17 Comments

Fantasy Life is a book of incredible photography and stories (including a baby-face Matt Olson). If you'd like to read more about it, I wrote about it here on substack, with the subtitle "Soren Over (Oakland) California" (I'm sorry/ You're Welcome for the pun). https://tinkertaylorsolerspiezio.substack.com/p/baseball-art-and-the-55-empty-glass

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Beautiful essay, Tabitha. My heart goes out to Oakland baseball fans for the injustices perpetrated by their current awful owner, major league baseball , politicians and others involved in this mess. Starting with cheapskate Charlie Finley, who built a short lived championship team, through the great Billy Bean, it is amazing that the A's survived in Oakland this long. So many great players went through Oakland.

If only a modern new stadium had been agreed to years ago.

As a Yankee/Phillies fan, rooting for our Oakland brethren., and hoping for a miracle.

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This is so sad and awful. My best friend in childhood was a huge As fan. We lost touch a long time ago, but I can’t help but think of him now. Given the amount of time we spent following baseball (by this I mean spending every waking minute doing something related to baseball) I can’t imagine he’s not still a devoted fan. My heart breaks for him and every other As fan. You deserve so much better.

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The one time I went to the Coliseum the $30 price for bought-day-of tix to sit behind the plate made the annoying trek on BART worth it.

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Everyone near Oakland should support Oakland’s REAL team, the Oakland Ballers. Alas their first season recently ended in a first round playoff loss

Here is an article about how they started. A lot of what is great about baseball

https://www.theringer.com/mlb/2024/8/13/24216407/oakland-ballers-pro-sports-startup-athletics

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Looking forward to the book!

The Coliseum is far from the best MLB stadium (especially post Mt. Davis), but many of my favorite memories are of rooting for the A's with the raucous Oakland crowds. After 40 years of fandom, I've refused to support the A's for the last 2 years and I suspect I will never have another favorite MLB team again.

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This brought tears to my eyes. Never been an Athletics fan but I know fans and I know what a team means to a town. This is a major tragedy.

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I will be at the last game next Thursday. It will be sad, and a final chance to say F-you to John Fisher. It would be so delicious if the Vegas thing falls apart and he has to sell the team, or, alternatively, we get an expansion team here in the Bay Area and we get a chance to beat the A's every year.

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I grew up in Southern California, as did all of my siblings. One of my brothers moved to the bay area for a job some 20 years ago. He and his wife have raised their kids as A's fans and they would go to a dozen or so games each year. They are utterly disgusted with the owner and the entire situation.

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"Utterly disgusted with the owner..." is not a small club to be a member of.

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Regardless of your team ..

I am sure hedge fund ownership will be even better 👀

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Tabitha Soren. One of the more random people (MTV) I follow on FB

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And married to Michael Lewis, which I guess is how she came to photograph the 2002 draft class he covered in Moneyball.

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Wait, what? Wow.

The IQ and writing talent in that house ....

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"a sculpture made of players’ bone spurs"

I need much more information about this piece of art.

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I was thinking exactly that! It sounds like it belongs more in the Mütter Museum in Philadelphia (https://muttermuseum.org) than any art gallery.

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This is so incredibly sad- how the other owners allowed this to happen with absolutely no continuity plan in place is such a disgrace. My heart goes out to the fans. There is a really good 5 part podcast on ESPN Daily about the exodus of all 3 pro teams from Oakland in 5 years

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