My family is from Orlando, and they often ask me why I live in California, with everything “wrong” with it, especially in Oakland, home of the beloved A’s.

Fact is, the A’s play 2-3 day games per week per homestand. A traditional Saturday and/or Sunday game, then a mid-week “getaway” game to allow the visiting team to get to the airport and on their way at a reasonable time.

And it is those mid week day games that are the incredible gems. Unless you’ve lived here or visited repeatedly, the sheer joy of playing hooky from work and sitting in the warm sun with an air temperature of around 68 just cannot be accurately described. Add to that, you can walk up and get terrific tickets (try that at Fenway or Wrigley). I typically sit 4-10 rows behind a dugout, depending on the A’s opposition.

Also, my preference in beverage while sitting in the sun is fresh squeezed lemonade. They do that very well at the Coliseum.

Finally, the fans are incredibly knowledgeable. There may only be 20,000 people there, but they are almost all glad to be there. And almost all of them will point out some interesting facet of team and player performance that helps add to the enjoyment of the game. I’m constantly amazed at hearing some old guy in a fishing hat with dozens of A’s pins in it talk about outfielder foot speed to a fly ball, comparing a string of left fielders back to Joe Rudi, or something like that.

That’s a great atmosphere, and one I’m always delighted to be a part of.

I think the A’s were going to lose attendance anyway, as part of the hangover effect from last year. Wolff’s comments don’t help, but I doubt that any A’s fan is going to stay away based on what he’s said so far. If he keeps it up however, that will be different.

The snarky overuse of the correlation/causation argument is one of my least favorite internet trends.  It sure makes it easy to shoot down somebodies observation or hypothesis, but does nothing to enrich the discussion.  No one is claiming that the uncompetitive product the A’s have put on the field hasn’t hurt attendance.  But there was a drastic (2,000 people/game) drop in attendance from 2005 to 2006, despite the fact both those teams were competitive (as were the teams from ‘99 onward) and they made the ALCS in 2006.  So there is a lot more to it than record.

Don’t know about Bay area baseball specifically but in general, easily the most important factor in attendance is W-L.

As for Wolff, I’ve read speculation that if the Raiders leave for a new shared facility with the 49ers that Oakland might consider renovating their stadium in to a “baseball only” park, a la what the Angels did with their park.  The same speculation notes that the current site is great for BART and some adjancent highway.

APBA.  I’ve been to 1 A’s game and greatly enjoyed it.  It was a mid week day game vs the Rockies.  (it was also the last year for Candlestick, whenever that was).  Great weather, great seats (I was a walk up), great game.  And all courtesy of Enron!  On the BART ride to the game I hooked up with an Enron salesman who was entertaining a couple of his clients.  They were all mid western guys, in town for a convention, playin hooky.  So when it came time to step up to the wicket, the Enron dude said it was on him and please come sit with them.  Bought me the big pail o shitty beer in commemorative (sic?) A’s cup and the peanuts and popcorn (or whatever) that accompanied it.  Great day.  Kile pitched for Col, don’t recall who started for Oakland but IIRC Taylor k’d Bichette to end the game.