Baseball Returns! Giants, A's Play Bay Bridge Series With Cardboard Fans
OAKLAND (KPIX) - It's time to play ball again.
All nine innings of Monday night's Bay Bridge Series game are in the books. The Giants and A's played at the Coliseum without fans but many say this was the next best thing.
You could still hear the crack of the bat and the umpire behind the plate, but in the stands, there was not a single fan or vendor, just cutouts filling the seats.
"I used to run down the bleachers when they had stairs and try to get the Mark McGuire homerun ball," says A's fan Larry Lawrence.
While fans like Lawrence can't be at the Coliseum, there's no shortage of excitement.
Lawrence adds, "It's on my bucket list. The Oakland A's are going to be World Champions of 2020. COVID or no COVID."
The Bay Bridge Series brought sellout crowds to the Coliseum of 56,000 plus. Now, instead of walking back to his seat from the concession stands, one A's fan is running to his car to watch the game at home.
"We would be crossing the ramp right now. I'm a season ticket holder," said Manuel Gonzalez.
Without the fans, the A's are missing out on the revenue they would normally bring in. According to Forbes, the A's made $35 million in gate receipts alone in 2019.
"Obviously we're talking about the loss billions of dollars across the industry and us locally we have a million and a half fans in a season," said A's President Dave Kaval.
Kaval says he sees the season as a bridge to the future. With the pandemic, not everything has been brought back at once but what is back is some sense of normalcy.
"It's back in a way that's special in its own right and it's something that we want to celebrate, that we can play the games that the players are out there and fans can enjoy that."
