Sports
There may be no stronger tie of identity between city and team than Oakland has with the Athletics. Known to the rest of the country as the sometimes-suffering underdog, the city of Oakland and its baseball team both benefit from the fierce loyalty of locals. This sentiment was at Frank Ogawa Plaza Monday night, when Mayor Jean Quan and representatives from the Oakland A’s held an eleventh-hour rally for fans ready to welcome home their team home from Detroit.
Sporting a pink scarf around her newly shaved head and a black baseball cap with pink rhinestone accents, Debra Hagan watched her sister swim Saturday afternoon.
Hagan, who was recently diagnosed with cancer, was moved to tears as she supported her sister at the 17th annual Swim A Mile for Women with Cancer. “I’m here as her cheerleader,” Hagan said. “I’m not a swimmer, but I can sure can cheer her on.”
Wednesday marked International Walk and Roll to School day. Alameda County’s Safe Routes to School program coordinator Nora Cody said the event was being celebrated by 99 schools county-wide. Peralta Elementary was one of 22 Oakland schools participating.
For the fourth time in the last decade, and the first since the release of the film Moneyball brought popular attention to the team’s uncanny ability to wring a playoff appearance out of a noticeably limited budget, the Oakland Athletics have once again accomplished a rarity in Major League Baseball…
On the fourth Wednesday of each month, a part of Spain – an especially passionate part, with a centuries-old history – comes to downtown Oakland. It’s called Flamenco Downtown night, at Disco Volante
The East Bay Bicycle Coalition (EBBC) is leading a bike tour of five historic Oakland houses on Saturday. The ride will begin with the Peralta Hacienda in Fruitvale and end at the DeFremery House in West Oakland. The tour, its highlights illustrated in this map, begins at 12:30 pm.
Yossi Offenberg is a die-hard fan of ball hockey, which is like roller hockey, only in shoes. He’s 48 and grew up in Toronto, where he and his friends would wait eagerly for the Saturday morning synagogue services to end so they could they rush home for lunch, and then out to play ball hockey in the streets.. They did this until the stars came out and Sabbath was over. Offenberg says those cold winter days were some of the best days of his youth.
Cycling enthusiasts gathered downtown on Sunday, for the Oakland Grand Prix Bike Race. 305 cyclists of all ages competed in ten events, slicing through the streets surrounding the Kaiser Center.