Meet the Fan-ily: Nina Thorsen

From St. Paul to The Bay, Nina Thorsen Keeps the Beat 

By Roberto Santiago

Nina Thorsen is a bit of an anomaly among diehard Oakland sports fans in that she isn’t from the Bay Area. Hailing from St. Paul, Minnesota, Nina has seen her home town team win a World Series in person. In fact, she got to see it twice. In both 1987 and 1991, Nina was able to “buy the entire playoff strip for the Minnesota Twins, which in those days you had to buy the entire playoff strip.” 

Was it easy? Could you buy them online? “You had to pay cash. You had to actually, I had to go to the bank and get like, a money order and send it in and have no idea where the tickets would be. It didn't matter because all the tickets in the Metrodome were shit. They had no good seats. There was like literally no place in the Metrodome that was not better than sitting and watching in your rec room. But, you know, it was the experience.”

An accidental public radio lifer, Thorsen started out in Minnesota “working for this friend of a friend of mine who had a little radio program that let people into the theater and I sold tickets and made popcorn. And somehow it got very famous.” (If you can name the program, send in your answer and three proofs of purchase from any Franco American brand canned soup to Dispatches to be entered in our drawing.)

Thorsen moved to the Bay Area in 1992 to work at KQED. Thorsen initially left that Midwestern prairie to move to…LA, but lucky for us, as she was packing, her producer called and said he was re-routing her to San Francisco as the deputy foreign editor for Marketplace. 

As hard as it can be to move across the country for a new job, it is easier than deciding who to root for once you get there. “I wasn't really sure if I wanted to be an A's fan, or if I wanted to be a Giants fan. Because I'd been a fan of the Twins and the A's had been one of our, our great rivals. So it felt weird to suddenly change. So I went to some Giants games and I was just like…God, you know? The pitcher is hitting, it's weird. I don't like it. I had gone to some A's games wearing my Twins World Series shirt. I didn't really go for the first eight years, but I started going a lot in 2000.”

In those early days, Thorsen was informed on the concourse that wearing an A’s hat and a Twins shirt wasn’t going to work. She had to choose. She chose Oakland. Over the next decade or so, Thorsen slowly but surely integrated into the fan group in right field that would become the Oakland 68s. “They were the cool kids,” she recalls, “I wasn’t a cool kid.” Nevertheless, the group was welcoming and encouraging and Thorsen became one of Oakland’s famous fan drummers and a season ticket holder. When the A’s announced their move, Thorsen was one of the folks who decided to ride it out to the end. While most of the drummers agreed to pack up the drums and support other teams, Thorsen realized that the fans who were still going missed having them. “It was just absolutely deadly being in that place with 5,000 people and no drums,” she recalls.

Thorsen wasn’t unaware of what was brewing baseballwise across town. Being in the news biz means learning things ahead of the rest of us and Thorsen, now the evening newscast producer, had received the Ballers press release ahead of the official announcement. She was skeptical, even after interviewing fledgling owners Paul Freedman and Bryan Carmel. But a couple trusted friends assured her they were legit. “You know, yes, they've never done this before, but nobody's ever done this before, so it's fine,” she recounts. That was enough for her to buy season tickets to the Ballers as well.

Last season, with the other team in Sacramento, Thorsen focused on the Ballers, attending as many games as she could. “If I didn't go to a game, it was because there was a good reason. I was sick, or I had some project at work and I wasn't going to get done in time to even get there in the middle of the game, or I was out of town.” In traditional 68s fashion, Thorsen welcomed new drummers who showed up in right field and taught them the cheers and rhythms so they could join the party. 

And what a party it was. 

As Connor Sullivan took the mound to close out game five of the 2025 Pioneer League championship, Thorsen was there with her drum. Around her were the friends and fans who had welcomed her in another outfield nearly ten years prior and the new ones who she had welcomed into the drumming fold over the last two. Three outs later, she had witnessed another baseball championship.

Roberto Santiago is a third generation Berkeley boy currently raising the fourth generation. Roberto’s writing has appeared in Latina, Parents, and various online outlets. A lifelong baseball fan, Roberto worked briefly with the Boston Red Sox and once hit an RBI single off Spaceman Lee on a 2-2 changeup. It was his only at bat ever in a real baseball game. Find him on Instagram.