The last week of the regular season, like the slow Bay Area turn to fall, was both full and waning. Every welcome routine was also a reminder of what we soon would not have. Longtime fans mourned the passings of beloved ushers. They celebrated the birthday of one of their own stalwart supporters. A Raimondi light went out and was fixed. A light went out and was not fixed. A light was shattered by a foul ball, giving us five extra minutes together. Weekend games raced the darkness. One night we came for baseball but stayed for the party in the halflight. I got my first hot dog from The Bullpen Toss and realized that I am no longer virile enough for airborne tube meats. My son got the chance to say Play Ball to start the fan appreciation game; he’s only four and might forget it, but I’m 40 and I’ll never forget it—I feel thoroughly appreciated. The whole season, this record-setting best season ever, B’s baseball brought us together, but we stayed because it is nice to be at Raimondi with our people. It teases the question of why we can’t do this all the time.

Because B’s people are real baseball people and because the Ballers have been so good for so long, I’ve heard and overheard the same admission for months: in the playoffs, in a three-game or five-game series, anything can happen. The B’s were the best team this season and one of the best Pioneer League teams of all time. They may not win the championship. I hope they do. But taking stock now matters. These players and these coaches and this staff and us fans have already made a summer beyond the wildest of dreams for a squad that turned a city park into a baseball diamond and a game into a Town gem 18 months ago. These B’s won often and often by a lot. They rarely lost very big or for very long. Anyone can show up once, or for a week or a month. They kept showing up. In our broader life we painfully undervalue consistency and longevity; we spotlight the first and the last and forget about everything in between. Oakland deserves this championship, on and off the field, but what it needs—the space that was left and is now filled—it’s already got.

A thought that’s stuck with me through this season is a shipwreck. Our old ship, captained by a madman hunting his white desert whale, went down in the deep, but we’re all saved on a life raft. It’s smaller, at least for now, but we’re closer together. We’re rowing it ourselves, not at the mercy of the wind and not waiting to be rescued. We know where we’re going, and we’re going to be hella tan, svelte, and hungry when we get there.

One of the things, perhaps the thing, that made me love baseball later in life is knowing that all the fans—all the fans I love—want is more baseball. If we could just play forever, never completely winning and never entirely losing, that would be plenty. From the outside, baseball seems to last forever, but when you love it, it passes in a flash. Wasn’t it just May? It is in its essence a summer sport, and I suppose it’s right to get out while the grass is still green and the leaves gold and leave the decay to someone else. We now have football whispering behind the doors for that, where every season’s goal is to see losing as unnatural and any coach worth his salt must say that anything short of the trophy is failure and the competition is simply a terrified scuffle to avoid collapse as long as possible and best feign shock that winter has come once more. Baseball embraces winning and losing in almost equal measure because that’s life and life is long and being here is what counts.

I said earlier that my son might not remember saying the two most important words in baseball, which true to form always start the game and never end it. But in that moment, in that precious and grateful and permanent present, he was having the best time in the world. I know how he feels.

Best Moments of the 2025 Regular Season That Have Nothing to Do With Balls and Strikes:

- An Opening Day National Anthem Goose Flyover (and we got a flyover for the last game of the season too, go figure)

- Fans on the YouTube chat delivering a sick Nevada Cullen pho and bug spray in the broadcast booth in Yuba City

- The Oakland 68s bus down to a preseason game with the San Jose Giants

- The lights going out at Raimondi and the fans having an impromptu dance party and seventh-inning stretch in the sixth inning while players tried their hand and feet at different sports

- A chess tournament at Prescott Market

- Dance Parties + Scrappy Town + music videos: Too $hort, Jwalt, Ave, Lyrics Born, Grateful Dead Night, Hieroglyphics, Warren G, and about a million others

- This Pride Game sunset

- This dog’s FansFest haircut

- B’s players rescuing a lost dog in Colorado Springs

- Raising the B’s flag over City Hall to celebrate a new 10-year lease at Raimondi

- All. The. Food. at Prescott Market and Scrappy’s Test Kitchen, especially Bitemark and sneaky pineapple whips for days

- The line of fans as crazy as me getting a free B’s tattoo at Pastime Tattoo.

- Fans and players making food, cleaning the park, cuddling animals, and all the Ballunteerism that makes the Town better.

- The Oakland Fire Department regularly watching games from their engine parked on Campbell.

- A certain team vice president fostering possums in his garage

- Two celebrity dobermans who had a 15-game winning streak of seeing games at Raimondi

- Superheroes in the stands and on posters all season

- No deaths (as of present) from the glorious Knockerball duels

- Every Sunday, every base run and every autograph signed.

Now let’s go out and win this thing.

Go B’s.

The Best (of the) Season

Know Your Playoff Foe: The Ogden Raptors

Meet the Fan-ily: Hannah the Ballers’ Princess