In the end, what they wanted was the dirt. Some fans snuck in wrenches to try to remove seats, and some joked about walking off with urinals, but when 57 years at the Oakland Coliseum came to a drawn-out, then abrupt end, they pushed their way to the front row of seats; they stood, green shoulder to green shoulder; and they begged for the scrapings from the A’s white shoes.
Members of the grounds crew filled dozens of shovels from home plate, the bullpen mounds, the warning track, then decanted the soil into the plastic cups and sandwich baggies and souvenir helmets of the people who waited nearly an hour after the final out for something they could take home with them, something they could touch when they struggled to believe this was real, something they could venerate later.
