The aging Oakland Coliseum was in the news for the wrong reasons again on Tuesday night, this time because the bank of lights above left field at the A’s home malfunctioned.
In the end, it was more of an annoyance than anything else. After a delay of 25 minutes the lights never fully went back on, but the teams returned to the field for the final few innings and the A’s finished off the Minnesota Twins for their 10th straight win. Fittingly, the final out was a fly ball caught by Mark Canha in the shadows in left field.
Here’s a look back at some of the other notable delays the A’s have encountered at the soon-to-be 55-year-old facility.
That stinks
This isn’t a ranking, but if it was, the Coliseum’s sewage issues would have to be considered No. 1 or No. 2.
The stadium was built 22 feet below sea level, which is rarely an issue. But on Sept. 21, 2013, heavy rain and suspect plumbing created a perfectly awful storm that produced a mess for the ages. Sewage flooded the visiting dugout and the A’s coaches’ bathroom, delaying the start of the game — also against the Twins — by nearly three hours. It was smooth sailing on the field that day for the A’s, who won 9-1 to reduce their magic number to win the AL West to one.
https://twitter.com/glenperkins/status/381489306109353984
Leave a light on
Tuesday was not the first time the bank of left field lights was an issue.
The lights nearly got in the way of A’s history — or maybe helped write it — on May 7, 2019 when an outage produced a delay of an hour and 38 minutes. The game was nearly postponed, but instead, the lights came on and Mike Fiers threw his second career no-hitter.
The A’s also won on June 14, 2014 when that same bank of lights went out as they were just about to start the fourth inning against the Yankees. After a delay of 38 minutes the lights came back on and the A’s wrapped up a 5-1 win before a sellout crowd of 36,067.
On Sept. 16, 2011 the stadium lights went dark for about 20 minutes, only managing to delay the Detroit Tigers’ celebration for winning the AL Central title and the start of a postgame Star Wars fireworks show.
All wet
There have been plenty of rain delays at the Coliseum over the years, but not much in the way of rainouts. In fact, when rain washed out the A’s and Indians on April Fool’s Day in 2014, it was the A’s first home rainout in 16 years.
What wasn’t funny was that three days later the A’s game against the Mariners was rained out — even though the weather was fine. The tarp hadn’t been placed over the grass the previous night and, of course, there was a downpour. The grounds crew couldn’t get the field playable in time and the game was postponed for what Billy Beane famously called an “unfortunate misinterpretation of the forecast.”
Viva Las Vegas
It was no fault of the Coliseum, but the stadium was unable to house the A’s for the start of the 1996 season because of the construction of Mt. Davis for the return of the Raiders. The A’s started that season calling Las Vegas their home, which, of course, the Raiders now call home, and were delayed making their Oakland debut until April 19, seven “home games” into the season.
At the wall
Another delay that can loosely be attributed to the Raiders occurred on August 31, 2015, when play was halted for about 10 minutes after the Angels’ Shane Victorino crashed into the outfield fence trying to chase down Danny Valencia’s RBI double in the bottom of the fifth inning and knocked out a section of the wall. It turned out that section of left field fence hadn’t been fastened correctly earlier in the day when the field was being converted back to a diamond following a Raiders game a day earlier.
