You can take an A from Oakland, but not what made the fans' last day special

Cheers, ridicule, beer and tears. My random snapshots from a happy, sunny day at the old Oakland ballpark as the A's played their last game at the Coliseum.

• “THANK YOU OAKLAND. THANK YOU OAKLAND.” And so on.

That was the message that ran across the Coliseum's neon information board, foul pole to foul pole, and was carved into the outfield turf. A greeting to the fans who stream into the old concrete bowl for the Oakland A's last home game.

Most fans didn't buy the Hallmark-fake welcome, not from the owner, who took the team to Sacramento and Las Vegas.

• But John Fisher feels bad. He said this in his letter to fans. And yet the A's raised ticket prices for their last home game. Did Fisher throw the fans a bone? Free parking? Half price hot dogs?

Say this for the man: No one ever milked a cash cow harder than Fisher, until the end. What better time to milk the cow than right before you push her to the slaughterhouse?

• Did you blink and miss the commotion? In another colossal misreading of Oakland fan sentiment, Fisher's men prepared for a demolition derby. An angry, raging mob venting its anger, uprooting seats and tearing up grass. MLB put the A's and Texas Rangers on alert. Hide the women and children.

Mt Davis remained covered with a tarpaulin despite calls for it to be opened because Fisher's Fearmongers had visions of an additional 10,000 crazy fans.

The postfinale scene was so mellow, groovy, and full of love that it took me back to the old days at the Warriors games next door, when hippie fans lit fireworks on the Coliseum's “Weed Ramp” at halftime.

However, I did see some pretty aggressive hugging before and after Thursday's game.

What's wrong with these fans? Don't they know that this is Oakland, where every person is a criminal? Isn't that one of the reasons why Fisher and Rob “Robber Baron” Manfred move the team to the crime-free utopia of Las Vegas?

Oakland's reputation was terribly damaged on Thursday.

• Last call. Fearing an uprising, it was assumed that Fisher's people wanted to restrict beer sales, so it is not surprising that the foam supply ran low.

But before that first pitch?

Honestly, for the sake of the baseball gods, some of the beer stands, including the Corona and 805 stands, were bone dry before the game started. In the first inning, a bartender at another booth held a plastic cup under a sputtering faucet. There's no crying in baseball, except in that beer-run-out line where one man shouted, quite sincerely, “I'll pay you for the foam.”

Stay thirsty, my friends.

• The center throw must have rounded up the team standing on the rail above the players' dugout during batting practice. Children, old people, all colors of the rainbow, everyone beams with joy. It looked like Oakland. Looking for autographs, of course, but many were just enjoying the coolness of being around top-notch ballplayers and their best. Most players stopped to sign and chat. Mark Kotsay spent a lot of time with the people.

• I'll miss the mysterious leak. For as long as I can remember, there was a piece of soaked carpet on the stairs from the visitors' clubhouse to their dugout.

It hasn't rained in Oakland for months, but my feet were pretty soft. Wetness seemed to drip from a maze of electrical wires above. It was calming, like Old Faithful.

• At least the employees of the Coliseum food concession can look forward to a generous severance package including health benefits. Wait, What? Fisher's food supplier, Aramark, refused both? Cest le vieminions.

• The neon “Holy Toledo” sign above the center field wall would look great in my living room, but I heard the A’s are taking it away. “Holy Toledo!” was the signature call of the legendary Bill King, whom Fisher referred to as “Billy King” in the first version of his letter to fans. That's like calling the Pope “Popey.”

• I don't have a vote for Manager of the Year, but Kotsay doesn't care. Tell me who has achieved more with less. After the game, Kotsay took the stadium microphone and gave the fans a farewell kiss that came from the heart.

“We worked our butts off this year,” said the captain.

“Thank you to everyone who loves the game of baseball.”

• Fisher's Las Vegas dream is a stadium his architect calls “a spherical armadillo.”

Andy Dolich, a marketing and management expert for the A's in the Walter Haas era, hosted a suite of former A's employees.

“I know that,” Dolich said. “The Coliseum Pressbox Possum would kick the spherical armadillo’s ass.”

Dolich recalled meetings long ago with the Haas family and team president Roy Eisenhardt.

“Their message was always: ‘Them fans “I own this team,” Dolich said.

The fans owned this team on Thursday. You will own it forever.

• After the game I met a guy carrying a base. The ground crew changed bases after each inning, making 27 souvenirs, and Neil Sciley held first base beginning in the third inning. He has been a fan since 1988, when he fell in love with the A's as a kid in Ottawa.

Scilley paid $1,000 for his bag.

That's right. Fisher could have given away the bases to fans or raffled them off for charity. Orphans, anyone? The bases from Wednesday night's game sold for $600 each. Anything, anything at all, to throw a few extra thousand into John Fisher's money bin.

Reach Scott Ostler: [email protected]; Twitter: @scottostler