Toasty Day at the O.Co

While we didn't relocate our housing, we did change our ballpark yesterday. Instead of the grueling, stand still traffic into San Francisco, the group instead had about a 10 minute commute to the O.Co Coliseum. This giant concrete structure serves both the Oakland A's and the Oakland Raiders (football). We got to the stadium pretty early and found ourselves surrounded by a lot of families celebrating Memorial Day at the ballpark.

O.Co was unlike any stadium we had been in previously. The seats were extremely close together and the way the sun was coming in made our 75 degree day feel like we were in the 90s. These hot conditions really changed how the fans participated in the game; the stadium was sold out and we saw a lot of movement as people in the direct sun (like us) moved into the shade every once in the while for some water. Thank goodness for sunscreen -- I did get some sun, but didn't burn too badly.

In our group discussion later that night, we decided we had some of the best seats on the entire trip. We were on the second level, on the third base side. Our view was great to see the whole game and the two big screens in either outfield. O. Co was also by far the most simple stadium we have been at (not a lot of flash mainly due to their lack of a jumbotron and screens built to showcase baseball, the screens were definitely more suited to football). 

The A's played the Detroit Tigers and the Tigers didn't stand a chance from the start. In the bottom of the second, the A's got their first runs with two solo home runs from DH Moss and first baseman Blanks. They followed this up with two more solo home runs in the third from third baseman Donaldson and left fielder Cespedes. More scoring for the A's continued in the fourth with three singles and a walk that helped to bring in two more runs. Then in the eighth, we witnessed a grand slam home run from the A's catcher Norris. Not only was that exciting (the ballpark went WILD), but it also meant that every fan in attendance can receive a free personal pizza from Round Table Pizza, a pizza chain in Western USA. Our group plans to take advantage of that later today for dinner. 

Our day ended with a group dinner of tacos and then a class discussion about both the stadiums we have been to and some more reading from our baseball anthology. Today is our free day and then we return to Oakland for a 7:05 night game. We wake up tomorrow and head to the LA area to see the Dodgers play.