(Photos) The A's host the Boston Red Sox in Oakland

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(Photos) Gonzaga cruises past Saint Mary's 70-57

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Photos by Connor Buestad - Section925

(Photos) University of San Francisco opens the 2024 season with a series win

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Photos by Connor Buestad - Section925

(Photos) Cal beats USC with LeBron in the house

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Photos by Connor Buestad - Section925

(Photos) Cal beats Stanford 27-15 in the 126th Big Game

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(Photos) Cal beats Arizona State 24-21 in Berkeley

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Photos by Connor Buestad - Section925

(Photos) Juan Soto's two homers lead San Diego over Oakland 10-1

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(Photos) Cal falls to Auburn 14-10 in a frustrating home opener in Berkeley

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(Photos) The Blue Jays hold off the A's in Extra Innings on Labor Day

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(Photos) Pittsburg visits SF's Kezar Stadium to take on Sacred Heart Cathedral

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Photos by Connor Buestad - Section925

(Photos) Baltimore visits Oakland in the Dog Days of August

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Photos by Connor Buestad - Section925

The A’s are getting dangerously close to having the worst 162-game baseball season ever

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(Photo by Morry Gash / Associated Press)

By Connor Buestad | Connor@Section925.com

We are coming down the back stretch of the baseball season and the A’s are firmly on pace to achieve the dubious honor of being the worst team in franchise history since they moved to Oakalnd in 1968. Now in their 56th season by the Bay, Oakland has lost 100 games just twice during their time at the Coliseum. Back in 1979 they turned in their lowest win total at 54-108 and just last year the A’s went 60-102. Now in 2023, with ownership doing everything they can to break their fanbase’s collective heart and move them to Vegas, the A’s are on pace to finish 45-117. Currently, the A’s are sitting at 33-87 and they must play .500 ball over their last 42 games to avoid eclipsing Oakland’s 108 loss “record.”

.500 ball might be a lot to ask for from a team that is currently playing .275 ball, but at 39 games back of Texas in the AL West, at this point you can only hope the A’s can stave off the 2003 Tigers and finish a bit better than their 43-119 record-setting 162-game season. Have there been worse seasons in Major League Baseball history? Yes, maybe a few. But there has never been a team that’s lost 120 games or more in the modern era of a 162-game schedule. 

Right now you know John Fischer and Dave Kaval are somewhere other than Oakland, checking the scores daily on their phones, smiling at every A’s loss, knowing it only helps their cause of uprooting the team from Oakland and shipping them off to the highest bidding city in waiting. We can only hope the A’s can somehow rally and avoid making history for all the wrong reasons. But as August slowly starts turning into September, the possibility of 120 losses is starting to get a bit too real. It only begs the question: where’s the Rally Possum when you need him most? One of those 20 game win streaks certainly wouldn’t hurt in times like these.

Deem 2023 “The Year of the Transfer” for Cal Football

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Cal’s roster now includes 36 players from around college football. A few of the notables are pictured above.

By Connor Buestad | Connor@Section925.com

When Cal welcomes the Auburn Tigers to Memorial Stadium on the 9th of September for their home opener, upwards of 20 impact players on the Golden Bears side will be by way of the Transfer Portal. Yes, you’re reading that right, the transfer admissions department at UC Berkeley has been burning the midnight oil. Cal football is quietly becoming Transfer U. Seventh year head coach Justin Wilcox has suddenly become a portal devotee and as a result the 2023 Bears roster will look almost nothing like a year ago. Will the transfer method get the Bears back into a much needed bowl game? Only time will tell. 

Staying with the theme of change, even Cal’s best player, Jaydn Ott (one of the few non-transfer starters on the team), will look a bit different to fans this year as he’s shed the #6 jersey and adopted the #1 made famous by DeSean Jackson. Standout wide receiver Jeremiah Hunter will also be back for the Bears, but beside that, a whole lot has changed from Cal’s disappointing 4-8 record in 2022. Three years in-a-row falling short of bowl eligibility has sent Wilcox searching high and low around the country for D1 transfers that can help him win now, before his seat gets too hot. 

But before we look forward to who the Bears have added to their roster, let’s quickly mourn the losses of who walked out the door and headed to a new school during the offseason. We’ll start of course with Cal’s tough, gutsy and productive QB1, Jack Plummer. Did he win much at Cal? Not exactly. But he certainly kept the Bears in plenty of games (including at Notre Dame) and put up some good offensive stats at quarterback despite a shaky O-line and unreliable defense. He originally came to Berkeley by way of Purdue and now he’s off to his third school, Louisville. We wish him luck in Kentucky. 

Not only did the Bears lose their starting quarterback from last year, but they also lost one of their best receivers to UCLA. The future BIG 10 Bruins (don’t tell Bill Walton) took J. Michael Sturdivant from us, not to mention starting linebacker Oluwafemi Oladejo, who also has taken his talents to Los Angeles. 

Two of Cal’s running backs decided to leave Berkeley as well, as Damien Moore left for Fresno State and DeCarlos Brooks is now at Arizona State. Speaking of ASU, kicker Dario Longhetto also decided it was time to leave and he is now also a Sun Devil. But enough about the bad news. Who was Cal able to convince to come? Let’s take a look by position. 

For starters, Cal’s quarterback in 2023 will almost assuredly be a transfer student. Sam Jackson V, who is the fifth of five Sam Jacksons in his family will wear #5 and most likely be the Bears’ opening day starter at North Texas. He’s a running quarterback who played last year at TCU under Sonny Dykes. He made the National Championship Game and lost to Georgia, the only catch being he was the third QB on Dykes’ depth chart and saw very limited action for the Horned Frogs. New offensive coordinator and running-quarterback-whisperer Jake Spavital will try to mold him into the likes of a Kyler Murray, Johnny Manziel or Geno Smith, all QB’s he’s coached up in the past. Jackson’s likely backup will be Ben Finley who has seen time on the field at NC State and has recently transferred into Cal. 

One of Cal’s top receivers this year figures to be Taj Davis, who previously played at the University of Washington. Another transfer wideout will be Marquez Dortch who comes to Cal by way of Mississippi State. 

The running backs room at Cal will be full of players who have started their college careers elsewhere. Byron Cardwell comes to Cal from the Oregon Ducks, Justin Williams-Thomas has transferred in from Tennessee,  King Doerue comes in from Purdue and Isaiah Ifanse comes from both San Jose State and Montana State. 

At tight end the Bears are bringing in J.T. Byrne from Oregon State as well as Asher Alberding from North Texas University. On the offensive line the Bears brought in Matthew Wykoff from Texas A&M and even Barrett Miller who came over from Stanford. 

On the defensive side of the ball, the Bears will be led by Jackson Sirmon. Sirmon played a pivotal role as a Cal linebacker last year, but before that, he did spend some time in Washington as a Husky linebacker wearing purple. His defensive coordinator dad coaching at Cal helped convince him to give Berkeley a shot. In addition to Sirmon at linebacker, you have Sergio Allen coming in from a big time program in Clemson and even David Reese from the Florida Gators. 

The defensive back position will also look a lot different due to Cal’s newfound dedication to the transfer portal as Patrick McMorris has come from San Diego State and Nohl Williams is coming from UNLV. Williams in particular comes with tons of hype surrounding his talents covering elite receivers. 

The list of transfers doesn’t stop there, stick with me here. You also have the likes of defensive backs Kaylin Moore from Colorado and Raymond Woodie III from Florida State, as well as receiver Brian Hightower from both Miami and Illinois. The list goes on when you include some JUCO guys, etc. All told the Bears will have 36 guys on their roster who have played football at another college before Cal. In summary, the Transfer Portal has been raging.

Starting with Auburn’s visit to Berkeley, Cal will play a good team virtually every single week. Sports Illustrated believes they have the 12th hardest schedule in the nation. Cal will have to play Washington, Utah, Oregon, Stanford and UCLA all on the road. Not to mention USC, who will come to Berkeley with the defending Heisman Trophy winner at quarterback. 

By the time Cal gets through that gauntlet of a schedule, Vegas is pinning the Bears as a 5-7 or 6-6 type team. Justin Wilcox and his staff could really use a seven win season. They’ve certainly pushed all their chips in on the Transfer Portal Lottery, Old Blues would love to see it cash out.

Cal’s 2023 roster is a melting pot of players from around the nation. It’s not where you start, it’s where you finish, as they say. And all roads lead to Berkeley…

  1. Nohl Williams, UNLV

  2. Kaylin Moore, Colorado

  3. Justin Williams-Thomas, Tennessee 

  4. Sam Jackson V, TCU

  5. Raymond Woodie III, Florida State

  6. Brian Hightower, Illinois and Miami

  7. David Reese, Florida

  8. Jackson Sirmon, Washington

  9. Taj Davis, Washington

  10. Patrick McMorris, San Diego State

  11. Sergio Allen, Clemson

  12. Ben Finley, North Carolina State

  13. Luke Bottari, Utah

  14. Mason Starling, College of San Mateo

  15. Tyler Jensen, Louisville

  16. Byron Cardwell, Oregon

  17. Isaiah Ifanse, San Jose State and Montana State

  18. Matthew Littlejohn, Citrus College

  19. King Doerue, Purdue

  20. Marcus Scott II, Missouri

  21. Thomas Lee, Cal Poly

  22. Lachlan Wilson, Tulsa

  23. Xavier Carlton, Utah

  24. Beaux Tagaloa, San Jose State

  25. Wesley Brown, College of San Mateo

  26. Darius Long Jr, College of San Mateo

  27. Tidiane Jalloh, Independence Community College

  28. Barrett Miller, Stanford

  29. Martin Tine, East Los Angeles College

  30. T.J. Session, Montana State

  31. Matthew Wykoff, Texas A&M

  32. Marquez Dortch, Mississippi State

  33. Kenden Robinson Jr., Northern Iowa and CCSF

  34. Marquis Montgomery, Snow College

  35. J.T. Byrne, Oregon State

  36. Asher Alberding, North Texas

(Photos) Sunday baseball at the Coliseum between the White Sox and A's

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Photos by Connor Buestad - Section925

Read this fantastic article by Dan Moore on A's fans fight to keep their team in Oakland

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Jane Tyska/Digital First Media/East Bay Times via Getty Images

By Dan Moore

I learned of the Nevada state Senate’s vote to move forward with subsidizing Fisher’s stadium at the same time many A’s fans did: on my way to the Coliseum for the reverse boycott.

I arrived at the Coliseum around 3:45. I made my way to the south lot’s far southeastern corner, where the portable grandstands that ground crews once used to turn the Coliseum into a football stadium still unceremoniously sit, discolored by the sun. That was where the Oakland 68s, an A’s supporters group and the unofficial organizers of the boycott, were setting up. Between iron scaffolds, the group had hung a massive green-and-gold flag emblazoned with Oakland’s official crest: a proud green oak tree, set against a bold gold backdrop. Music—Too $hort, Mac Dre—was already pulsing out of several sets of large speakers. Other flags, raised from lowered tailgates farther out in the parking lot, snapped in the breeze. A food truck was preparing street tacos. Behind a beachhead of tables and lowered tailgates, the 68s were handing out the shirts they’d printed for the event: 7,000 kelly-green shirts reading SELL in white letters across the chest. Before the tables, a sea of fans spilled westward, out into the rest of the parking lot, which was filling up with more fans repurposing the hoods and bumpers of their own cars into drink-making stations and outdoor grills. On open stretches of asphalt, fathers and sons played catch. Between them, middle-aged women snapped back tequila shots.

The festival atmosphere recalled, to my eye, the Oakland tailgates of old, the ones I’d grown up on, the breeze off the estuary carrying a familiar electric bite. The smells that wafted through the air were several different kinds of tantalizing: the sweet grease of grilled meat, the curious zip of gasoline, the seduction of weed smoke. I found this heartening because I had not been sure, after learning of the Nevada state Senate’s affirmative vote earlier in the day, what its effect on the boycott would be. I’d wondered whether the vote would deflate it, skew its vibes more funereal than revelrous. The opposite turned out to be true. By 4:30, the sheer mass of fans—many donning the SELL shirts—had grown from the kind of crowd you’d expect to see at a tailgate to the kind of crowd you might see at a rock concert. News crews were everywhere. Oakland mayor Sheng Thao was there, wearing a Matt Chapman jersey and making statements for the cameras. Chants spontaneously erupted. They’d spark up in pockets, then spread in waves across the lot. SELL THE TEAM! STAY IN OAK-LAND! At first the chants came from fans who sounded more amused than enraged, but as the crowd grew and as more people joined in, the calls acquired cohesion and spine, and soon they were thundering across the parking lot with power-chord force. These were not the laments of the unreachable and wounded. They were exhortations of the ballistic and battle ready. “This is war!” an A’s fan and member of the 68s, Alejandra Leon, said to me at one point, raising her voice over the crowd.

But I don’t want to make it seem like the tailgate was all that serious, exactly. This might have been war, but as Melissa Lockard of The Athletic would later put it, it was also a “celebration of life.” Many fans expressed their frustration with the A’s ownership by placing paper bags over their heads, but they gladly lifted the bags to answer questions or tend to their drinks. People I spoke to told me they’d flown in from Australia, New York, British Columbia. Billie Joe Armstrong of Green Day was there. At some point, ex-A’s pitcher and the team’s current color commentator, Dallas Braden, showed up, and fans mauled him. A’s fan Paul Bailey had brought a pair of cornhole boards painted with the likenesses of Fisher and MLB commissioner Rob Manfred. He’d used their giant mouths as the holes. He’d embossed the bags with poop emojis. “I think he’s just a really great guy,” Bailey told me, referring to Fisher, as we watched a quartet of kids play. “Just a really great guy.”

By 5 p.m., the parking lot seemed to be totally full. The almost gold of the falling sun threw a thousand sparks of light off the tops of the parked cars. On one end of the lot, now, a Latino brass band was playing; not far away, a DJ had set up. I was handed a beer by a young man I’d never identify, thanks to the brown paper bag over his head. “Fuck John Fisher,” he said as he handed me a Modelo and wandered off. I drank it happily.

(Photos) A special night in Coliseum history: Oakland fans perform a Reverse Boycott to protest A's ownership

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