enjoy it while you have it. Squeeze every drop of juice out of it that you can.”

A perfect game pitched by Dallas Braden on Mother’s Day in 2010 in the presence of the grandmother who raised him remains one of the most memorable regular-season dates in Coliseum history.

The glue in many relationships between father and son is baseball. Relief pitcher Sam Moll’s father Jerry worked at FedEx and still owns the truck he used to transport his son to practices, games, and lessons after work.

“I don’t think he wants to get rid of it because of the value it holds in his heart,” Moll said.

Moll, who grew up in Memphis, said his father was mostly behind the scenes and supportive rather than proactive in terms of coaching, strategy, and the like.

Brent Rooker, also from the Memphis area, said his father Terry was pretty much the polar opposite.

“He’s a little hard on himself because he thinks he took things too seriously,” Rooker said. “But I think he struck the right balance in terms of making sure I played hard and was held accountable.”

A’s manager Mark Kotsay’s father was a motorcycle police officer in Los Angeles and keeping silent wasn’t his style. Steve Kotsay drove his son to youth bike racing, baseball, basketball, and football. He coached Mark into high school and wasn’t bashful about imparting his values in a forceful way.

When Kotsay made the varsity baseball team as a sophomore, Steve yelled at his son from behind the dugout. Mark finally said maybe it was time his father stopped coming to the games.

“So he stopped coming,” Kotsay said. “And that was even more impactful than the yelling, so I said, `Hey, come back. You can yell.’ And I learned how to deal with it.”

The ballpark was a place for bonding as well as life lessons between father and son.

“One of his buddies on his softball team had season tickets to the Angel games and he would occasionally throw them my dad’s way,” Kotsay said. “Or it would be police night and we’d be at the top of Dodger Stadium in the seats behind home plate. But (the seats) didn’t matter.”

Kaprielian got his share of constructive criticism from his father but was there through various physical issues that included Tommy John surgery.

“A lot of times you hear about guys when they fall in love with baseball it’s because of their father,” Kaprielian said. “And that’s definitely the case for me. But what people didn’t see on my path are the hardships and health injuries I’ve gone through that have been challenging. And he’s been the thing that kept me going, kept me motivated, kept me on track.”

Whether fans will still seek out the ballpark experience in Oakland while it remains is a drama that will play out slowly.

Nishjima isn’t eager to fork over his money to A’s ownership but at the same time doesn’t want to cut baseball out of his life.

“Today is Father’s Day so I brought my daughter here,” Nishijima said. “We’ve been doing it since she was young and it’s still a tradition to come to the games. I’ll be choiceful and still come to games because I love the A’s and I love Oakland. Next year, we’ll see what happens. I’ll limit what I spend.

“But the memories are still the big thing, and having the memories of coming here with my daughter, even if it’s a more limited amount of time, are still special.”

Now with a 2-year-old son of his own, the reality of the A’s decision to move has hit home with Moll in a different way.

“You want to make those connections with your son and bond with them, around your hometown, the place you connect with,” Moll said. “Obviously it hurts a lot of people. As players, we have no control over what’s going on. But you feel for the people.”