I’m not disagreeing that the A’s wouldn’t be here without the Raiders. I’m disagreeing that if you’re an A’s fan, you should be a Raiders fan simply because they inadvertently made it more convenient for the A’s to move here.

I was born in 1979. Between then and 1995 ,when the Raiders moved back , yes the 9’ers were AWESOME and there’s really no arguing otherwise. They were the team I grew up with and I’m sure as hell not going to switch my allegiance to a team that can’t decide whether the Bay Area is a good enough place to let their franchise take root.

I happen to live in Sacramento now, but I was born in and lived in Oakland for 21 out of my 27 years on this planet. (4 years in Claremont for college, the last two in Sac)

And I resent Al Davis a lot more for the financial aspect of it than the stadium aspect of it. (Not that I don’t resent the idiotic politicians as well) I resent him for leaving, even if I was a mere babe at the time and I resent him for demanding that the city bribe him to come back.

Now those things are not the be all and end all of it. I’m not a Niners fan because I resent Al Davis. I’m a Niners fan because I’m a Niners fan, I’ve always been a Niners fan and I will always be a Niners fan. When Al Davis is dead and buried, I may have a more neutral view of the Raiders — but that won’t stop me from being a Niners fan.

it was a good time to be a fan in the Bay Area …

The “bandwagon” argument is weak, especially since those years were a LONG time ago, and bear no resemblance at all to the mess we call “our team” now…

If I were that weak in the noggin, the A’s would have pushed me to blow my brains out before the Raiders took the field. The two HBPs in front of the homer might have done it.

But I sided “with” them, not “against” them. (And to agree with Poppy’s bandwagon retort; the fact that the Raiders were dominant in the 70’s made it even easier to follow them, I am certain). Still the same memories apply; Dad and my older brothers taking me to games when I was younger. I stayed loyal even when they moved, and was ecstatic when they moved back, except not so much when all the renovations at the Coli were made for them. But I am a season ticket holder; been for ten years or so now. It’s just nice having football in Oakland, although the times have surely changed. The younger fans think there is a reputation to uphold and a beer quota to reach. It wasn’t like that. Oakland was a tough place to play because of the players not because the fans threw shit at the opposition. They are trying to put a family feel to it this year; a few policy changes have been made, which is great. The product has been awful: 19 wins in five seasons, but I guess I’m a glutton. Or maybe it’s great to be able to still go to games with Dad.

And yet, despite all that, the A’s still hold the rights to my heart more than the Raiders ever will.

the first time we lived there we rented a nice little 3 bedroom home on West Pine . That was from 1985-1987. We moved back to the bay area for a year and then returned the following year…We lived ‘88-89 in a large rented home on Sheldon Street. My husband was a project accountant with Chevron and they were building the Hyperion plant there. We LOVED El Segundo. We have great memories of our time there. I became friends with Kathy Christensen, her husband, Todd played for the Raiders and I was also friends with Sarah Junkin. Her husband is Trey Junkin. I also met other players and their wives but didn’t know any of them well. The reason I met Kathy and Sarah is because we worked together on the same day at a co-op preschool for our little ones.
My oldest daughter took Piano lessons from a lady who lived on Concord. Small world isn’t it?
Oh and I sympathize about the rent…we wanted to stay there but we couldn’t afford the price of the homes. We had rented our home here in Norcal but the price differential was Gi-normous.