What the B’s Mean to Me: Roberto Santiago

The Ballers didn’t just save baseball in Oakland, they saved my faith in being a fan of anything at all

by Roberto Santiago

I can’t tell you the date. It was some time in 2025 when I received the message on Twitter. “You know, you were part of the inspiration for the Ballers.” I was floored. At the time, I didn’t know that Ballers co-founder Paul Freedman was running the team’s social media. I didn’t remember that we had met at the A’s boycott game and had spent time hanging out in the parking lot as thousands of fans played music and ate free tacos while refusing to enter the stadium. That day, I gave an interview to a reporter from CBS Sports that almost no one saw until a year later. After the A’s played their last game in Oakland, I woke up to find my phone blowing up because CBS had reposted the clip and it was picked up by KNBR, ESPN and a few other national outlets. Dude. I saw you on Around the Horn. It turns out Woody Paige had used my video to frame his whole closing rant that day. It was a surreal moment, in part because I had only attended two A’s games that year. My focus that summer had been entirely on the Ballers.

“I don’t want to be a soccer family!” wailed my then 12 year old when I told xyr that I was considering season tickets to the Oakland Roots. I can’t tell you the date, but it was a few months before the Ballers made their introductory announcement. “I know sweetie,” I offered, “but they support Oakland and I want to support them.” Baseball had been a constant in our lives, as much a part of our family dynamic as attending school or eating dinner. Contemplating life without baseball was like thinking of life without having a dog—there’s no way I’m cleaning my own kitchen floor. Yet there we were, like denizens of Brooklyn in 1957 facing the prospect of having no team to root for. For me, the idea of being a fan of anything at all was coming into question. But I knew I loved the East Bay and would do anything to support our teams, whatever sport they played.

I *can* tell you the date the Ballers announced their intent to bring baseball back to Oakland…because I have the internet. It was November 8, 2023. On November 9 of that year I scoffed at the whole idea. The Ballers? Sounds like an AAU basketball team, not a baseball club. OK, it gives them the whole B’s thing to play against the A’s. Oh, it’s named after a childhood friend of co-founders Freedman and Bryan Carmel who died too young. That certainly makes it more meaningful. I spent 12 years living in the mid-Atlantic, so I was no stranger to minor league ball. Between Bowie, Hagerstown, Frederick, Potomac, Del Marva and Harrisburgh, I’d seen my share of small town games. I loved them for the family-friendly pricing and entertainment between innings.

As a stay-at-home dad, taking my kids to an 11:00 AM first pitch on a Wednesday was a boon. It wasn’t that I doubted independent league baseball, it was that I doubted the ability for a couple of randos to pull it off.

The date was *absolutely* June 4, 2024 when I settled into a right field bleacher seat on the Ballers first Opening Day. Portending what would come in the playoffs later that year, the Ballers lost to the Yolo High Wheelers 9-3. The team gave out a discount code for the next day’s game that I couldn’t pass up, so I went to game two, where the team announced that Kelsie Whitmore would start game three. I knew I had to bring my kids to see that, so there we were for that contest. Then someone gave me tickets for game four and all told, I attended every game of the first home stand. From there, I was hooked. I was an Oakland Ballers fan. Our family had baseball again. By July, 2024, I was a fan investor in the club.
I know this date, too: September 21, 2025 (360 days since the other team’s last game in Oakland) was maybe the loudest baseball game I’ve ever experienced. My fellow 68s were so loud, my wife had to retreat to the car to lie down. After being down 0-2 in a best of five series, the Ballers won three straight to claim Oakland’s first baseball championship in 25 years. Fans cried. Mayor Mike poured Malort into little B’s batting helmets and handed them up from the field to the stands. The Oakland Fire Department showered the players from across the left field wall. It was cinematic. It was catharsis. It was what Oakland needed. It was what I needed.

On October 5, 2025 I found myself in a place I never imagined. I was at the lead of the Ballers championship parade. Drum around my shoulder like a Revolutionary War music corpsman, I followed a truck filled with 68s drummers setting the course for the classic cars and floats that held celebrating players. I talked to Freedman after the parade and asked him about the Twitter DM. Was it true? Did I have some part in the Ballers becoming a reality? He affirmed that it was true, that he was the one who sent the DM. The next day, B’s fan and blogger Bryan Cantrill sent me a DM on Bluesky: “I talked to Paul at the event. He said that [CBS] interview was very personally meaningful for him and Bryan and it was the catalyst for the Ballers.” I’m still floored by that idea. Of course, I’m not the catalyst. But knowing I had some part is somewhat overwhelming. You better believe I’ll take it and run with it.

Now I sit here in front of my laptop having made the transition from skeptic to fan to investor to cheerleader to beat writer. The opportunity to write these stories for Dispatches, for you all, has made for the most fun baseball season of my life. I always wanted to cover sports. I longed to be a beat writer. Imagine all the times you’ve sat in the stands wondering why a decision was made or a pitch was called and then getting to go to the dugout and actually get answers. It’s amazing. The Ballers didn’t just save baseball in Oakland, they saved my faith in being a fan of anything at all.

Most of all, they saved us from becoming a soccer family.

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.