It’s fair to say that I am a fan of baseball.

Living south of San Francisco for seven years, it was inevitable that the Giants would be my team of choice growing up there. How could it not be else with the glory days of Willie Mays, Willie McCovey, Juan Marichal, Gaylord Perry, and so many more? Even managed to enjoy a few games at Candlestick Park then. From the upper deck on the third base side as the afternoon fog rolled in from Daly City.

In the summer of 1969, a bunch of us from our neighborhood organized into a team that had more in common with Charlie Brown than the Giants. We did manage one win, on a walk off walk, of all things. We may have been short of talent, but we all loved to play the game.

But moving to the East Bay in June of 1970 was much more than just relocation. It brought a new fandom, for the Oakland Athletics baseball team. The A’s were a different bunch. Their owner, Charlie Finley, set the pace as he was different from many team owners of the era. Much more a hands on guy than many others, always looking for something to differentiate his team from the rest of the league. In the Kelly Green and Gold uniforms, with white shoes, this was indeed different than the standard home whites or road grays worn by other teams. Even to the point of orange baseballs tossed around the field between innings, and girls in hot pants to retrieve errant foul balls. What was not to like? I gained an interest listening to games on a small transistor radio, listening to Monte Moore, with commercials for such local businesses as Fitzpatrick Chevrolet in Concord as sponsors of the broadcasts.

I don’t specifically recall my first game at the Oakland Coliseum. A notable exception was a pair of Saturday and Sunday games, where the first was a Boy Scout Day with seats in a second deck box behind the third base foul pole. The second was Bat Day, where kids got their choice of baseball bats dyed a deep green. Somewhere I still have mine, stored away.

The addition of BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) trains from the Diablo Valley into Oakland and the Coliseum Station meant easy access to the Oakland Coliseum complex. When service opened in 1973, it meant a relatively short ride from home in Walnut Creek to the ball park. I managed to catch the second to the last home game that year with a friend, riding the train there and back. We even stayed after the game and got some autographs from several of the A’s players.

Over the years that followed, I took in a fair number of games. And to be fair, the Giants were not abandoned in my baseball fandom. The highlight of the summer of 1976 saw me take in a game as Candlestick from the radio broadcast booth, as Lon Simmons and Al Michaels called a game one afternoon. All part of my internship at KSFO (560 on your AM dial), one of Gene Autry’s Golden West Broadcasting stations.

Through the 80’s and 90’s, I managed to take in games from time to time on both sides of the Bay. Good times with great people. Things took a turn in a great direction as friend Ken Mitchroney took on the role of cartoonist, drawing the A’s mascot Stomper. Often Ken would have extra tickets and offered the opportunity to enjoy an afternoon or evening at the ballpark. Frequently, those games started with a meal and beverages in the West Side Club before we would head down to our seats for the rest of the game. Another tradition was the 7th Inning chocolate ice cream frozen malt, purchased rock hard in the 5th Inning, to defrost and become edible by the 7th. I had enjoyed these malts, ever since the days of football at Stanford Stadium starting in the late 60’s. The best were produced by Carnation, but even other purveyors were always enjoyed.

Ken had previously been the cartoonist for the Baltimore Orioles, and invited me to join him one year for the home opener in Baltimore, complete with his artwork of the Oriole’s Fun Bird projected giant size on the Camden Yard Warehouse. A truly memorable time with great baseball and even better food.

Thanks to Ken, I have managed to enjoy baseball from seats all over the Coliseum. Not to mention visits on field before a game, the press box, the third base field box, even the Diamond Level behind home plate, one Easter Sunday evening. Ken even managed to get seats fro much of the 2002 20-game win streak. I enjoyed that 20th win from a team box on the third base side. (Which will lead to another part of the story…)

There were plenty of other games as well with family, friends and co-workers where we sat all over the place. Plenty of third deck seats competing with the seagulls. Even a game viewed from a top Mount Davis. (The so-called addition to the outfield side of the Coliseum to placate Raiders owner Al Davis with more capacity and more luxury boxes to sell to happy fans at inflated prices. It ruined a great view of the Oakland hills in the process.)

Thanks to Ken, I got to bring my wife, Michele, to games and she became a fan as well. She adopted a favorite player, third baseman Eric Chavez, and even added a few shirts and a copy of one of his jerseys. When the opportunity to spend a night as an extra at the Coliseum during the filming of “Moneyball”, we both took advantage of it. We sat in five different locations that long cold night all around the stadium including the Diamond Level. The real reward came when we saw the film in the theater and appeared on screen briefly, directly next to co-star Jonah Hill during the 20th Game sequence. Immortalized as true Oakland A’s fans.

For the sake of disclosure, I spent the 2005 Major League Baseball season as a contracted employee of Major League Baseball Advanced Media. I provided technical support for their new MLB TV product, which allowed fans to watch all out of market games from their computers. It was a new thing with live games being streamed over the Internet. And no surprise either that the fans of the New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox were the most vocal and numerous among subscribers. Before that season, I was more of a fan the game. Afterwards, I understood better how MLB was a business and that profit was what it was really al about. Fans were less important than the revenue they generated. If a subscriber canceled due to dissatisfaction with the product. there were three new subscribers to replace them. To be honest, MLB TV was a big step forward in streaming content online, complete with all of the stumbles along the way. But the way in which customers were handled, it wasn’t a shining moment.

Fast forward to 2024.

The ownership of the Oakland A’s has for some time been more concerned with real estate development rather than baseball. It has not fielded a competitive team in years, and has sold off any talent the organization has acquired rather than pay salaries worthy of good ball players. When the announcement came that the A’s were leaving Oakland for elsewhere, it really was no surprise. Through all the schemes advanced for a new stadium location, the real estate development component was what ownership most wanted. The fan base has always been tight in and around Oakland. They have stuck with it, showing their support. But when it became obvious that that support mattered less to ownership than real estate, things changed. In a story right out of another baseball film, “Major League”, ownership raised prices and lowered quality all over the Coliseum to alientate fans and drive them away from attending games.

That made it all the easier for MLB owners to grant the team’s request to relocate.

It’s been a few years since I have been to a game of baseball at the Oakland Coliseum. I could go into why not, but safe to say, I just don’t want to support an organization that has no respect for the folks who provide revenue by filling seats.

Ken Mitchroney offered one last chance to take in a game at the Coliseum. He had been given tickets for the game against the Baltimore Orioles on Friday, July 5th. Seats close behind the home team dugout. And close to seats I had previously enjoyed with another close friend. Whose employer had season tickets for years. To the point we had been questioned by the other fans sitting there about who were we and where was their friend?

I took up the offer and headed out to the game. It was a much quieter adventure getting there than in the past. A Friday night game like this would have seen 30,000 fans or better once upon a time. Much less tonight. In another time, Ken would have gone to the West Side Club, been greeted like an old friend and gotten a table to start the night. The West Side Club, rebranded as the Shire Park Tavern (in homage to the days of the Philadelphia A’s) did not survive Covid and is now little more than group function space. Even the choice of food at various concession stands has declined with fewer options available. Maybe more beer and alcohol available. It was just another sign of things to come (as opposed to the choices at a Giants game across the Bay.) And those frozen chocolate malts? Gone, too. The Oakland Coliseum isn’t a bad stadium, but it shows how it has suffered from indifference on the part of ownership.

It’s said that you can’t go home again.

I hate to admit it but that was indeed the case here. While it was great to enjoy the game with friends, it wasn’t what it once was. Only a few names I recognized on the field and nothing really to stand out when it came to the game. Knowing this ship is about to sail, it was a fond farewell to good times with good folks. The attendance for last night’s game was 9,654. Baltimore defeated Oakland, 3 to 2.

I’m glad I did it.

But, there is no joy in Mudville.

Director David Swift, recalling production of 1960’s “Pollyana” for Disney, mentions how one day, he called someone and they had a steam train for his movie.

While I doubt it was quite that easy, when the production company came to Northern California in 1959, they indeed came to the right spot. Looking for somewhere to evoke the small New England town of the 1913 book (the fictional location being Beldingsville, Vermont), the sleepy town of St. Helena along the Napa Valley was a good stand in. Watch the opening moments of the film and you see how well it fit the period. Many streets were little more than dirt roads and even with the modern day hustle and bustle of the city close by in San Francisco, life had not picked up the pace here. Even with the 21st Century, the 2010 census only recorded a population of 5,814. Grapes seem to outnumber residents with 416 vineyards in 6,800 acres.

The Napa Valley was lucky enough to have had it’s fair share of railroads. An electric interurban line connected to ferries in Vallejo and the Southern Pacific had a branch line to Calistoga at the north end of the valley.

It was this line that came into play for the movie with it’s wooden station at St. Helena getting the Hollywood treatment with plenty of Victorian gingerbread touches added along with a fresh coat of paint, somewhat keeping to the standard Southern Pacific colors of Colonial Yellow, Samoa Brown and Moss Green. With all the touches of art direction and set decoration, it would look just the part needed. Now the only thing needed was a period steam locomotive and passenger train to take their part on this stage.

That proved problematic. The Southern Pacific had run its last steam locomotive a year earlier and didn’t have any thing handy to fill the bill. While the railroad had plenty of experience with movies, this was going to be a bit of a problem. Steam locomotives had ended service on the SP with an excursion from Oakland, CA to Sparks, NV and return in October of 1958

However, neighbor railroad Western Pacific did have something to fill the bill. Old number 94, dating back to 1909, a true veteran locomotive that had actually hauled a special train through the Feather River Canyon to open that railroad back in 1910. Saved for special trains and excursions, she was living out her last years on the railroad in it’s Oakland roundhouse, venturing forth for that one more trip as needed. A favorite of old engineers and railroad fans, she could still take trains over the road when called upon. 1953 had even seen her given a new coat of paint with gold striping lettering to recall those earlier days.

Likely someone at the SP recalled that the WP had the 94 squirreled away and a quick phone call confirmed that. Buried somewhere in the Disney archives, there may exist copies of correspondence between Burbank and San Francisco (where the SP and WP home offices were) dotting all of the I’s and crossing all of the T’s to make the movements of the train between Oakland and the Napa Valley as seamless as possible. And the 94 needed to be given a bit of make-up, Hollywood magic, with lettering for the fictional Watertown and Eastern Railroad to match the black and gold she wore. Add a matching heavyweight passenger train of a baggage car, two coaches and the former private railroad business car of authors Lucius Beebe and Charles Clegg (called the “Gold Coast) and you are all set to go.

I can’t imagine the SP was thrilled at the prospect of an old steam locomotive and train traveling on their own from Oakland on it’s busy Western Division. Likely, there was a diesel locomotive assigned to make sure this train made it’s trip with as little muss and fuss as possible between Oakland and Napa, probably at night, so as not to disrupt scheduled trains along the way. The WP likely insisted on their own engineer and fireman traveling with the 94. It would not surprise me that they also sent a mechanic from the Oakland Roundhouse along with the baggage car full of tools and supplies like valve oil and other lubricants, just in case, too. Even though the Southern Pacific was a fine railroad, their last steam locomotive had run in 1958. The movie location in St. Helena, out on it’s Calistoga branch line, was not off the map, but it was far enough away from any railroad shops that it would be a good idea to be prepared for anything that might arise. Arrangements were likely also made to accommodate the WP crew a somewhere nearby in a motel; not to mention feed them as well.

And all this likely required written agreements between Disney, the SP, and the WP. That’s what legal departments are for; and all three companies had their own folks for whom it was an interesting diversion. Both railroads had hosted motion picture companies before at various locations in their histories. Sharp eyed movie goers would have seen the WP along with Abbot and Costello on screen in “Buck Privates” or may have seen the SP and Frank Sinatra arriving at the Oakland Mole in the opening scenes of “Pal Joey”.

Filming at St. Helena likely took three days in August of 1959. Call sheets for the production noted “Exterior railroad station and train – St. Helena, CA” for August 11, 12, and 13, 1959. One for the arrival scenes at the beginning, and then again for the departure scenes at the ending. And likely another day for general scenes around the station. The arrival scenes had the train traveling eastbound toward Calistoga and the departure scenes had the train traveling westbound toward Napa Junction. (On the Southern Pacific, all trains traveling away from San Francisco were eastbound, and all trains traveling toward San Francisco were westbound.) Napa Junction was also the only place in the area where the train could be turned, as no such facilities existed on the Calistoga branch.

The DVD release of the film includes a gallery of still photographs from the production including views of the train, with various folks about the locomotive. While I can’t find any views of Walt with the train at the time, it is not hard to imagine him spending at least a few moments with the locomotive crew. And there are plenty of views of him at the depot during the production.

After the scenes with the train were complete, it was likely another night trip back to Oakland with a diesel locomotive in charge of the train. Arriving back at the Oakland Roundhouse, the Watertown and Eastern livery it wore for the film was replaced with new Western Pacific numbering and lettering in gold.

The WP used the 94 for more excursions, the last coming August 22nd, 1960 to celebrate the 50th anniversary of passenger service on the railroad, bringing the famed California Zephyr into Oakland for it’s last run. In 1964, the railroad donated the locomotive to the San Francisco Maritime Museum Association to be a showpiece in a proposed transportation museum in San Francisco. It left the railroad for storage in 1966 with various other equipment. Plans for the Museum at Argonaut Bay never came to pass and the 94 remained quietly in retirement.

I first saw the locomotive in storage early 1979 where she had sat since 1966. Hundreds of thousands of commuters had driven by the Oakland San Francisco Bay Bridge Toll Plaza and never realized that a former maintenance building there was home to a collection of vintage railroad equipment. But I was among a dedicated group who were there to get the 94 back on the rails for a trip to a new home and another chapter in her story.

The California Railway Museum (now known as the Western Railway Museum) had negotiated an agreement with the San Francisco Maritime Museum Association to lease the 94 and three other steam locomotives. The WP had graciously offered to move the 94 on it’s own wheels from Oakland to Rio Vista Junction, and the California Railway Museum.

The locomotive debuted at the Museum’s Spring Railway Festival on May 5 & 6, 1979, pulling a short three car train on the demonstration railway at Rio Vista Junction. The Museum later negotiated a lease on the Sacramento Northern from parent Western Pacific. It was a favorite of guests including various officials from the WP including former President Alfred Perlman and family. The 94 also added another on-screen role, appearing briefly in an episode of “Young Indiana Jones”.

With the last full shopping by the railroad in 1949, time eventually caught up with the locomotive. After a thorough inspection by an outside consultant, a report outlining issues needing to be addressed was compiled. Museum management chose to concentrate on other priorities and today, the Western Pacific 94 is on display in Carhouse 2, along with other vintage railway equipment.

So, that’s the short version of this story. I’m still searching for more details to fill in the gaps. And somewhere in corporate paperwork, correspondence from the railroads and Disney may still be hiding, waiting to tell the tale of how the production of “Pollyanna” got it’s train.