Comfort Food for Grieving A's Fans

Aloha, A's! 😭😡💛💚❤️‍🩹⚾️

Yesterday, the Oakland Athletics played their last game, and in their honor I'm sharing this little home movie my son and I made one Sunday afternoon in 2013. That was a season known for its walk-off wins. (A walk-off is a game-winning run scored by the home team in the bottom of the ninth or later.) Whenever this happened, right fielder Josh Reddick would give whoever got the last hit a pie in the face—usually wearing his Spiderman outfit. The left fielder was named Coco Crisp, yes really.

Long before smart phones, instagram, or my new favorite video cook, That Midwestern Mom hit the scene, I was inspired by their names to do a cooking show episode for a recipe I invented, called “Walk-Off Pie.”

I know there are many who’d like to throw pie in the face of bazillionaire John Fisher right now. All he wanted was to build a new ballpark. He left his managers to play the game of Moneyball. He tried, everyone tried, twenty years of mayors tried, even though we had a ballpark that was working just fine. Everyone feels played, the way the system works. It’s not for the players or the fans. Perhaps things will change.

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We went to our last game a week ago. It was very emotional, even the nachos. My son surreptitiously scooped up a handful of dirt from the warm-up square to take home in his souvenir cup.

In other news, I’m off to Mills today with my Traveling Bookstore, come see me if you’re there. I’ll be reading “In My Grief I Tip Chairs” just published in Thought Thinkers magazine. (What is it with this town, these times, what’s happening to our commonwealth? We’ve lost 3 sports teams and 3 colleges in the past five years!)

Let’s Go Oakland.