A's Haunted by Ghosts Of Oakland Past

(Photo by Jed Jacobsohn/Getty Images)

The All-Star break is still three weeks away, yet it’s already been a long season in Oakland. Home games have been remarkably lifeless, and the team can’t even sell out their annual home series with the Giants.

The most exciting moment of the A’s season is likely to be the trade of their best player, and Oakland’s top All-Star candidate wasn't even in the organization until May 8.

Even the failed film adaptation of a seven-year-old book has overshadowed the team on the field.

When you’re a franchise struggling like the A’s are, you sell your fans whatever you can, even if that means living in the past. The 49ers have been doing it for years now, and this season the A’s have been forced to adopt a similar strategy.

Walk around the outside of the Coliseum, and you’ll see giant banners celebrating three players: Eric Chavez, Jason Giambi, and Rickey Henderson. Chavez hasn’t played a full season since 2006, Giambi spent the last seven years with a bitter rival, and Henderson hasn’t played for Oakland since 1998.

But Oakland’s promotion of Henderson doesn’t end there, as half the team’s in-game promotions this season seem to revolve around his Hall of Fame induction. The A’s are even bringing back Henderson’s 1989 World Series teammates (most of them, anyway) this week to keep the nostalgia alive.

This week’s proceedings will feel a bit empty, however, thanks to two pieces of the A’s past that won’t be returning.

The identity of the 1989 A’s was personified by Jose Canseco and Mark McGwire, both of whom are now unwelcome anywhere baseball is played. The Bash Brothers were the biggest thing in baseball (literally and figuratively) in the late-80’s, and their absence makes this reunion feel more like a PTA meeting than a championship celebration.

Perhaps the only thing worse is the fact that the cross-bay rival Giants are now a better team.

For nearly a decade, the A’s were the young, exciting upstarts who poked fun at their elderly neighbors across the pond. But the Giants now roll into Oakland with the NL Wild Card lead in hand, led by young stars Tim Lincecum, Matt Cain, and the force of nature known as Pablo Sandoval.

Meanwhile, the last-place A’s are stuck in the mud, praying that Giambi and Nomar Garciaparra can make it through another week without getting hurt. It’s a tough pill to swallow for A’s fans, who are used to deriding the likes of Edgardo Alfonzo and Russ Ortiz.

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