Jack Nicas manages to find things to love about the Oakland Coliseum. Things like being about to make a cell phone call without bothering anyone.

I attended a game there in the late 1980s. The Athletics fielded a great team. The game was in September against the Rangers, with Oakland leading the division and the Rangers by five games. The place was empty. Despite all the qualities pointed out in the article (easy to reach by public transportation, good, cheap seats), there was no crowd. It was very disappointing. My guess, even back then, was that the bad outweighed the good in most people’s minds.