Years before Raiders quarterback Kenny Stabler threw an improbable touchdown pass through a “Sea of Hands” and A’s right fielder Reggie Jackson swatted majestic home runs into the East Oakland night, Rick Cowell and his brother rode their bikes down East 14th Street to a vacant lot.
Cowell graduated from Fremont High School and worked for PG&E where, across the street on that same neighborhood lot, he watched the construction of a triple-deck stadium that put his city on the sports map.
When the Oakland Coliseum opened Sept. 18, 1966, packed with 50,000 fans for a Raiders game against Kansas City, it also marked the beginning of Cowell’s career as a vendor. At first, he sold game programs to some of the millions of fans who entered the stadium gates over the next six decades. When programs sold out, he hawked beers to a fanbase happy to call a major sports team its own. The A’s arrived in 1968, and Cowell added 81 dates to his calendar.
For stadium workers who depend on big crowds with bigger appetites and a little disposable income, the exodus of franchises from the sports complex on 66th Avenue and Hegenberger Road has been career altering — and, in some cases, career ending. The A’s planned move to Sacramento follows the Warriors’ exit in 2019 and Raiders’ departure the following year. Cowell, who now works in the team merchandise store, will retire following the A’s final home game Sept. 26.
“To make a living, you have to work at all of the venues,” explains John Arnolfo, who became a vendor at Candlestick Park in 1971, and for the last 29 years has served as a business agent for Teamsters Local 853, which represents Bay Area vendors.
“It’s harder on younger people,” Arnolfo said of the last major-league sports team leaving Oakland. “For people my age, if this was going to happen it came at a good time.”
Danielle Downey, 45, a Coliseum bartender since 2000, will continue working Warriors games in San Francisco and hopes to get shifts with the Oakland Roots soccer team, which has signed to play at the Coliseum next year; Selina Vizcaino, 39, a Coliseum bartender since 2017, will focus on her mobile bartending business, The Fancy Cocktail; Kenny Thompson, 33, a Coliseum beer and hot dog vendor since 2012, will work baseball games for the Oakland Ballers, the first-year independent team, as well as the San Francisco Giants, and travel to events across the country.
“We have all been a family,” says Vizcaino of the Coliseum bartending staff, which faced a line out the door of The Treehouse pub nearly an hour before the Friday night, Sept. 6 baseball game against the Detroit Tigers. “We have all cried. We have all fought. We have all had each other’s back.”
A second family
Outside The Treehouse, a hundred or so fans surround a mariachi band on Latin and Hispanic Heritage Night, which drew an announced 14,669 fans during the A’s second-to-last homestand.
“We have a deeper relationship with that stadium,” Vizcaino said of her coworkers. “It’s your life. Your second family. Years of hard work. It’s disappointing. Heartbreaking. … It’s a lot.”
In the team store, Cowell, 79, organizes A’s jerseys. The names on the back change each season. Soon, a franchise known for shipping away its star players will pack its own bags.
At one register is Robert Jacobs, 76, another original Coliseum vendor who in the 1970s worked 18 days in a row between A’s and Giants games. Like Cowell, his longtime pal, Jacobs realized selling merchandise was more lucrative after his union-negotiated beer commission plummeted over the seasons. Plus, he wouldn’t have to lug his heavy beer tray into the third deck anymore.
When asked who sold more beer, himself or Jacobs, Cowell jokes, “It depends who you ask.”
At the other register is Bob Rosenthal, 73, who with Cowell and Jacobs gives the merchandise store at the D Gate entrance nearly 175 years of Coliseum experience.
The men have seen dynasties rise and fall; the Day on the Green summer concert series bring The Grateful Dead, Led Zeppelin and Rolling Stones; Stabler find Clarence Davis through a swarm of defenders to beat the Miami Dolphins in the 1975 playoffs; the powerful Jackson become the A’s first star; the Raiders leave in 1983, return in 1995 and erect the “Mount Davis” grandstands that replaced beds of California poppies and blocked a view of the Oakland hills, then leave again; an A’s sweep of the Giants in the 1989 World Series; and highlights and heartache in between.
“It was never meant to be a full-time vocation, but it just grew and grew,” explains Jacobs, a San Mateo native who said he will retire after the baseball season with a “very, very small pension.”
“We have all been a family … We have all cried. We have all fought. We have all had each other’s back.”
Selina Vizcaino, Coliseum bartender since 2017
Above the A’s dugout on this warm September night, Thompson begins his shift as a beer vendor while fans fill the lower bowl and players stretch on the field. Wearing a Stomper mascot beanie, Thompson greets Charles Riley, who has helped fans find their seats for the past 27 years.
“He always seems upbeat,” Riley, an 82-year-old Oaklander, said of Thompson, whose name he can’t recall but whose charm he recognizes well. “He knows everybody. Everybody knows him.”
Thompson’s father was also a Coliseum vendor. He came home with wads of cash, but the stories were invaluable – like when he dropped his beer tray to catch a foul ball inside his hat, making the game telecast. When Kenny turned 20, he followed his dad’s footsteps through the stadium bleachers.
“Dad showed me how to hold my money,” Thompson recalls. “What to do. Where to go. To face the money forward. Have smaller bills on top. It’s quicker for change, easier to count. Have the price in your head already. When you see the money coming out, have the change ready.”
Thompson’s nickname, “Ice Cold,” is also his calling card in the stands.
“I have the coldest beers in the country,” says the Hayward native, who has traveled to Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Miami and Seattle to work games and other events in recent years. “I want to give the best service. Tip or not, I’ll give you the coldest beer.”
At a big concert, Thompson can make $1,500 in five hours. At some A’s games this season, where attendance is lowest in baseball at 9,843 fans per game, he is happy with 50 bucks.
“It’s just the love of it,” says Thompson, knowing the significance of these final Coliseum games. “This season is different. Three thousand people, eight to 10 vendors. May the best man win.”
Thompson hasn’t caught a foul ball like his father. He did once get struck in the leg with a batting practice home run while chatting with fans in the right-field bleachers. Seeing friendly faces selling beer and hot dogs hasn’t been lost on longtime A’s fan Mike “The Mayor” Davie.
“It creates a family atmosphere,” the Oaklander said. “Like when you go to a local bar and see the same bartenders. Baseball is unique. It’s sort of the third space” outside of home and work.
Moving on
While attending San Francisco State University, Davie worked in the A’s ticket booth in the early innings of games before heading to the bleachers to watch for free. He made his home there for two decades.
“It feels almost embarrassing now,” Davie said of falling for the “Rooted in Oakland” marketing campaign that began in 2017, admitting he “drank the Kool-Aid” from A’s owner John Fisher.
This season, disenchanted by Fisher’s heel turn, Davie has made the Ballers his priority. He began selling hot dogs at Raimondi Park games, learning from Thompson and longtime A’s vendor Hal “The Hot Dog Guy” Gordon. Davie reconnected with the Oakland 68s, a former A’s supporter group that is boycotting the MLB club this season and rallying behind the Ballers.
“Before this, an A’s season was a celebration,” says Jorge Leon, founder of the 68s. “We built relationships. Employees came to birthday parties. If only John Fisher could sell the team to someone local, we can keep doing what we do best: bringing the community together at the Coliseum.”
At Ballers games, Davie and Thompson scoured the crowd for hungry and thirsty fans as the Pioneer League baseball team made the postseason after a second-half surge.
“It’s not just a hot dog selling job,” learned Davie, 43, who worked at Top Dog on Broadway before careers in marketing and politics. “The Ballers wanted personality and they got it.”
Uprooted from Oakland
Before the A’s game on Friday night, as the Star Spangled Banner played and fans turned toward the American flag, Vizcaino and Downey took a few moments to catch their breath.
“The last national anthem will be heartbreaking,” Vizcaino suspects.
When The Treehouse pub opened for A’s games in 2018, veteran Coliseum bartenders doubted whether the remodeled bar with pool tables and lounges beyond the left-field bleachers would attract fans. Most wanted to stay at the other premium bar, Shibe Tavern, on the first-base line.
“They were wrong about that,” said Vizcaino, who pocketed $800 in tips during an August game versus the revered Los Angeles Dodgers. “It’s not for the weak. One bartender for 300-to-500 people. A line staring at you like you’re not working fast enough when you’re on the verge of not breathing.”
Raising an 11-year-old son, Vizcaino enjoyed a flexible schedule that allowed her to be home well before midnight. Only five years ago, she said goodbye to coworkers at Oakland Arena as the Warriors left for San Francisco. Seven months later, the Raiders departed for Las Vegas.
“People were weeping and crying,” recalls Vizcaino, who grew up attending A’s games with her father. “With the A’s, I don’t want to be there (for the last game). It will be so emotional.”
Downey is hopeful the new Coliseum ownership, African American Sports and Entertainment Group, will provide opportunities for work. Some fans are even hopeful that Fisher and the A’s, who scoffed at the city’s lease offer for the Coliseum in the spring, will renegotiate with the new owners, given the obstacles of sharing a minor-league stadium in the Central Valley heat. Major League Baseball attempted to quell those rumors last week, however, issuing the statement, “It is a certainty that the A’s will play their 2025 season in Sacramento.”
“I’m heartbroken over it,” Downey said of the A’s leaving, “but there’s nothing we can do about it.” The El Sobrante native is “grateful and blessed” to have worked 24 years at the Coliseum, but knows the final A’s game will be tough. “Hopefully it’s so busy I don’t have time to be sad.
“It’s not so much losing work, it’s missing people. The fans who have turned into family.”
