justplainbil

Just Plain Bill

What does it take to be a fan?

Ever since I was young, I remember being a sports fan, both a collegiate and professional sports fanatic. Countless hours of my youth were spent listening to Notre Dame football, and the Oakland Oaks minor league baseball teams on the radio. (No TV for many years.)  I listened to Notre Dame since they were the only team with national radio coverage. The Oakland Oaks games were broadcast by Bud Foster, who would use the Teletype feed and some sound effects to broadcast the away games played by the Oaks of the Pacific Coast League.

The Oaks of my youth featured Casey Stengel as their manager, Billy Martin at shortstop, and the DiMaggio brothers playing for the Oaks Bay Area rivals, the San Francisco Seals. It was a great time for my imagination and reality!

For many years, the Oakland A’s have wanted to leave town, the Raiders are ready to leave town – after leaving for LA once before, and the wonderful Golden State Warriors are getting ready to leave their home of many years in Oakland for a splendiferous new stadium in the distant borders of San Francisco – a facility not even as large as the stadium in Oakland, which has been sold out for years and years.

Unfortunately, the new reality I’m faced with is my favorite major league baseball team continually threatening to move elsewhere, my favorite professional football team is moving to Las Vegas, and my favorite professional basketball team is moving into a new stadium miles away.

So, what’s in it for the fan? Does loyalty net out to only being able to pay big bucks to attend games?

I guess I’ll continue to attend as many football and basketball games at my favorite college, the University of California, but I’ll sure miss the opportunity to enrich my sports attendance from my favorite professional teams.