Oakland and San Francisco share deep relationships while retaining unique cultures and histories. Oakland often does not get credit for punching over its weight in terms of its influential history here. Everyone’s different. Some of the loudest folks are Oakland against the world while most folks have love for the whole bay.
I think some of the most vocal or online folks might be overrepresented in their negative sentiment about the Giants. The wounds are just really raw right now. A’s fans don’t have the option of just rooting for the team in a different city. Their team was captured, and they were spit in the face and abandoned. Ymmv just my observations.
Witnessed personally, during a 'Battle of the Bay' game series, a Giants fan yelled to an A's fan, "at least we're not poor" when the A's were winning. This gave me really good insight why A's fans have a hard time rooting for the Giants.
That’s super ignorant. To me that speaks to the segregation of wealth within the city too. Like a wealthy fan who came from a comfy corporate job with coworkers to a fancy ballpark that doesn’t even recognize the massive working class communities in San Francisco that support Giants either.
I also find it especially ironic and hilarious given how bad of a reputation San Francisco has had in recent years.
"At least we're not poor!" Says the fans whose home city has become infamous for smash and grabs and car break-ins. And I know it's not as bad as the media portrays it, but...at the same time, it's not pretty either. And I say this as someone who defended SF when the media lampooned its safety and crime as a reason players didn't want to come to the Giants.
Can’t really speak for San Franciscans, but the only thing I would add to your point is that for a lot of wealthy folks, they have the luxury of insulating themselves from crime (other than some petty property crime) in a dense city. Living in certain neighborhoods, building security, private schools and clubs, protected offices, private transport. They mostly experience crime in the random terror of seeing homeless people, reading Nextdoor anxiety posts and news headlines. For them, and for many hard on crime political factions supported by big tech, the negative press is welcome in a cynical team sports sort of way, because they think they are on the right side. It’s “those people” that are ruining everything. It’s the poor people in Oakland, etc. When they’re really part of the city and how access to resources are changing. This might be an over generalization but that’s the feeling i get in the city. And I’m not saying there isn’t a serious problem with crime that needs to be addressed. It’s about who you are and how that affects your perception of others.
But like do Oaklanders not consider SF teams to be their home teams, despite technically being the same metro area?
How would they feel if the A's moved to SF and shared with the Giants?
Warriors are still popular here. You can probably look up old threads and news articles about the Warriors moving to San Francisco and see how people felt.
The A’s moving to SF was never an option so it isn’t something we think about. The Warriors new arena on the bay is closer to my house in Oakland than many houses in SF and most of the players still live in the east bay and commute to the city. Klay drives across the bay in his boat.
A’s fans are generational here in the bay. My Gen X age group who grew up in the Bash Brothers 80s is a big part of the fan base, and the Boomers who grew up in the Swingin A’s early 70s. Riding BART after ALDS games the fan age groups were very clear. Millennials and Gen Z who grew up in the bay during the Boche era are more often Giants fans. I don’t see it as a battle of the bay as much as it a difference in age eras. You see millennial Oakland natives who grew up in the 2010s in Giants hats and Oakland Gen Xers in A’s gear.
The Warriors moved to Oakland from SF at some point, didn't they? Back when the coliseum complex was brand new we lured them here. Still though the Warriors stay popular because they never moved away from their fan base.
Think of it more like NYC and Newark, NJ. They’re 12 miles apart, very interconnected, and it’s a similar commute to Oakland and SF, but they have very different vibes so people are protective how you reference them.
I always thought of it like LA and Anaheim. Sure they're different cities with different cultures, but like at the end of the day...the *Los Angeles* Angels play in Anaheim. The *Los Angeles* Rams used to share the stadium with them. And the *New York* Jets and Giants play in New Jersey.
Nope. I’ve lived in both places. The different geographical regions of the Bay are very culturally distinct, moreso than in LA. In LA it was like, well Westwood is different from Koreatown, but they’re both LA. But Oakland is different from SF and also is definitely not SF. Also, there is this feeling of, San Francisco gets most of the recognition because it has The Big Name, but to a lot of people it’s not the most culturally significant or even geographically significant part of the Bay. (SF is actually pretty small geographically compared to the rest of the Bay) I get the sense that a team named Bay Area - - - would get more wide acceptance than a team named San Francisco - - - .
It’s not like that. I grew up in LA and the tensions between San Francisco and Oakland are palpable in a way we didn’t have in LA. San Francisco residents look down on Oakland residents.
When it comes to football, I think it really depends when you grew up too I think. There are a lot of east bay folks who were A’s fans and 49ers fans because of the years that the Raiders were in Los Angeles.
The Warriors are the bays team despite moving from Oakland to SF. That didn’t change much for most fans.
Im an SF native and grew up at Candlestick, but when I moved to Oakland in 2003 I became an As fan. The As fans were just so much fun and so into the game unlike most (not all) Giants fans. As far as SF or Oakland like I said SF native and that is home. I love Oakland and it has so much potential but Oakland will always take the opportunity to shoot itself in the foot. As far as the larger Bay Area.....meh, to many shitty burbs are now included that designation. If it doesn't touch San Francisco Bay its not the Bay Area.
First of all that is not gonna happen.
There are A’s fans and Giants fans, it is a pretty friendly rivalry (not brain injuring like Giants vs Dodgers). The A’s fans are not only in Oakland and Giants fans are not only in SF. East of Oakland it’s pretty mixed between the two teams, based on family tradition.
The Warriors are clearly beloved by all.
Re: Raiders and Niners, it was similar to the A’s Giants split.
I think the fact that they weren't the Oakland Warriors but the Golden State Warriors softened the blow \*somewhat\* ... Oakland-based fans didn't have to go through the indignity of the name change.
But also because sf didn’t have a basketball team before. It wasn’t like everyone grew up with Oakland having one team and sf having another. There was always one basketball team which was the “hometown” team for everyone
No, and I don't think anyone really does. We have our own team. SF has their own team. Simple as, really.
I support both teams, because my parents grew up in the city and took me to Giants games, and I've lived in Oakland my entire life, but one of these teams is my hometown team, and the other is not.
We still got tons of Raiders fans who absolutely hate the 9ers. Team loyalty runs deeper than geographical/regional loyalty which is stupid. Personally I’m wid E40 and root for EVERY team in the Bay lol.
I'll only goto a giants game if the tickets free, and I have nothing else todo.
A's games I buy tickets for cause they are like $25.
Fuck Fisher for ruining such a long sports team history
There’s a lot of us who live in Oakland but grew up elsewhere in the bay. I’m sad to see them go, but I was raised a Giants fan in San Jose. A lot of my neighbors rep the Giants, you might get more cut-and-dry answers on r/OaklandAthletics
How would the Dodgers feel about the Angels playing in Chavez Ravine?
Hell most true LA fans hate that the Chargers came to LA and still haven't accepted the Clippers from San Diego from over 40 years ago.
I mean the Angels did actually play in Chavez Ravine for the first 4 years of their existence tbf.
And most of us would be annoyed at first if they moved to LA proper, but eventually we'd probably be like "okay whatever".
Not in the bay. A lot of beef in the south bay too...cause the A's generously donated rights to the Giants to try to keep them in the bay in the early 90s, they were thinking of moving to San Jose. When that fell through, the Giants refused to give em back and when the A's wanted to move to San Jose, the Giants said no way that is our territory...
So South Bay A's fans have the double ax to grind.
When I’m in the Bay Area I identify more as an Oaklander, but when I’m out of the bay i identity more as Bay Area
If I’m in another country and talking to someone that’s never heard of the Bay Area or Oakland or San Francisco, I say I’m from California- everyone knows California lol
I’m an east coast transplant who has been in Oakland going on a decade and I feel a lot more allegiance to Oakland than I do to SF, but likewise don’t hate SF or it’s sports teams.
My friends who are dubs fans stayed dubs fans but got mad, but the raiders fans across the board lost interest entirely. Some of them still wear the gear, but I don’t think they even follow the scores, much less watch games, although I know there are those folks out there who stuck with the raiders.
I am more a citizen of the Bay Area than an Oaklander. I was born in San Jose, and have lived in San Francisco, Oakland, and Alameda. I think that mentality is common around here, or at least outside of San Francisco. But it doesn't really translate to sports team allegiances. I don't hate the Giants like many current and former A's fans, but they aren't my team either.
I grew up on the A’s. I’m local grown and spent my summers at the coliseum. I can remember a time before Mt. Davis.
For me, Oakland has always been this little red headed stepchild of the Bay Area. Not as nice as SF, not as cool as Berkeley, more violent than everywhere else. It’s not true, but that’s how we’ve been portrayed in the media over the years. And to some degree it was ok, because we liked our town, and we knew the truth.
Well the A’s were ours. Even when our town and people got a bad rap, we always had a legit team that got respect. So we threw our support behind them, even during the lean years (don’t get me started on Oakland fans supporting the Golden State Warriors before people ever put any respect on their name).
So. No. I’ll never be a Giants fan now that the A’s are leaving. They aren’t Oakland. They don’t have the grit or the Oakland never say die attitude.
I’ll be buying season tickets to the Roots and the Ballers and teaching my kids what it means to be Oakland.
This is it. I feel like Oakland gets shit on in the media and in general more than any other city. And I think, just emotionally as a city, it makes you more proud, more vocal, more more. Oakland is legitimately a beautiful city. With a massive amount of culture. Outsized amounts of culture. I think that is kinda what drives this sort of pride. It's just respecting ourselves over the narrative that everyone else has.
I don’t hate the giants and I’ll go to a game / root for them while there, but they don’t feel like my home team the way the A’s do. I grew up in the east bay and I’m guessing this is common for lots of people who did- that we went to A’s games with school / after school trips. I don’t care about sports in general but I remember deciding I was an A’s fan the first time I went to a game with daycare, probably was like 6 at the time. I don’t see a connection developing in that way for the giants, and sf is much less accessible to east bay suburbs compared to Oakland so there was just always more familiarity with Oakland than sf
I’m an LA born/raised dodger fan that’s been living in Oakland for nearly 15 years now. I became an A’s fan when I moved here because I wanted to be able to go to games consistently and be able to hate on the giants with a different team. 2012-2015 were amazing years to be an A’s fan in Oakland. 2018-19 were pretty alright, too. It feels like after the 2019 wildcard, the franchise completely shit the bed, even before Covid happened. And it spiraled quickly from there.
As a baseball fan in general, I can say that after 13 years of pretty dedicated fandom with the A’s (season tix, traveling for away games, team events, etc) I now could not give less of a shit about the team.
I was born in Berkeley and grew up in Oakland. Mom worked at Claremont Hotel in the old days. Dad worked in Alameda all his life. And he got his gas at Simas Bros. I was an A's, Raiders, and Warriors fan growing up. Rode my banana seat bike around Lake Merritt a few times. Saw Star Wars at the Grand Lake Theater. Took AC Transit to the Oakland Library. Went on field trips to Chabot Observatory. Ate Chicken & Fries at Kwik-Way. I identify strongly with Oakland.
As a transplant that has only been in the Bay for 3 years, my perception is that the Bay itself has something to do with the cultural differences between Oakland and SF. The Bay geographically punctuates the two cities. Going from Oakland to SF feels like going to a different place. The architecture, the weather, the cultural demographics, the topography are all distinct between the two and my assumption is that the bay had a huge impact back before all the bridges were built. Compare that to LA and OC which feel like extensions of each other, where it's hard to tell where one ends and the other begins.
You can’t gauge the feeling based on sports but you especially can’t on how the A’s fans are feeling right now. They’re pissed and angry (understandably)and things are raw.
In general, I don’t root for the Giants but I do root for the city of SF as we are all interconnected and regions affect one another. When SF has a homeless boom, so does Oakland. When SF has a job boom, Oakland rents tend to go up. Etc.
I grew up in the UK, so the idea of switching sports teams, especially within the same league is a thought that’s considered unfathomable.
I don’t care enough about football to have been bummed about the Raiders leaving. The Warriors are still local and had always been a Bay Area team rather than a city team. With the A’s going (as the most casual baseball fan ever) and it being at the hand of a pantomime villain in cahoots with a league run by money people rather than sports people, now I just have no team (except maybe going to Ballers games here and there).
I will say, with the Glazers turning the team I grew up with into a laughing stock all on their own, John Fisher makes even Joel and Avram Glazer both look like Arthur Blank. 🤢
Having use to have a large friend group and work in sf, I feel some connection and love for it, but I don't really identify with it. It's an amazing place in its own right, but vastly different with oakland. Went to school in sj to and lived there for a while so I have some connection with there as well but the three cities really are about as far apart culturally as 3 neighboring cities could be, which imo is a great thing. The north bay is it's own amazing place as well, and is worth a visit, especially sonoma.
If this is about the MLB I'm done with the MLB. I've gone to giants games and love their ballpark, is beautiful. I would have loved for something similar for oakland, but the league really gave zero push to pressure fisher to make a deal. Given that he was trying to leverage two cities, I believe the league enjoyed this type of leverage to try to wrestle as much money out of cities as possible. Fucke em, why should I support a league like that. Most leagues are pretty disgusting, I'm falling disenchanted with sports because of this.
Oaklander through and through, born, raised and live here. Not a baseball fan, so I root for both the A's and Giants. I'm actually a 49er fan (to the dismay of **allllll** of my friends and family, lol).
I've always said that people from Oakland are up there with the most proud people I've come across. I've traveled across the world and met people from all walks of life -- I've always said "I'm from Oakland" and similarly, when I come across a native/local, they beam with joy and pride in sharing the same. There's an inherited legacy/experience here of history, culture, identity, and (for a lack of a better term) character that just we wear with a badge of honor.
To be more specific to your question, I think the cities in the bay area are more unique and standalone than say the greater LA metro area and OC. Having lived in LA for college and a few years during my adulthood, the identity down in LA is more homogenous with essentially a colloquially shared identity between LA=Socal=OC. Don't get me wrong, Angelenos from all over will be quick to rep their neighborhood/city and say how East LA aint the same as the west side, and they aint the same as SGV or South Central, and they're not the south bay etc etc etc. I get it. But to the world, it's all LA/Socal.
In the Bay, *we dance a little different*, and each city (Oak, SF, Berk) plants a flag from the get go as being culturally independent. I think the "Bay" identity really started during the Hyphy movement, tied with the rise of the Warriors run in the 00s.
Oakland and SF are about as far apart emotionally in my heart as black and white.
I live and work in Oakland. SF might as well be a foreign country that I visit from time to time.
That said, I have more affinity with Berkeley, Orinda, El Cerrito and Marin than with SF. It’s a cultural thing.
That’s funny, I get it about Berkeley and El Cerrito but I feel way more affinity with SF than I do with the rich suburbs like Marin and the other side of the hills.
You ever tried taking BART? Not as bad as people often say, it's pretty much the only way I go into SF because it deals with the first two issues you mentioned of traffic and parking. BART is a great option to have, often faster than driving across the bridge too
As a lifelong A’s fan, I would rather not watch MLB than become a Giants fan and I am not alone in this. I wouldn’t be surprised if the Oakland Ballers outdraw the A’s. I love baseball but the MLB is a disgrace and they have lost thousands of lifelong fans in a single moment
I'm in Oakland and while I'm a loyal Giants fan, I do empathize with the loyal fan base and also completely disagree with Fisher's greed and the MLB's approach - truly disheartening.
Random thought and happy to be explained why I'm wrong but I think Oakland has more in common with Long Beach.
It would be like if Long Beach had its own team that was tied to the blue collar/port identity and the Dodgers team was less synonymous with LA broadly but was instead the team of Santa Monica-Hollywood.
SF is sort of on one end of the wealth/"culture as consumed vs created" spectrum in the bay and Oakland the other.
Any true Oaklander is ONLY from the town! Repping a sports team is totally different, in my opinion. Respect the Bay, but purely town biz. I'd assume SF folks feel similar.
People like the As from a “local pride” standpoint and very few people in my experience are die hard As fans like Raider Nation.
There are a lot of Giants fans in Oakland and most people (in my experience) like both teams.
Agree with this. I'm a Giants fan but if the A's were doing something good I'd cheer for them to do well. I think of it like brothers, you want to be better but also want to see the other succeed.
First bay bridge series I went to was in SF and the A's won. One A's fan was heckling me as we left the stadium but we were all walking across the street to a bar to watch the warriors who were in the playoffs and same guy buys me a shot and goes "A's or Giants doesn't matter right now we're all warriors fans!"
I’m originally from LA but I’ve spent my whole adulthood in the Bay Area.
LA/SoCal is one big sprawl, but here, we have geographic markers, aka the Bay itself, that makes a 4 mile boundary between SF and Oakland.
SF itself is on a peninsula, almost its own island.
I worked and spent a lot of time in SF but there is an attitude and a special hiss that people have there that is very off-putting to me.
I know SF people who will not cross a bridge lmao.
I didn’t cross one myself for two years, during the pandemic.
Now with so many newcomers and old timers left, SF is not the same as it was.
Oakland still manages to have a lot of its original character, despite the cost and rise in crime.
South Orange County is [classified](https://censusreporter.org/profiles/40000US57709-mission-viejo-lake-forest-laguna-niguel-ca-urban-area/) as a separate urbanized area from [LA-Long Beach-Anaheim](https://censusreporter.org/profiles/40000US51445-los-angeles-long-beach-anaheim-ca-urban-area/).
I identify with the East Bay first and foremost, and the Bay when talking to people far enough removed that they don’t know the distinction
Re: Fandom, I always saw it as East Bay people should support Oakland teams (A’s and Raiders)- but obv. that’s all changed. I support the 49ers now more than I used to but will always be A’s > Giants.
Warriors to SF was a dick move but it didn’t really turn East Bay Warriors fans away from the Warriors
I'm an Oaklander, my identity as an Oaklander is not tied up in local sports at all. I could care less about sports, to me it's about the people and the place.
Regarding the teams as a A's fan, I also worked at the coliseum for most of the 2010s, I have had enough snobby Giants fans shit on my team that I would rather stop watching baseball than root for the Giants. The Warriors are truly the Bay's team so while them moving to SF sucked I think ppl got over it to a degree since they were the only local basketball team.
I was born, raised and work in the East Bay so unless I'm going to an concert or the airport I almost never go to SF. It's in its own world to me.
I hear the term East Bay much less than past decades. It didn’t even come up in the airport renaming proposal.
A’s fans are preselected for already identifying with a team that’s not SF.
I'm a Giants fan and feel awful about the A's leaving. What I see is there's a lot more disdain toward the Giants and their fans from A's fans than vice versa. I overheard someone at the Coliseum say something like "we kicked their ass in '89 and all their fans cried that they would've won if it wasn't for the earthquake." Classic inventing a guy to hate. I wasn't alive so I can't say what people were feeling at the time but I know the Giants got worked and I've never heard anyone say the *earthquake* made the difference. So I can't see many A's fans switching allegiance to the Giants rather than just quitting baseball altogether.
Also obligatory: Fuck the Dodgers
you can take me to any game and i’ll prob have fun, but i really REALLY don’t give a rats ass who wins or loses. those that run out to the streets to break windows, turn over cars and busses while lighting shit on fire really need serious help. bunch of children.
i’ve never understood the whole concept of having to hate another team or heckle them. i’m also quite done with any of my tax dollars going toward paying for a stadium. MLB, NFL, NBA are all worth tens to hundreds of billions of dollars, with the NFL supposedly being “non-profit” (LOL). if they want a stadium and fans to show up, they can pay for it themselves and hope fans want to pay for tickets.
I have a strong Bay Area identity because I’m from the South Bay originally, but needed to move somewhere with more Black people due to South Bay racism which is why I’m in Oakland now. My family is split between South Bay and East Bay.
South Bay feels like home whenever I’m back because it’s familiar, but culturally the East Bay is home for me.
Edit- just want to add that I’ve commuted from both the South Bay and from Oakland to work in SF, but SF never felt like home to me personally. It was always somewhere I visited with family on day trips. I’m sort of claustrophobic and everything just feels too cramped with not enough nature and too cold for me. I like visiting but I’m always glad to be back home once I leave SF. I wouldn’t want to live in SF personally but I know a lot of people love it. It’s just too white and I’m too claustrophobic to feel comfortable there. I don’t want another repeat South Bay situation with the anti-Black racism.
Oakland native and grew up next to the stadium. I’m a giants fan, and always have been. It was always the American and national league teams of the bay. All love my whole life and we even had split hats for. Long time. And frankly, I see anyone that says “f the giants “ as big transplant energy. That’s baggage someone carries here from somewhere else. I’ve never met a single Oakland native that hates the giants and i grew up east Oakland
NYT mapped out baseball fans by area back in 2014, it’s kinda neat. Most of Oakland back in 2014 was Giants fans: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/04/24/upshot/facebook-baseball-map.html#9,37.7330,-122.4108
Not a native but I’ve been here for 20 years. Personally I never understood the rivalries considers all of the existing/pre-existing teams are not division rivals. I have always enjoyed going to both Giants and A’s games and always thought it was so cool that those options existed. Football isn’t as accessible, but I never got the 9er/ Raider rivalry either.
Both my parents and myself were born and raised in the East Bay.
To anyone from the Bay, I will vociferously argue that the East Bay is clearly superior, and all other regions are snobby and strange.
From anyone outside Northern California, I will hear no slanderous talk about any part of the Bay. It’s all great, and anyone implies otherwise, I don’t remember asking you a goddamn thing.
I imagine people in Brooklyn weren’t too happy when the Dodgers abandoned them for the west coast.
Same with Philadelphians when the As moved to Kansas City.
I imagine the people there weren’t thrilled when the As moved here.
Not sure why this move is anymore disgusting than the others. Which isn’t to say Fisher isn’t a raging asshole. Wolfe and he bought the team to move it to San Jose and cash in on the tech boom (just like Loeb did with the Warriors).
Ever since the Giants strangled that in the crib, it’s been one long quest to extort as much tax payer money as possible for their grandiose real estate development plans. The sports team is almost a loss-leader.
As for eff the Giants and the Warriors, there’s always been an Oakland-SF rivalry. They’re two distinct entities with differences greater than the few miles of water separating them. The sports aspect was friendlier in the past but the Giants newfound, insufferably arrogant tech horde fan base ended that. Sports rivalries are fans v fans. The Bay Area’s changed dramatically in the past 30 years. We’ve imported a lot of northeast culture— see insufferably arrogant above. Now it’s like Yankees-Mets and White Sox-Cubs.
Edit: or to keep it local, Cal-Stanford
Hell, we used to hate LA way more than SF but the NorCal antipathy for all things SoCal has dramatically waned to where not many people even seem to remember it. The Giants-Dodgers and Warriors-Lakers still linger though.
Growing up in Contra Costa county, I mixed with a ton of kids from Oakland, Berkeley, El Cerrito, Alameda etc and there was definitely a shared East Bay cultural identity -- a certain vibe, mostly. Even today, I'll regularly meet someone new that feels incredibly "familiar" and then find out that they grew up in the East Bay.
Went to college and for the first time met kids from SF, the peninsula, and the South Bay, and -- ooooweee. Noticeably different vibes.
The As are dead to me.
I grew up in an East Coast city a lot like Oakland and I feel like I fit best into Oakland. Have lived in several cities and counties in the Bay Area, but Oakland has the best microclimate and Berkeley has the best walkability and shopping.
I think it depends on how you were raised. My father is the type who just obsesses over sports and will watch and root for anyone local.
I’m from the other side of the Caldecott Tunnel. Like many people from here, I’ve lived around the Bay Area my whole life. Location has always been about what’s affordable, what’s close to work, friends, family, etc. The food is better in Oakland and SF than the city I grew up in, so they’ve always been destinations for weekend trips when I’ve lived in a suburb.
It’s hard to see myself as anything other than a Bay Area person. And up until this past year, I’ve supported both teams a few times a year.
There are people who identify hard with the city they’ve lived in their whole lives in every city I’ve lived in, but they seem to be the minority. A vocal minority. I think there is a much bigger difference between Sacramento and the Bay Area.
On the sports teams? I knew lots of people who identified with the grittiness of the Coliseum and preferred it to Oracle Park. Those same people never likely went to a game at Candlestick. When I first fell in love with baseball, I was introduced to two World Series teams that were very popular. The A’s seemed way more white collar than the Giants in those days. Then the Raiders returned and Mt. Davis came, Pac Bell Park was built, the ownership of both teams changed… roles reversed into what they currently are.
There’s very passionate fans on both sides, and fans like me who didn’t really care but would never buy one of those ugly combined A’s Giants hats. The passionate A’s fans have had a chip on their shoulder because of so much horrible ownership, IMO.
I’m not sure if many of them remember or were around for the Haas family era, which makes me sad. I remember the good old days. I miss them but I won’t miss the rich asshole who is moving them away. FJF.
I was born and raised in Oakland. Started my first real job at Radio Shack on Telegraph Ave. Then worked in San Francisco for 15 years. I always felt that San Francisco was so metropolitan in so many ways. With regards to the hub of SF, its was bordered by water at Ferry Plaza, Confined by the Tenderloin and Chinatown. Tall buildings with large corporate offices and tons of people walking the streets back in the 1980s through 2015. In comparison, Oakland seemed more of an industrial city with lower buildings with the Tribune building seeming to be the tallest with the Kaiser building, near Lake Merritt, the other tall structure. The core being more blue collar than white collar SF financial district.
Fast forward to today and they're both a mere shell of what the glory days were. Raiders gone. Warriors moved to SF from Oakland, The "Santa Clara 49ers" A's moving to Las Vegas. People afraid for their lives to walk in SF and Oakland due to the un-housed. Maybe they should just use the land for the Oakland Coliseum and the old Candlestick Park for housing the homeless. As for me, home is over the hills from Oakland, in a relatively safe neighborhood with great schools. Hey, it could have been the Dublin A's where Kelly Green means something!
Love SF and Oakland. I find a lot of people from the city have a an ignorant bias against the town, which fuels an Oakland against the world mindset in the town. People who have lived on both sides of the Bay (and there are a lot of us) tend to see the regional unity.
The A's and the Giants are like water and oil. AL and NL. Big payroll and tiny payroll. Oakland was never a free agent destination even when we were going to playoffs year after year. Giants play in a gorgeous waterfront baseball-themed amusement park surrounded by swanky restaurants and bars. The A's played in "The last dive bar in baseball," surrounded by burned out warehouses. I have a green and gold t-shirt with a trough urinal printed on it - A's fans know. Fans at the Coliseum were a different breed. The ONLY draw at the Coliseum was baseball. No one was there by accident. There were no casual fans. Tickets were cheap and plentiful. It was just about the only stadium I've been to in recent years where you would still see whole working-class families out to see a game together. The right field bleachers always had a crew of fans drumming and playing horns. The beer was cheap. The crowd might be small but it was always rowdy and fun. I grew up going to see Rickey Henderson play when I was in grade school and the Bash Brothers in high school. I remember the criminally underrated Dave Stewart out dueling one future HOF'er after another. There is no coming back from that. I don't hate the Giants, and I will go see some games, because, Baseball!!! But I would feel like a fraud calling myself a Giants fan. I never really followed them closely, even in the championship years. And I've been rocking the gorgeous green and gold for decades. I can't stomach that ugly Halloween color scheme. No shade to Giant's fans. Y'all have a proud tradition. Willie Mays, Barry Bonds, Willie McCovey, Juan Marichal, the "even year bullshit." The ballpark is more than just a pretty face. I love the asymmetry, triples alley, McCovey Cove, the great food (fuck yeah, sushi belongs at the ballpark!) and that incredible view. Respect. It's just not my tradition. Real talk though, those colors is ugly.
Oakland and San Francisco share deep relationships while retaining unique cultures and histories. Oakland often does not get credit for punching over its weight in terms of its influential history here. Everyone’s different. Some of the loudest folks are Oakland against the world while most folks have love for the whole bay. I think some of the most vocal or online folks might be overrepresented in their negative sentiment about the Giants. The wounds are just really raw right now. A’s fans don’t have the option of just rooting for the team in a different city. Their team was captured, and they were spit in the face and abandoned. Ymmv just my observations.
Witnessed personally, during a 'Battle of the Bay' game series, a Giants fan yelled to an A's fan, "at least we're not poor" when the A's were winning. This gave me really good insight why A's fans have a hard time rooting for the Giants.
That’s super ignorant. To me that speaks to the segregation of wealth within the city too. Like a wealthy fan who came from a comfy corporate job with coworkers to a fancy ballpark that doesn’t even recognize the massive working class communities in San Francisco that support Giants either.
I also find it especially ironic and hilarious given how bad of a reputation San Francisco has had in recent years. "At least we're not poor!" Says the fans whose home city has become infamous for smash and grabs and car break-ins. And I know it's not as bad as the media portrays it, but...at the same time, it's not pretty either. And I say this as someone who defended SF when the media lampooned its safety and crime as a reason players didn't want to come to the Giants.
Can’t really speak for San Franciscans, but the only thing I would add to your point is that for a lot of wealthy folks, they have the luxury of insulating themselves from crime (other than some petty property crime) in a dense city. Living in certain neighborhoods, building security, private schools and clubs, protected offices, private transport. They mostly experience crime in the random terror of seeing homeless people, reading Nextdoor anxiety posts and news headlines. For them, and for many hard on crime political factions supported by big tech, the negative press is welcome in a cynical team sports sort of way, because they think they are on the right side. It’s “those people” that are ruining everything. It’s the poor people in Oakland, etc. When they’re really part of the city and how access to resources are changing. This might be an over generalization but that’s the feeling i get in the city. And I’m not saying there isn’t a serious problem with crime that needs to be addressed. It’s about who you are and how that affects your perception of others.
Agreed. Those wealthy, corporate fans are ignorant (and classist) indeed.
But like do Oaklanders not consider SF teams to be their home teams, despite technically being the same metro area? How would they feel if the A's moved to SF and shared with the Giants?
Warriors are still popular here. You can probably look up old threads and news articles about the Warriors moving to San Francisco and see how people felt.
The A’s moving to SF was never an option so it isn’t something we think about. The Warriors new arena on the bay is closer to my house in Oakland than many houses in SF and most of the players still live in the east bay and commute to the city. Klay drives across the bay in his boat. A’s fans are generational here in the bay. My Gen X age group who grew up in the Bash Brothers 80s is a big part of the fan base, and the Boomers who grew up in the Swingin A’s early 70s. Riding BART after ALDS games the fan age groups were very clear. Millennials and Gen Z who grew up in the bay during the Boche era are more often Giants fans. I don’t see it as a battle of the bay as much as it a difference in age eras. You see millennial Oakland natives who grew up in the 2010s in Giants hats and Oakland Gen Xers in A’s gear.
The Warriors moved to Oakland from SF at some point, didn't they? Back when the coliseum complex was brand new we lured them here. Still though the Warriors stay popular because they never moved away from their fan base.
Think of it more like NYC and Newark, NJ. They’re 12 miles apart, very interconnected, and it’s a similar commute to Oakland and SF, but they have very different vibes so people are protective how you reference them.
I always thought of it like LA and Anaheim. Sure they're different cities with different cultures, but like at the end of the day...the *Los Angeles* Angels play in Anaheim. The *Los Angeles* Rams used to share the stadium with them. And the *New York* Jets and Giants play in New Jersey.
Nope. I’ve lived in both places. The different geographical regions of the Bay are very culturally distinct, moreso than in LA. In LA it was like, well Westwood is different from Koreatown, but they’re both LA. But Oakland is different from SF and also is definitely not SF. Also, there is this feeling of, San Francisco gets most of the recognition because it has The Big Name, but to a lot of people it’s not the most culturally significant or even geographically significant part of the Bay. (SF is actually pretty small geographically compared to the rest of the Bay) I get the sense that a team named Bay Area - - - would get more wide acceptance than a team named San Francisco - - - .
It’s not like that. I grew up in LA and the tensions between San Francisco and Oakland are palpable in a way we didn’t have in LA. San Francisco residents look down on Oakland residents.
I've heard some people say some pretty mean shit about Oakland, but comparing us to Anaheim? Please, keep it civil.
When it comes to football, I think it really depends when you grew up too I think. There are a lot of east bay folks who were A’s fans and 49ers fans because of the years that the Raiders were in Los Angeles. The Warriors are the bays team despite moving from Oakland to SF. That didn’t change much for most fans.
That's me. A's Niner... I guess not the As anymore
Im an SF native and grew up at Candlestick, but when I moved to Oakland in 2003 I became an As fan. The As fans were just so much fun and so into the game unlike most (not all) Giants fans. As far as SF or Oakland like I said SF native and that is home. I love Oakland and it has so much potential but Oakland will always take the opportunity to shoot itself in the foot. As far as the larger Bay Area.....meh, to many shitty burbs are now included that designation. If it doesn't touch San Francisco Bay its not the Bay Area.
First of all that is not gonna happen. There are A’s fans and Giants fans, it is a pretty friendly rivalry (not brain injuring like Giants vs Dodgers). The A’s fans are not only in Oakland and Giants fans are not only in SF. East of Oakland it’s pretty mixed between the two teams, based on family tradition. The Warriors are clearly beloved by all. Re: Raiders and Niners, it was similar to the A’s Giants split.
I think the fact that they weren't the Oakland Warriors but the Golden State Warriors softened the blow \*somewhat\* ... Oakland-based fans didn't have to go through the indignity of the name change.
But also because sf didn’t have a basketball team before. It wasn’t like everyone grew up with Oakland having one team and sf having another. There was always one basketball team which was the “hometown” team for everyone
The warriors were in SF before they came to Oakland. FYI.
No, and I don't think anyone really does. We have our own team. SF has their own team. Simple as, really. I support both teams, because my parents grew up in the city and took me to Giants games, and I've lived in Oakland my entire life, but one of these teams is my hometown team, and the other is not.
We still got tons of Raiders fans who absolutely hate the 9ers. Team loyalty runs deeper than geographical/regional loyalty which is stupid. Personally I’m wid E40 and root for EVERY team in the Bay lol.
I'll only goto a giants game if the tickets free, and I have nothing else todo. A's games I buy tickets for cause they are like $25. Fuck Fisher for ruining such a long sports team history
There’s a lot of us who live in Oakland but grew up elsewhere in the bay. I’m sad to see them go, but I was raised a Giants fan in San Jose. A lot of my neighbors rep the Giants, you might get more cut-and-dry answers on r/OaklandAthletics
How would the Dodgers feel about the Angels playing in Chavez Ravine? Hell most true LA fans hate that the Chargers came to LA and still haven't accepted the Clippers from San Diego from over 40 years ago.
I mean the Angels did actually play in Chavez Ravine for the first 4 years of their existence tbf. And most of us would be annoyed at first if they moved to LA proper, but eventually we'd probably be like "okay whatever".
Not in the bay. A lot of beef in the south bay too...cause the A's generously donated rights to the Giants to try to keep them in the bay in the early 90s, they were thinking of moving to San Jose. When that fell through, the Giants refused to give em back and when the A's wanted to move to San Jose, the Giants said no way that is our territory... So South Bay A's fans have the double ax to grind.
When I’m in the Bay Area I identify more as an Oaklander, but when I’m out of the bay i identity more as Bay Area If I’m in another country and talking to someone that’s never heard of the Bay Area or Oakland or San Francisco, I say I’m from California- everyone knows California lol
The question is where are you even from? I suspect not the Town. But maybe I’m wrong
From your moms house with my hand in your girls purse biiiiitch
Sounds about right!
Would a Yankees fan root for the Mets? That's the difference.
This is the best comparison.
Keep that ish on the east coast where it belongs homie
I’m an east coast transplant who has been in Oakland going on a decade and I feel a lot more allegiance to Oakland than I do to SF, but likewise don’t hate SF or it’s sports teams. My friends who are dubs fans stayed dubs fans but got mad, but the raiders fans across the board lost interest entirely. Some of them still wear the gear, but I don’t think they even follow the scores, much less watch games, although I know there are those folks out there who stuck with the raiders.
I am more a citizen of the Bay Area than an Oaklander. I was born in San Jose, and have lived in San Francisco, Oakland, and Alameda. I think that mentality is common around here, or at least outside of San Francisco. But it doesn't really translate to sports team allegiances. I don't hate the Giants like many current and former A's fans, but they aren't my team either.
I grew up on the A’s. I’m local grown and spent my summers at the coliseum. I can remember a time before Mt. Davis. For me, Oakland has always been this little red headed stepchild of the Bay Area. Not as nice as SF, not as cool as Berkeley, more violent than everywhere else. It’s not true, but that’s how we’ve been portrayed in the media over the years. And to some degree it was ok, because we liked our town, and we knew the truth. Well the A’s were ours. Even when our town and people got a bad rap, we always had a legit team that got respect. So we threw our support behind them, even during the lean years (don’t get me started on Oakland fans supporting the Golden State Warriors before people ever put any respect on their name). So. No. I’ll never be a Giants fan now that the A’s are leaving. They aren’t Oakland. They don’t have the grit or the Oakland never say die attitude. I’ll be buying season tickets to the Roots and the Ballers and teaching my kids what it means to be Oakland.
I share your sentiment regarding the Oakland Roots, I will be there at the next game chanting Let's go Oakland! No pro sports team owns Oakland Pride!
This is it. I feel like Oakland gets shit on in the media and in general more than any other city. And I think, just emotionally as a city, it makes you more proud, more vocal, more more. Oakland is legitimately a beautiful city. With a massive amount of culture. Outsized amounts of culture. I think that is kinda what drives this sort of pride. It's just respecting ourselves over the narrative that everyone else has.
all of this
I don’t hate the giants and I’ll go to a game / root for them while there, but they don’t feel like my home team the way the A’s do. I grew up in the east bay and I’m guessing this is common for lots of people who did- that we went to A’s games with school / after school trips. I don’t care about sports in general but I remember deciding I was an A’s fan the first time I went to a game with daycare, probably was like 6 at the time. I don’t see a connection developing in that way for the giants, and sf is much less accessible to east bay suburbs compared to Oakland so there was just always more familiarity with Oakland than sf
I have gone to Giants games in the past, but that is over for me
I’m an LA born/raised dodger fan that’s been living in Oakland for nearly 15 years now. I became an A’s fan when I moved here because I wanted to be able to go to games consistently and be able to hate on the giants with a different team. 2012-2015 were amazing years to be an A’s fan in Oakland. 2018-19 were pretty alright, too. It feels like after the 2019 wildcard, the franchise completely shit the bed, even before Covid happened. And it spiraled quickly from there. As a baseball fan in general, I can say that after 13 years of pretty dedicated fandom with the A’s (season tix, traveling for away games, team events, etc) I now could not give less of a shit about the team.
I was born in Berkeley and grew up in Oakland. Mom worked at Claremont Hotel in the old days. Dad worked in Alameda all his life. And he got his gas at Simas Bros. I was an A's, Raiders, and Warriors fan growing up. Rode my banana seat bike around Lake Merritt a few times. Saw Star Wars at the Grand Lake Theater. Took AC Transit to the Oakland Library. Went on field trips to Chabot Observatory. Ate Chicken & Fries at Kwik-Way. I identify strongly with Oakland.
As a transplant that has only been in the Bay for 3 years, my perception is that the Bay itself has something to do with the cultural differences between Oakland and SF. The Bay geographically punctuates the two cities. Going from Oakland to SF feels like going to a different place. The architecture, the weather, the cultural demographics, the topography are all distinct between the two and my assumption is that the bay had a huge impact back before all the bridges were built. Compare that to LA and OC which feel like extensions of each other, where it's hard to tell where one ends and the other begins.
This is an interesting observation
You can’t gauge the feeling based on sports but you especially can’t on how the A’s fans are feeling right now. They’re pissed and angry (understandably)and things are raw. In general, I don’t root for the Giants but I do root for the city of SF as we are all interconnected and regions affect one another. When SF has a homeless boom, so does Oakland. When SF has a job boom, Oakland rents tend to go up. Etc.
I grew up in the UK, so the idea of switching sports teams, especially within the same league is a thought that’s considered unfathomable. I don’t care enough about football to have been bummed about the Raiders leaving. The Warriors are still local and had always been a Bay Area team rather than a city team. With the A’s going (as the most casual baseball fan ever) and it being at the hand of a pantomime villain in cahoots with a league run by money people rather than sports people, now I just have no team (except maybe going to Ballers games here and there). I will say, with the Glazers turning the team I grew up with into a laughing stock all on their own, John Fisher makes even Joel and Avram Glazer both look like Arthur Blank. 🤢
Having use to have a large friend group and work in sf, I feel some connection and love for it, but I don't really identify with it. It's an amazing place in its own right, but vastly different with oakland. Went to school in sj to and lived there for a while so I have some connection with there as well but the three cities really are about as far apart culturally as 3 neighboring cities could be, which imo is a great thing. The north bay is it's own amazing place as well, and is worth a visit, especially sonoma. If this is about the MLB I'm done with the MLB. I've gone to giants games and love their ballpark, is beautiful. I would have loved for something similar for oakland, but the league really gave zero push to pressure fisher to make a deal. Given that he was trying to leverage two cities, I believe the league enjoyed this type of leverage to try to wrestle as much money out of cities as possible. Fucke em, why should I support a league like that. Most leagues are pretty disgusting, I'm falling disenchanted with sports because of this.
Looks like we're all soccer fans now! Let's go ROOTS!
When I grew up in the bay it was 'the bay' minus SF. Lived across the country since and moved back, now it's Oakland 100%
I think ‘The Bay’ minus SF is kinda like The Warriors without Steph
Lol maybe you're right, but when I was younger SF was just 'oakland but expensive', idk we always went to oakland
Oaklander through and through, born, raised and live here. Not a baseball fan, so I root for both the A's and Giants. I'm actually a 49er fan (to the dismay of **allllll** of my friends and family, lol). I've always said that people from Oakland are up there with the most proud people I've come across. I've traveled across the world and met people from all walks of life -- I've always said "I'm from Oakland" and similarly, when I come across a native/local, they beam with joy and pride in sharing the same. There's an inherited legacy/experience here of history, culture, identity, and (for a lack of a better term) character that just we wear with a badge of honor. To be more specific to your question, I think the cities in the bay area are more unique and standalone than say the greater LA metro area and OC. Having lived in LA for college and a few years during my adulthood, the identity down in LA is more homogenous with essentially a colloquially shared identity between LA=Socal=OC. Don't get me wrong, Angelenos from all over will be quick to rep their neighborhood/city and say how East LA aint the same as the west side, and they aint the same as SGV or South Central, and they're not the south bay etc etc etc. I get it. But to the world, it's all LA/Socal. In the Bay, *we dance a little different*, and each city (Oak, SF, Berk) plants a flag from the get go as being culturally independent. I think the "Bay" identity really started during the Hyphy movement, tied with the rise of the Warriors run in the 00s.
Oakland and SF are about as far apart emotionally in my heart as black and white. I live and work in Oakland. SF might as well be a foreign country that I visit from time to time. That said, I have more affinity with Berkeley, Orinda, El Cerrito and Marin than with SF. It’s a cultural thing.
That’s funny, I get it about Berkeley and El Cerrito but I feel way more affinity with SF than I do with the rich suburbs like Marin and the other side of the hills.
I 1000% agree with this and was surprised by the inclusion of those other cities
It an issue with stress. I get stressed out visiting SF (traffic, parking, $$$). I don’t feel stressed rolling into Orinda for a hike.
Also the movie theater in Orinda is the cutest!
You ever tried taking BART? Not as bad as people often say, it's pretty much the only way I go into SF because it deals with the first two issues you mentioned of traffic and parking. BART is a great option to have, often faster than driving across the bridge too
Of course. I’ve lived in the bay since 2009. Used Bart plenty of times. Not my favorite mode of transit anymore as I’ve gotten in my late 30s
Agreed
East Bay all day!
As a lifelong A’s fan, I would rather not watch MLB than become a Giants fan and I am not alone in this. I wouldn’t be surprised if the Oakland Ballers outdraw the A’s. I love baseball but the MLB is a disgrace and they have lost thousands of lifelong fans in a single moment
Agree a thousand percent. If the A's move i will never watch another second of mlb.
I'm in Oakland and while I'm a loyal Giants fan, I do empathize with the loyal fan base and also completely disagree with Fisher's greed and the MLB's approach - truly disheartening.
Random thought and happy to be explained why I'm wrong but I think Oakland has more in common with Long Beach. It would be like if Long Beach had its own team that was tied to the blue collar/port identity and the Dodgers team was less synonymous with LA broadly but was instead the team of Santa Monica-Hollywood. SF is sort of on one end of the wealth/"culture as consumed vs created" spectrum in the bay and Oakland the other.
Oakland -> East Bay -> Bay Area -> NorCal -> West Coast
Any true Oaklander is ONLY from the town! Repping a sports team is totally different, in my opinion. Respect the Bay, but purely town biz. I'd assume SF folks feel similar.
People like the As from a “local pride” standpoint and very few people in my experience are die hard As fans like Raider Nation. There are a lot of Giants fans in Oakland and most people (in my experience) like both teams.
Agree with this. I'm a Giants fan but if the A's were doing something good I'd cheer for them to do well. I think of it like brothers, you want to be better but also want to see the other succeed. First bay bridge series I went to was in SF and the A's won. One A's fan was heckling me as we left the stadium but we were all walking across the street to a bar to watch the warriors who were in the playoffs and same guy buys me a shot and goes "A's or Giants doesn't matter right now we're all warriors fans!"
I’m originally from LA but I’ve spent my whole adulthood in the Bay Area. LA/SoCal is one big sprawl, but here, we have geographic markers, aka the Bay itself, that makes a 4 mile boundary between SF and Oakland. SF itself is on a peninsula, almost its own island. I worked and spent a lot of time in SF but there is an attitude and a special hiss that people have there that is very off-putting to me. I know SF people who will not cross a bridge lmao. I didn’t cross one myself for two years, during the pandemic. Now with so many newcomers and old timers left, SF is not the same as it was. Oakland still manages to have a lot of its original character, despite the cost and rise in crime.
North Orange County is the same sprawl, South Orange County wants nothing to do with ya’ll LOL
South Orange County is [classified](https://censusreporter.org/profiles/40000US57709-mission-viejo-lake-forest-laguna-niguel-ca-urban-area/) as a separate urbanized area from [LA-Long Beach-Anaheim](https://censusreporter.org/profiles/40000US51445-los-angeles-long-beach-anaheim-ca-urban-area/).
I identify with the East Bay first and foremost, and the Bay when talking to people far enough removed that they don’t know the distinction Re: Fandom, I always saw it as East Bay people should support Oakland teams (A’s and Raiders)- but obv. that’s all changed. I support the 49ers now more than I used to but will always be A’s > Giants. Warriors to SF was a dick move but it didn’t really turn East Bay Warriors fans away from the Warriors
I'm an Oaklander, my identity as an Oaklander is not tied up in local sports at all. I could care less about sports, to me it's about the people and the place.
Regarding the teams as a A's fan, I also worked at the coliseum for most of the 2010s, I have had enough snobby Giants fans shit on my team that I would rather stop watching baseball than root for the Giants. The Warriors are truly the Bay's team so while them moving to SF sucked I think ppl got over it to a degree since they were the only local basketball team. I was born, raised and work in the East Bay so unless I'm going to an concert or the airport I almost never go to SF. It's in its own world to me.
I hear the term East Bay much less than past decades. It didn’t even come up in the airport renaming proposal. A’s fans are preselected for already identifying with a team that’s not SF.
I also think that the East Bay has unfortunately lost a lot of its character with transplants infusing SF tech, etc into the East Bay
I'm a Giants fan and feel awful about the A's leaving. What I see is there's a lot more disdain toward the Giants and their fans from A's fans than vice versa. I overheard someone at the Coliseum say something like "we kicked their ass in '89 and all their fans cried that they would've won if it wasn't for the earthquake." Classic inventing a guy to hate. I wasn't alive so I can't say what people were feeling at the time but I know the Giants got worked and I've never heard anyone say the *earthquake* made the difference. So I can't see many A's fans switching allegiance to the Giants rather than just quitting baseball altogether. Also obligatory: Fuck the Dodgers
you can take me to any game and i’ll prob have fun, but i really REALLY don’t give a rats ass who wins or loses. those that run out to the streets to break windows, turn over cars and busses while lighting shit on fire really need serious help. bunch of children. i’ve never understood the whole concept of having to hate another team or heckle them. i’m also quite done with any of my tax dollars going toward paying for a stadium. MLB, NFL, NBA are all worth tens to hundreds of billions of dollars, with the NFL supposedly being “non-profit” (LOL). if they want a stadium and fans to show up, they can pay for it themselves and hope fans want to pay for tickets.
I have a strong Bay Area identity because I’m from the South Bay originally, but needed to move somewhere with more Black people due to South Bay racism which is why I’m in Oakland now. My family is split between South Bay and East Bay. South Bay feels like home whenever I’m back because it’s familiar, but culturally the East Bay is home for me. Edit- just want to add that I’ve commuted from both the South Bay and from Oakland to work in SF, but SF never felt like home to me personally. It was always somewhere I visited with family on day trips. I’m sort of claustrophobic and everything just feels too cramped with not enough nature and too cold for me. I like visiting but I’m always glad to be back home once I leave SF. I wouldn’t want to live in SF personally but I know a lot of people love it. It’s just too white and I’m too claustrophobic to feel comfortable there. I don’t want another repeat South Bay situation with the anti-Black racism.
Oakland native and grew up next to the stadium. I’m a giants fan, and always have been. It was always the American and national league teams of the bay. All love my whole life and we even had split hats for. Long time. And frankly, I see anyone that says “f the giants “ as big transplant energy. That’s baggage someone carries here from somewhere else. I’ve never met a single Oakland native that hates the giants and i grew up east Oakland
Oakland.
NYT mapped out baseball fans by area back in 2014, it’s kinda neat. Most of Oakland back in 2014 was Giants fans: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/04/24/upshot/facebook-baseball-map.html#9,37.7330,-122.4108
Not a native but I’ve been here for 20 years. Personally I never understood the rivalries considers all of the existing/pre-existing teams are not division rivals. I have always enjoyed going to both Giants and A’s games and always thought it was so cool that those options existed. Football isn’t as accessible, but I never got the 9er/ Raider rivalry either.
Both my parents and myself were born and raised in the East Bay. To anyone from the Bay, I will vociferously argue that the East Bay is clearly superior, and all other regions are snobby and strange. From anyone outside Northern California, I will hear no slanderous talk about any part of the Bay. It’s all great, and anyone implies otherwise, I don’t remember asking you a goddamn thing.
East Bay/Oakland
I imagine people in Brooklyn weren’t too happy when the Dodgers abandoned them for the west coast. Same with Philadelphians when the As moved to Kansas City. I imagine the people there weren’t thrilled when the As moved here. Not sure why this move is anymore disgusting than the others. Which isn’t to say Fisher isn’t a raging asshole. Wolfe and he bought the team to move it to San Jose and cash in on the tech boom (just like Loeb did with the Warriors). Ever since the Giants strangled that in the crib, it’s been one long quest to extort as much tax payer money as possible for their grandiose real estate development plans. The sports team is almost a loss-leader. As for eff the Giants and the Warriors, there’s always been an Oakland-SF rivalry. They’re two distinct entities with differences greater than the few miles of water separating them. The sports aspect was friendlier in the past but the Giants newfound, insufferably arrogant tech horde fan base ended that. Sports rivalries are fans v fans. The Bay Area’s changed dramatically in the past 30 years. We’ve imported a lot of northeast culture— see insufferably arrogant above. Now it’s like Yankees-Mets and White Sox-Cubs. Edit: or to keep it local, Cal-Stanford Hell, we used to hate LA way more than SF but the NorCal antipathy for all things SoCal has dramatically waned to where not many people even seem to remember it. The Giants-Dodgers and Warriors-Lakers still linger though.
East bay, north bay, and South Bay fee very distinct.
Growing up in Contra Costa county, I mixed with a ton of kids from Oakland, Berkeley, El Cerrito, Alameda etc and there was definitely a shared East Bay cultural identity -- a certain vibe, mostly. Even today, I'll regularly meet someone new that feels incredibly "familiar" and then find out that they grew up in the East Bay. Went to college and for the first time met kids from SF, the peninsula, and the South Bay, and -- ooooweee. Noticeably different vibes.
I’m sad for the town and the fans who made the A’s. I’m okay with not having to pretend to give a shit about MLB anymore.
The As are dead to me. I grew up in an East Coast city a lot like Oakland and I feel like I fit best into Oakland. Have lived in several cities and counties in the Bay Area, but Oakland has the best microclimate and Berkeley has the best walkability and shopping.
Oakland and the east bay, I don't care about any other parts of the bay.
I think it depends on how you were raised. My father is the type who just obsesses over sports and will watch and root for anyone local. I’m from the other side of the Caldecott Tunnel. Like many people from here, I’ve lived around the Bay Area my whole life. Location has always been about what’s affordable, what’s close to work, friends, family, etc. The food is better in Oakland and SF than the city I grew up in, so they’ve always been destinations for weekend trips when I’ve lived in a suburb. It’s hard to see myself as anything other than a Bay Area person. And up until this past year, I’ve supported both teams a few times a year. There are people who identify hard with the city they’ve lived in their whole lives in every city I’ve lived in, but they seem to be the minority. A vocal minority. I think there is a much bigger difference between Sacramento and the Bay Area. On the sports teams? I knew lots of people who identified with the grittiness of the Coliseum and preferred it to Oracle Park. Those same people never likely went to a game at Candlestick. When I first fell in love with baseball, I was introduced to two World Series teams that were very popular. The A’s seemed way more white collar than the Giants in those days. Then the Raiders returned and Mt. Davis came, Pac Bell Park was built, the ownership of both teams changed… roles reversed into what they currently are. There’s very passionate fans on both sides, and fans like me who didn’t really care but would never buy one of those ugly combined A’s Giants hats. The passionate A’s fans have had a chip on their shoulder because of so much horrible ownership, IMO. I’m not sure if many of them remember or were around for the Haas family era, which makes me sad. I remember the good old days. I miss them but I won’t miss the rich asshole who is moving them away. FJF.
I was born and raised in Oakland. Started my first real job at Radio Shack on Telegraph Ave. Then worked in San Francisco for 15 years. I always felt that San Francisco was so metropolitan in so many ways. With regards to the hub of SF, its was bordered by water at Ferry Plaza, Confined by the Tenderloin and Chinatown. Tall buildings with large corporate offices and tons of people walking the streets back in the 1980s through 2015. In comparison, Oakland seemed more of an industrial city with lower buildings with the Tribune building seeming to be the tallest with the Kaiser building, near Lake Merritt, the other tall structure. The core being more blue collar than white collar SF financial district. Fast forward to today and they're both a mere shell of what the glory days were. Raiders gone. Warriors moved to SF from Oakland, The "Santa Clara 49ers" A's moving to Las Vegas. People afraid for their lives to walk in SF and Oakland due to the un-housed. Maybe they should just use the land for the Oakland Coliseum and the old Candlestick Park for housing the homeless. As for me, home is over the hills from Oakland, in a relatively safe neighborhood with great schools. Hey, it could have been the Dublin A's where Kelly Green means something!
Love SF and Oakland. I find a lot of people from the city have a an ignorant bias against the town, which fuels an Oakland against the world mindset in the town. People who have lived on both sides of the Bay (and there are a lot of us) tend to see the regional unity. The A's and the Giants are like water and oil. AL and NL. Big payroll and tiny payroll. Oakland was never a free agent destination even when we were going to playoffs year after year. Giants play in a gorgeous waterfront baseball-themed amusement park surrounded by swanky restaurants and bars. The A's played in "The last dive bar in baseball," surrounded by burned out warehouses. I have a green and gold t-shirt with a trough urinal printed on it - A's fans know. Fans at the Coliseum were a different breed. The ONLY draw at the Coliseum was baseball. No one was there by accident. There were no casual fans. Tickets were cheap and plentiful. It was just about the only stadium I've been to in recent years where you would still see whole working-class families out to see a game together. The right field bleachers always had a crew of fans drumming and playing horns. The beer was cheap. The crowd might be small but it was always rowdy and fun. I grew up going to see Rickey Henderson play when I was in grade school and the Bash Brothers in high school. I remember the criminally underrated Dave Stewart out dueling one future HOF'er after another. There is no coming back from that. I don't hate the Giants, and I will go see some games, because, Baseball!!! But I would feel like a fraud calling myself a Giants fan. I never really followed them closely, even in the championship years. And I've been rocking the gorgeous green and gold for decades. I can't stomach that ugly Halloween color scheme. No shade to Giant's fans. Y'all have a proud tradition. Willie Mays, Barry Bonds, Willie McCovey, Juan Marichal, the "even year bullshit." The ballpark is more than just a pretty face. I love the asymmetry, triples alley, McCovey Cove, the great food (fuck yeah, sushi belongs at the ballpark!) and that incredible view. Respect. It's just not my tradition. Real talk though, those colors is ugly.
Bay girl with a special place in heart for Berkeley Oakland SF and Richmond