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O.co Coliseum is dinosaur but its packed with history
Oakland stadium

By JASON CAMPBELL   

209 reporter

OAKLAND – Sometimes you just want to watch baseball.

By professional sports standards, the O.co Coliseum in Oakland is a dinosaur – pushing 50 years old and showing every bit of that age.

It’s technically the smallest NFL Stadium and the 2nd smallest Major League Baseball stadium and yet it’s still home to a flock of die-hard fans that come out of support the respective teams that play inside.

But with that age comes history. And the history in Oakland sports is majestic.

It’s the same stadium that Reggie Jackson smacked home runs in. It’s the same stadium that gave birth to the Bash Brothers – the homerun hitting combination of Mark McGwire and Jose Canseco. And it’s the same stadium that the players of Moneyball fame – Scott Hatteberg and Nick Swisher and Joe Blanton and the rest of the team – set a major-league consecutive win record.

And it’s also one of the easiest stadiums in California to get to.

Thanks to Bay Area Rapid Transit, sports fans can get off at a stop built specifically for the stadium and walk across a bridge that dump right at the park’s entrance – making it one of the busier stops along the heavily-travel track line on the days that the A’s are playing.

It’s also a salute to a bygone era in professional sports.

Currently Oakland is the only city in America where their respective football and baseball franchises share the facility – overlapping early in the football season.

For more information about games, or to obtain tickets, visit oakland.athletics.mlb.com.

To contact reporter Jason Campbell email jcampbell@mantecabulletin.com or call 209.249.3544.