It’s a short hop from Alameda to Raimondi Park, especially if you live on the West End. And when you get there, it’s heaven on earth for a baseball fan. It’s an intimate park, players tend to mingle with fans before and after the game, everyone is smiling, and you know that you’re all there for the same reason—you love baseball.
The Oakland Ballers play across the estuary, but they are our home team, too. In fact, many Alamedans are investor/owners, and a lot of us are season ticketholders. But we’ll get to that later. For now, let’s just say that Alameda is a baseball town. That’s obvious when you drive onto our island through the Webster Tube and pass the exit sign to Willie Stargell Avenue on the way into town.
Alameda has a long history of producing and rooting for what has been dubbed a formidable roster of great ballplayers, from the aforementioned Stargell, a legendary Hall of Famer and Encinal High alum, to current phenom Bryan Woo, an Alameda High grad who made his Major League debut with the Seattle Mariners in 2023 and already has made history as the first MLB pitcher ever to begin a season with 25 consecutive starts of at least six innings pitched and two or fewer walks.
Alamedans tend to be faithful fans. Some islanders are loyal to the team across the bay, but for 57 seasons—1968 through 2024—throngs of us were Oakland A’s fans who regularly went to games at the Coliseum and passionately rooted for the home team. Win or lose, we loved the A’s.
Then multibillionaire owner John Fisher took over in 2005 and spent almost 20 years trading away the best players before they could demand higher salaries, refusing to repair or even maintain the Coliseum, mistreating staff, and arguably tanking the team on purpose to justify moving them to Las Vegas so he could make more money. In April 2023, Fisher formally announced that he had entered into a “binding agreement” to move the A’s to Sin City and build them a fancy new ballpark there.
It felt like a death in the family. But just seven months after that announcement, another one was issued. Entrepreneur Paul Freedman and writer/producer Bryan Carmel, a couple of guys who went to high school together in Oakland, announced the formation of the Oakland Ballers professional baseball team and gave us a reason to be optimistic again.
“Unlike the A’s, the B’s vow to never leave The Town,” they said. “The Oakland B’s believe that sports teams should serve their communities—not the other way around.”
The super-popular Pioneer League team is now in its second season at West Oakland’s historic Raimondi Park and just broke the league record for most single-season wins. They are incredibly fun to watch, with a 2025 team batting average of .309 as of September 1, along with an on base percentage of .400, a slugging percentage of .518, and 774 runs scored in 90 games—more than 8 runs per game on average.
The Raimondi connection
The Ballers play in Oakland, but there’s a strong Alameda connection. Not only are many Alameda fans season ticketholders, but at least 120 investors live on our island, according to the team’s General Counsel, Mark Kahn.
The Ballers’ home is Raimondi Park, at 1800 Wood Street, named after Ernie Raimondi, a local ballplayer who was killed in action in World War II. Ernie’s nephew, Bill Raimondi, and many other family members are lifelong residents of Alameda. Bill, who grew up in his family’s home on Santa Clara Avenue and now lives on Bay Farm Island, is the son of Ernie’s older brother Billy. Billy also played pro ball, as did three of his brothers—and all of them got their start at what is now Raimondi Park.
Bill was among 50 family members who came to Raimondi Park from Alameda, Oakland, Fremont, Marin County, and even as far as Twain Harte for the Ballers “Ernie Raimondi Commemorative Cup Giveaway” night.
“Ernie’s grandson threw out the first pitch,” Bill told the Alameda Post. “Other grandsons were there to catch it, and it was really a special night. They asked if we had someone who could sing the national anthem but everyone’s too shy in our family—and nobody can sing!”
He loves what the owners have done with the ballpark and the team—and for the community. And, of course, he loves going to the ballpark to watch games with friends as well as family.
“A friend’s son is a season ticketholder and shareholder who lives in San Francisco and comes all the way across the Bay to go to the games,” he said. “And I have good friends from Sacramento who take the train down. They’re season ticketholders, too.”
One of Bill’s favorite things about going to Ballers games at Raimondi Park is “the proximity to the field,” he said. “And it’s fun to watch people who are really into the games, who know the players, and have invested in the team. It’s just a homey atmosphere.”
With the disappointment of losing the A’s to glitzy Las Vegas, Bill chose not to go to games at the Coliseum for their last two seasons, so the happy atmosphere at the Ballers’ historic ballpark named after his family has been more than welcome.
Getting past the loss of the A’s
Most A’s fans were heartbroken when the team was snatched out of Oakland, even though many continued to go to games and tried to make the best of the time they had left at the Coliseum. Alameda resident Molly Mills, a retired schoolteacher, maintained a philosophical attitude and yet made it onto the evening news after the very last A’s game at the Coliseum when she held up a sign that read, “Today there IS crying in baseball.”
Mills went to both A’s and Ballers games during that 2024 season. Saying goodbye to one team and hello to the other helped her to maintain a positive perspective, especially at a time when the Coliseum could feel like a ghost town.
“We would often be the only ones in our section,” Mills said. But she and her friend Alexis Meron continued to go to A’s games. “We had developed relationships with a lot of the workers there and we wanted to be with them. We also wanted to be there for the players.”
Mills said she didn’t care whether the A’s won or lost that last season, she just wanted to be there and have fun. She did just that. She and Meron even won the 50-50 raffle one day. “We had so many great experiences,” she said. “That’s what we focused on. It was really just one sort of magical experience after another for our last season.”
Mills’ first season at Ballers games was joyous, but a lot of it was about settling into a different ballpark with a new team in a different league, trying out various places to sit prior to purchasing Ballers season tickets for 2025. The atmosphere there was energetic, happy, community-oriented, and definitely friendly, she said.
“One of the things that was so much fun at the beginning was that when you walk in, the players are walking in with you,” Mills said. That’s something you don’t see at a Major League game. It just feels so local. The team is, after all, owned by the community, including Alamedans, many of whom are investors.
Mills gave another great reason for Alamedans to go to Raimondi Park and enjoy Ballers games: “It’s so easy to get there, park, and just get in the seats.”
Saying good-bye, proposing marriage, and investing in the Ballers
Cybersecurity engineer Trea Kines, who grew up in Alabama but moved to the East Bay 23 years ago—10 years of it in Alameda—was among the many A’s fans who were brokenhearted about the team’s departure. During the A’s last season in Oakland, which also was the Oakland Ballers inaugural season, Kines and his fiancée Kate Klingensmith split their game time between the Coliseum and Raimondi Park.
“We were focused on saying goodbye to the A’s, so we were at every game we could get to,” Kines said. They even went to road games. “I proposed to Kate at the last A’s game in Seattle,” he continued. “I had it up on the Jumbotron. It said ‘Some things must end, but not this. Marry me, Kate.’ She turned around and I was on my knee.”
She said yes.
“So it kind of made something that was sad better, and gave us a good memory to take away,” Kines said.
The two of them bought season tickets to Ballers games and both also are investors. They ended up moving from Alameda to West Oakland a few months ago. They love going to games at Raimondi Park. The baseball itself is amazing—as of August 31, the Ballers had a remarkable .767 winning percentage, best in all of professional baseball, including Major League teams.
What makes the experience even better is that, as season ticketholders, they always sit with the same people, who have become their kind of Ballers family.
“It’s like church, and we are all a part of our community,” Kines said. “Derek and Liz are in front of us, and Babs and Jay are right in front of them. Tim and Janice are on the left, and Sully’s mom sits just over to the left of us.” Sully, by the way, is pitcher Connor Sullivan, a closer for the Ballers who currently leads the league in saves. It truly is a hometown team, whether you live in Oakland, Alameda, or anywhere else in the neighborhood.
The Playoffs
The Ballers last regular season homestand of 2025 is happening this week, with the final game on Sunday, September 7. After that, they will play the first two Pioneer League playoff games at Raimondi Park, on September 11 and September 12. Click the dates to purchase tickets, if any are still available—they’re selling fast.
Liz Barrett is the Copy Editor of the Alameda Post and writes about our community. Contact her via [email protected]. Her writing is collected at AlamedaPost.com/Liz-Barrett.
