Game 90 Recap, Aug 30: A Family Affair
Ballers end home season on highest (scoring) note, walloping Long Beach 24-16
by Joe Horton
WEST OAKLAND—It was a family affair. Everyone joined the party and it went all afternoon. It was a hit parade and a parade of hits. Everybody ate. The wealth was spread. The spoils were most certainly shared.
All of this speaks to the 24-16 splendid slugfest on the field but also all of the festivities off of it at the Ballers’ final home game of 2026. The concession and merch lines (with discounts :) were long all day. Music played. Mystery bags were won. A fan managed the game. The Beer Batter / Seltzer Strikeout swelled the lines. Flyovers of the airplane variety brought their good luck. 3,233 friends, family, and fan-ily gathered together for the last time. The team delivered the perfect sendoff on fan appreciation day, one that will do its best to hold us all until May.
At first it didn’t seem like the dream ending was in store. Oakland (21-21 second half, 43-47 overall) built a timid 3-0 lead in the first two innings on two sacrifices and a single, but Long Beach (26-16, 63-27) roared back in the third, scoring five in Chase Martinez’s first start as a Baller. Martinez went 3.0, allowing five runs—four earned—while walking eight and striking out two. The B’s answered right back with four of their own, and it was 7-5 Oakland after three.
But the tide, as they say in coastal communities observant of the gravitational pull of the moon, fully turned in the fifth when bullpen catcher Ethan Crawford hit his first homer as Baller and decided it should be a grand slam that flipped a close back-and-forth contest of 10-9 into the start of a grand Ballers rout, 15-9. Oakland scored seven more in the sixth on a trio of homers from Brendan O'Sullivan, Tristan Moore, and Logan Johnstone. The B’s hit six homers all tolled, their most of the season. Together, the two squads managed 11 longballs and forty hits. Every Baller had a hit. O’Sullivan had six. Nick Leehey had four.
Which, of course, is exactly what fan manager Colt Rosensweig asked for in her interview with us leading up to being selected to skipper the team from her stellar Ballermetrics numbers all season: small ball, low-scoring, “I would take a triple over a homer any day of the week.”
So what did the manager think of her first turn in the dugout? And perhaps more importantly, what did the dogs Caris and Curtis think of their starring roles?
“It was so awesome and crazy!” she wrote to Dispatches after the game. “It was so cool to be around all the players and coaches. We have met a lot of them before and after games but you really get a sense of personalities in the dugout that you don’t get in the quick interactions. Caris was a complete star, as always, going on the field with me for the anthem and lineup cards. Curtis was pretty amped to start so I was really grateful that my bestie Cat was allowed to come with us to do some wrangling. I loved seeing the guys’ faces completely change when they looked at the dogs. They’d be all serious and focused and then suddenly sparkly eyes and big smiles. I’m glad I didn’t get put on the spot too much and just got to watch ‘behind the scenes.’”
She added, “It reminded me of reading Men At Work and realizing how COMPLICATED baseball can be even though it looks so simple.”
Baseball is a complicated game, but the experience of seeing the Ballers at Raimondi Park on days like this feels simple: a team going all out to recognize its fans and the people who make West Oakland not just a place to watch the game but be a part of it. To be seen and cheered as well as to see and cheer. To feel such joy and warmth on a day like this to last us all the long winter until we find ourselves here again.
Odds & Ends
Special thank-yous were plentiful on this appreciative day. The Oakland 68s were honored with “Play Ball” before the game. The Perez family, who hosted head team trainer Matthew McElroy, and the Circle of Oaks, those fans who had collected all 15 commemorative pins throughout the season, were recognized on-field midgame. Our own Dispatches writers were given a moment on the big board.
The team announced a total regular season attendance of 116,524, the most ever in Raimondi Park’s three-year history. The team averaged 2,285 fans, slightly below last season’s 2,303 with three additional home games this year.
The B’s 24 runs was a season high, besting the 23 runs the team scored in Missoula on June 14.
The game lasted 3h33 minutes to close out the Ballers’ third season. COINCIDENCE????
Video recap from Ben Verhoek.
Animations by Chris Drue.
Photos from Dawn Pieper and Darrell Lavin Photography.
Joe Horton is the editor of Dispatches from Raimondi.
