Today was the Coliseum funeral that I expected, but in true Oakland fashion it was also somehow…fun. 46,000 friends and family filled the tired, crumbling ballpark one more time.

We laughed and cried and high-fived and fist-bumped, we cheered and booed, we screamed ‘sell the team’ and ‘let’s go Oakland’ and a few somewhat more profane and lyrical chants. My wife Leigh and I walked the entire concourse in the sixth inning and again after the game ended, when no one really wanted to leave, and then we did a full circle of the stadium parking lots before getting back on the BART train where, to no one’s surprise, the entire train car sang along to the Beastie Boys “Fight for your right to party” on somebody’s speaker.

We said hello to friends old and new, over and over, starting on the train ride in. On the train we met Satvir and Dan; Dan was wearing a Detroit Tigers shirt, so of course we had to say hello. Turns out his parents both graduated from Michigan State, and he was watching Detroit’s eventual come-from-behind win over Tampa Bay on his phone, which cut the Tigers’ magic number to two. They offered us a Lagunitas and we chatted nonstop for the rest of the trip.

The train wasn’t overly crowded, but crossing the BART bridge was when we first started to get a sense of the scope of the crowd; it was packed. So were the lines to get in, and by the time we arrived at the gate, all of the 25,000 replica-stadium vouchers were long since gone. It was OK; I saw one earlier online and it looked typically cheap for an A’s giveaway.

Mostly we talked to other fans as we slowly made our way toward the security tables. First we saw Jeff, who had not one but TWO giant foam hands with “OAK RAGE” printed across them. Another super cool guy, Glenn, actually said “Hey, are you Ten Stadiums?” which made me feel like a celebrity for a minute. We also chatted with the family behind us in the security line: Kimmy and Caleb and their son, Clayton, who have been coming to games since before he was born. They were awesome; Caleb was taking videos of various aspects of the exterior of the Coliseum and texting “remember this?” messages to his friends. Kimmy was telling us about how big a fan Clayton was. Clayton was mostly just sad. It broke my heart a little.

And when we got into the Coliseum, we saw a million more friends. Bryan, the ‘Last Dive Bar’ King, and Crazy George with his snare drum, and a couple guys who may or may not have been named Beavis and Justin, and Walter with his sad-face sign and Craig with his Stomper Beanie cap and Sydney and Daniel from (I think?) New Jersey and of course our good friend Colt with her beautiful dobermans, Caris and Curtis. They were everywhere.

After the game, while everyone in the bleachers was milling around, not quite sure how to handle the overwhelming feeling of this being the end, we met another amazing A’s fan. Janessa is a two-time cancer survivor, just like me. But the chemo treatment that both of us received a long time ago caused her to become deaf. It did nothing, though, to damper her spirit or enthusiasm or sense of humor. I haven’t read it, since I literally just met Janessa yesterday, but her mom wrote a book about her journey, which you can pick up here if you are so inclined. She is another amazing example in a long line of incredible A’s fans.

It honestly was pretty smooth all the way around all day, although we didn’t bother waiting in any of the food lines, which were admittedly pretty long. Another sad element to a sad day was that not all of the concession stands were open. Come on, Fisher! Not even for the last day? Uggh. Lots of people, including us, were just buying beverages from the vendors who were hardly able to get up into the stands before needing to refill. Shout out to my buddy Ice Cold Kenny Bo! At one point Kenny was up in our section, filming an interview or something (he’s fancy that way hahaha!), and Leigh suggested that the people in front of us get a photo of their adorable baby, Abigail, sitting IN the cooler. Everyone immediately decided it was the best idea ever, and 30 seconds later, Abigail was, indeed, inside the beer cooler.

Sure, there were a few idiots trying to create a little havoc who I’m sure will get some media time, but the vast majority of people, 99.9% of them, just enjoyed an afternoon at the ballpark. And of course, it was on a day when the ballpark that claims the most perfect weather in baseball had exactly that weather, one last time.

I wasn’t quite sure how I was going to feel about this final game. I mean, going to a baseball game is supposed to be FUN, you know? It’s just about the most fun thing you can do with a perfectly sunny afternoon or cool, crisp evening. So in the months and weeks and days leading up to today, I kept thinking about how this game wasn’t going to be any fun at all. And that’s weird.

One of my friends told me something that stuck with me, the day before the game. He said that, as the biggest A’s fan he knew, I kind of had an obligation to be there, and that’s kind of how it felt. I’m guessing that’s how it felt for a lot of the crowd. I didn’t want to miss it, but I didn’t really want it to happen in the first place.

But honestly, it really WAS mostly a fun afternoon at the ballpark. I had tears welling up while walking in and, for whatever reason, tears again during the seventh inning stretch. But for the most part, I think a lot of people were able to pretend for a couple hours that it was just another game; we cheered on the team and booed whenever the Rangers’ pitcher tossed over to first base and it felt kind of normal.

A lot of that is a credit to the Oakland A’s fans, who don’t get enough credit for being the best fans anywhere around. When you’re at a game at the Coliseum, you are surrounded by FRIENDS, and I’ve always loved that about the place. They’re passionate about baseball and passionate about the team, but they also just seem to care about their neighbors in a way that you don’t always see in MLB stadiums.

I also think much of the anger people needed to express has already happened; one diehard A’s fan I know, a right field regular named Anson who you’ve maybe also met before, said to me that it was like breaking up with a girlfriend or boyfriend who then just wouldn’t leave the house, for an entire year. “Time to get out,” he said.

I tend to agree. I have vacillated from anger to sadness to acceptance and back again for a year now. I know that John Fisher is counting on this dissipation of the gigantic cloud of angry frustration, and it bothers me that it likely WILL dissipate some. But also, it’s not super healthy to live in a constant state of agitation either. We will move on, to the Ballers and the Roots and the Soul and to wherever else we can find a couple hours of pleasant, sun-drenched escape. And there’s still plenty of time for Fisher to mess this whole Vegas move up, that’s for sure.

It bothered me quite a bit that the A’s management started leaking messages about how there might be trouble during or after the game, and that it would be wise for the players to beeline for the safety of the clubhouse immediately after the final pitch. It felt like a list of ingredients for an Oakland-bashing recipe: start with two cups of fear-mongering and add an equal amount of disdain for the city and a dash of paranoia about fan unrest, then sprinkle with a pinch of management’s disgust for the fans.

And of course, no one from the management or ownership team made ANY sort of appearance at the game. Who knows where those losers spent the day, but as far as I know, it wasn’t at the Coliseum. It tracks with what’s happened all season. The team president, that worm Dave Kaval, started talking in April about how this season was going to be a celebration of the fans. And then he did literally NOTHING to celebrate anything the entire year. The celebration planning was left up to the very fans that he and the rest of them were busy spitting on.

I hate that they’re leaving, and I hate how people hate on Oakland (the same way I’ve always hated how people hate on Detroit), and I hate that the management just doesn’t care about any of this, and I hate that they think they could somehow ever recreate this scene in Sacramento or Vegas or anywhere, for that matter. If this one stupid billionaire cared one-billionth as much as the fans in the ballpark today did, we wouldn’t be in this spot.

But still, today was a celebration, and it even ended with Kool and the Gang’s ‘Celebration’ after one last Oakland A’s win.

I wish it could be different, but I’m so glad I was there.

One last time.