As the Oakland A’s say goodbye to Oakland and the Oakland Coliseum, a lot of emotion has filled the airwaves for those not quite ready to say farewell. The ragtag plan of temporarily moving to Sacramento and then Las Vegas wasn’t something that fans, players, broadcasters, or anyone associated with the team wished for, but this isn’t exactly an ownership group that’s in touch with the feelings of those who this will affect the most.
Those like Greg Papa .
Now the radio voice of the San Francisco 49ers, Papa returned to the Coliseum for one final go-round, and the A’s just about broke the team’s former announcer. Papa was the TV play-by-play voice for the A’s with Ray Fosse from 1991-2003, and returned for the final series to pay his respects to the beloved franchise.
But as he made his pilgrimage to the final ever series of Major League Baseball at the Oakland Coliseum, the 61-year-old Papa was overcome with emotion. On Wednesday’s Papa & Lund on the Bay Area’s KNBR — The Sports Leader, Papa choked back tears as he reflected on his experience returning to the Coliseum for one final time.
For Papa, his final visit was akin to attending a class reunion, seeing old friends, recalling shared memories and walking the familiar paths of a place that once felt like a second home. Yet, as he drove away, the reality of the situation hit him hard, transforming what had been a nostalgic reunion into something much more somber — an emotional farewell to an era, a funeral for a team that had long been a staple of Oakland’s community spirit.
“It just felt like yesterday that I was there doing those games,” he said as he fought his emotions. “So, in some respects it did feel like a class reunion in going back and seeing a lot of people you haven’t seen in a number of years in a place that was so special to you for so long. But then, when I got in the car and drove away, it felt more like a funeral. And it felt like someone very close to us has died, and you’re not going to see them again. And I’m not gonna go back tonight; I won’t go back tomorrow afternoon.
“Maybe after I get out there, I’ll go visit some people after, but class reunions are, ‘We’ll see you in five years; we’ll see you in 10 years. We’ll come back.’ It’s over. I’m not going back there. It hit me mad hard leaving that stadium.”
As Papa continued to recount his experience, the weight of the farewell became even more apparent. He acknowledged the permanence of the moment; there was no coming back from this.
“I know everyone has an opinion about them leaving,” Papa continued. “And I believe if you own the team, you can do what you want — and Oakland has changed a lot from when I moved here in ’86, the East Bay is just different. And I saw the Raiders have trouble coming back, and the team ultimately having to move. Although, I think the A’s are the No. 1 factor why Mark Davis moved that team. But Al was always looking to go somewhere better, so he may have moved it if he lived longer.
“So, they do have a right…The other thing is, the murals, the walls in the ballpark, what are they going to do with that? I hope they don’t tear that place down. It’s just when you pull away from there, and you’re all going to feel it, whether you go tonight for the final time or tomorrow afternoon for the final time, it’s gonna hit you hard; it hit me.
“It was partly, ‘Wow, I haven’t seen so many faces,’ and just the views that I had when I looked out on the field from the booth, it reminded me so much of when I was watching A’s games. I turned back the other way and reminded me when I was with Coach (Tom) Flores and Jim Plunkett doing a Raiders open. There was just moments that came back to all of it, but the one that hit me the hardest is when you pulled out of the F Lot, got on the highway and pulled away.
“A lot like closing the casket on your mom or dad…I’ll never go back there again.”
[ KNBR ]
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