The Raiders and Warriors are both leaving Oakland
In one week in January 2017, sports fans were devastated twice. On January 17, the Golden State Warriors broke ground on their new stadium in San Francisco. Two days later, the Raiders filed paperwork to relocate from Oakland to Las Vegas.
It's no question that 2017 has been somewhat of a mixed bag for Oakland sports homers. The Warriors won their second championship in three years — third since moving to Oakland. The Raiders finished with a winning record for the first time in 15 years. And even though the Warriors aren't leaving until 2019 and the Raiders will move on in 2020, it's shaping up to be a rough few years to be an Oakland sports fanatic.
ICYMI: Oakland taxpayers will still owe a combined $163 million for the Oakland Coliseum and Oracle Arena after the Raiders and Warriors leave town.
lessThe Raiders and Warriors are both leaving Oakland
In one week in January 2017, sports fans were devastated twice. On January 17, the Golden State Warriors broke ground on their new stadium in San Francisco. Two
... moreOakland's giant and potentially ancient redwoods were cut down
This snub came before Oakland was incorporated as a town or city, but the land that would come to be named Oakland was once home to redwoods as giant as the sequoias in Northern California, in terms of girth. The trees were prevalent until the region was settled following the discovery of gold mines in the mid to late 1840s, according to Bay Nature.
A ridge that spanned from Redwood and Leona parks east to Moraga had a dense old-growth redwood forest that was cut down by loggers from 1845 to 1860. Even the stumps of the trees were uprooted, preventing new trees from sprouting up in their place. Oakland has some awesomely dense nature, especially for an urban area, but imagine how it would have been if that old-growth forest wasn't chopped down.
Fun fact: There is a lone redwood that survived that logging frenzy and still stands in Oakland.
lessOakland's giant and potentially ancient redwoods were cut down
Photo: Michael Macor, The Chronicle
This snub came before Oakland was incorporated as a town or city, but the land that would come to be named Oakland was once home to redwoods as
... moreWarriors have played in Oakland for over 45 years, still not the Oakland Warriors
This point will likely be moot when the Warriors move back to SF in a couple of years, but how have the Warriors gone so long playing in Oakland without being named after their hometown? They even played in an arena with Oakland's name in it until 2006.
Some might argue that they are a regional team, like the New England Patriots, who play in Foxboro, Mass. or the Carolina Panthers, who play in Charlotte, NC, but the Golden State has three NBA teams other than the Warriors and one other, the Sacramento Kings, that play in Northern California. Others still might argue that Oakland already has the Raiders (until 2020) and the A's, but some people don't even realize that the Warriors play in Oakland.
Fun fact: Shaquille O'Neal is one of those people who didn't know that the Warriors play in Oakland and he played the Warriors in Oakland several times throughout his NBA career.
lessWarriors have played in Oakland for over 45 years, still not the Oakland Warriors
Photo: Noah Graham/NBAE/Getty Images
This point will likely be moot when the Warriors move back to SF in a couple of years, but how have the Warriors gone so long
... moreUber's Oakland HQ expansion fake out
This may not be an intentional snub, but in September 2015, it looked like Uber was coming to Oakland before the company reversed course. The ride-sharing tech giant Uber announced plans to expand its San Francisco headquarters into neighboring Oakland. It purchased the old Sears building in uptown Oakland, now known as Uptown Station, as a sign that the move was more than just talk. The announcement and the purchase of the old Sears building was met with praise for some, skepticism for others and opposition for still others.
The move was projected to bring 3,000 jobs to the already booming Oakland. But, after a series of scandals that impacted its bottom line and shuffling of leadership at Uber, the tech company announced in August 2017 that it was exploring a sale of the building as a cost-saving measure, ending its plans to expand into Oakland. The announcement of the sale had ripple effects, stalling the creation of other commercial endeavors, like a food hall, in the building.
lessUber's Oakland HQ expansion fake out
Photo: Scott Strazzante, The Chronicle
This may not be an intentional snub, but in September 2015, it looked like Uber was coming to Oakland before the company reversed course. The ride-sharing tech giant Uber
... morePiedmont refuses to become part of Oakland
In the early 1900s, Oakland annexed Montclair, Rockridge and the rest of the Oakland hills -- all areas that surround Piedmont -- but when Oakland attempted to buy Piedmont in 1906, according to East Bay historian Dennis Evanosky, Piedmont refused. "Piedmont was an enclave of wealthy people who wanted to divorce themselves from the madness of 1906 Oakland," Evanosky told the Chronicle's Carolyn Jones in 2012. "They looked at the traffic, the crime, the people and said, 'You know, let's not be a part of that.' "
Gail Lombardi, a Piedmont historian, corroborated that town members refused to be bought by Oakland, but had a slightly different take on why. Describing Piedmont as a community of middle-class and affluent families, Lombardi told Jones that the city "didn't want to be gobbled up by Oakland. They wanted to be their own city."
Two Oakland residents, Noah Goldstein and Owen Smith-Clark, shown in the photo above, even led a campaign in 2012 calling for Piedmont to become part of Oakland, to no avail.
John Chiang, who was Piedmont's mayor at the time, said that if he proposed that Piedmont join Oakland that he'd "be tarred and feathered. I'd be ousted from town."
"I think most people like Piedmont as it is," he told the Chronicle.
lessPiedmont refuses to become part of Oakland
Photo: Beck Diefenbach, Special To The Chronicle
In the early 1900s, Oakland annexed Montclair, Rockridge and the rest of the Oakland hills -- all areas that surround Piedmont -- but when Oakland attempted to buy
... more
UC Berkeley left Oakland for...Berkeley
The University of California system's first classes were held in Oakland in 1869. But four years later, the school moved to the Berkeley campus that it currently occupies. Imagine if all of the intellectual feats that were achieved in Berkeley took place in the next town over, which had more space to support the growing campus.
Oakland has its own rich history. And many important artists and intellectuals who went to Berkeley, like Jack London, Stan Miller (who made important contributions to our knowledge of the origin of life) and Maxine Hong Kingston, were or still are Oakland residents. Still, Oakland's intellectual and artistic history would likely have been so much more rich had the flagship UC school stuck around.
lessUC Berkeley left Oakland for...Berkeley
Photo: Leah Millis, The Chronicle
The University of California system's first classes were held in Oakland in 1869. But four years later, the school moved to the Berkeley campus that it currently occupies.
... moreOakland’s first mayor secretly bought the city’s most lucrative location: the waterfront
Oakland's first mayor was a 29-year-old businessman named Horace Carpentier. He and two other businessmen incorporated Oakland as a town and then, a few years later, incorporated it as a city. In between those two incorporations, Carpentier was basically given the city's waterfront in one of his business dealings.
He failed to disclose that to Oaklanders upon being elected the city's first mayor, and when they found out, they ran him out of town. But that didn't end the fight for the waterfront in Oakland. Over the next several decades, Oakland politicians, citizens and business leaders fought for access and ownership of the waterfront.
lessOakland’s first mayor secretly bought the city’s most lucrative location: the waterfront
Photo: San Francisco Call
Oakland's first mayor was a 29-year-old businessman named Horace Carpentier. He and two other businessmen incorporated
... moreOakland's contribution to rap music is regularly overlooked
When people talk about the hubs of hip-hop in the United States they mention New York City (obviously, it's the birthplace), Los Angeles (or more precisely Compton, Calif.), Atlanta and New Orleans. Oakland sometimes is brought up in that conversation, but perhaps it deserves more credit.
Oakland rapper Too $hort, shown here, is one of the pioneers of West Coast hip-hop, releasing his first album "Don't Stop Rappin'" in 1985, during the early years of the genre's rise in popularity in California. Hate him or love him, MC Hammer helped the genre's mainstream appeal with hits like "U Can't Touch This" and "2 Legit 2 Quit" in the early 1990s. And some of the most underrated hip-hop groups in the genre's history, like Digital Underground, Souls of Mischief, Hieroglyphics and The Coup, are from Oakland.
There are several lesser-known rappers, too, at least outside of the Bay Area or by younger listeners, like Del the Funky Homosapien, that have made important work in the genre. Today, Oakland rappers like Tia NoMore, Kamaiyah and G-Eazy are continuing the East Bay's rich rap legacy.
Fun fact: One of Digital Underground's most important contributions to hip-hop is helping to launch the career of Tupac Shakur, who started out as a backup dancer for the group during its heyday.
lessOakland's contribution to rap music is regularly overlooked
Photo: Leon Bennett, WireImage
When people talk about the hubs of hip-hop in the United States they mention New York City (obviously, it's the birthplace), Los Angeles (or more
... more
Oakland loses its only daily print newspaper
The Oakland Tribune covered The Town for 142 years before it was folded into a regional newspaper, the East Bay Times, in 2016. Now, the 8th-largest city in California doesn't have its own daily newspaper (all of the other cities in the top 10, except for Anaheim at No. 10, has at least one daily).
The East Bay Times still heavily covers Oakland. There are also weekly newspapers and online news sites, like the East Bay Express, Oakland Post and Oakland North, that cover Oakland.
Fun fact: Robert C. Maynard, the Oakland Tribune's first African-American editor, and his wife Nancy Hicks Maynard, bought the newspaper in 1983, making the Tribune the first major metropolitan daily owned by an African-American.
lessOakland loses its only daily print newspaper
Photo: Connor Radnovich, The Chronicle
The Oakland Tribune covered The Town for 142 years before it was folded into a regional newspaper, the East Bay Times, in 2016. Now, the 8th-largest city in
... moreWhen sports teams play in Oakland, they stay in SF hotels
Maybe the reason why some athletes, or at least Shaq, don't know that the Golden State Warriors play in Oakland is because when professional sports teams play in Oakland, they don't stay in Oakland hotels. The hotels might not be as fancy as SF's Taj Campton Place, St. Regis San Francisco or Ritz-Carlton, but Oakland's got a few that are lush, or at least serviceable.
TK quote from Mickey Morabito, Oakland A's director of travel, about this.
Fun fact: The Golden State Warriors practice at the Courtyard by Marriott in Downtown Oakland. If it's good enough for the Dubs, why isn't it good enough for visiting teams?
lessWhen sports teams play in Oakland, they stay in SF hotels
Photo: Scott Strazzante, The Chronicle
Maybe the reason why some athletes, or at least Shaq, don't know that the Golden State Warriors play in Oakland is because when professional sports teams
... moreFamous Gertrude Stein quote often misinterpreted
Legendary author Gertrude Stein grew up in Oakland and is often quoted as saying that of Oakland, "there is no there there" when people talk about how Oakland is dissed. But that's not the original intent of the quote.
Stein's family moved to Oakland in 1880 when she was six years old. And the city was a lot less urban than the city we know today. According to an examination of the quote on the Huffington Post, the city's population was 35,000 when they moved there. She moved to Baltimore after her parents died in 1891.
She returned for a lecture in 1935, after a massive increase in Oakland's population driven partially by relocation of SF residents after the 1906 earthquake. The city was much more developed than the pastoral land she remembered from her childhood and when she went to find her childhood home, there were dozens of new homes in its place. It was a longing for the Oakland of her childhood, not a swipe at The Town when she said "there's no there there."
lessFamous Gertrude Stein quote often misinterpreted
Photo: Brant Ward, The Chronicle
Legendary author Gertrude Stein grew up in Oakland and is often quoted as saying that of Oakland, "there is no there there" when people talk about how Oakland is
... moreOakland goes unseen, unheard for most of Dubs' 2015 championship run
By the time that the Golden State Warriors were marching toward their 2015 championship, the franchise had been playing in Oakland exclusively for almost 45 years. Still, that didn't stop broadcasters from omitting the word Oakland and television producers from skipping over Oakland landmarks like Lake Merritt, the Tribune building or the René C. Davidson Courthouse, which was lit up with blue and yellow lights.
Broadcasters, when returning from break, would say we're returning to the San Francisco Bay Area, or something like that, instead of saying Oakland. They showed the Golden Gate Bridge, the Transamerica Pyramid and cable cars instead of showing shots of Oakland. Oakland's tourism board noticed and, after some hand-wringing, ESPN/ABC said they would dedicate 75 percent of its cutaways to shots of Oakland during the NBA Finals. To be fair, broadcasts of other sports teams like the Washington Redskins, which often show cutaways of D.C. even though the team plays in Landover, Md.
Fun fact: Until 2006, Oracle Arena had some form of Oakland in its name, though we're not sure that would have stopped national broadcasters from snubbing The Town.
lessOakland goes unseen, unheard for most of Dubs' 2015 championship run
Photo: Kat Wade, SFC
By the time that the Golden State Warriors were marching toward their 2015 championship, the franchise had been playing in Oakland exclusively
... moreIn the course of one week in 2017, two of Oakland's sports teams, the Raiders and the Warriors, made moves signaling the end of their time in The Town. And even though they're leaving, in a tough break for Oaklanders, local taxpayers are still going to help foot the bill for a combined $163 million for renovations to the Coliseum and Oracle Arena.
But that wasn't the first time that Oakland, California's eighth largest city and one with a rich history, may have gotten snubbed.
Drew Johnson, an Oakland native and curator of photography and visual culture at the Oakland Museum of California, told SFGATE that Oakland "is an easy town to pick on."
Apparently that's even been the case when Oakland's sports teams become dynasties, like the A's did in the early 1970s.
Now Playing:
If these things sound familiar to you, then you might be from Oakland.
Media: Ted Andersen, SFGATE"I always think of this joke that Johnny Carson made. The A's won the World Series three times in a row in the early '70s and he was doing his monologue," Johnson recalled. "I remember even after all these years for some reason."
Johnson remembers Carson saying that because of Oakland's history of being an industrial town, it was going to have its championship celebration in a tire factory.
Over 40 years later, Oakland still wasn't getting its due when one of its sports teams was on its way to a championship. During the Golden State Warriors' 2015 championship run, national television broadcasts often omitted the name Oakland from its coverage and showed cutaway shots of San Francisco instead of Oakland.
But are sports the only arena where Oakland may have been rebuffed in one way or another? Find out by checking out the gallery above.