The St. Louis Cardinals say farewell to a historical ballpark

Oakland-Alameda Coliseum has been the home of the Oakland Athletics since 1968, and 2024 will be its last hosting Major League Baseball.

With all the uncertainty surrounding the Athletics organization regarding their stadium, it was made official on April 4th that the A's would be playing the following three seasons in Sacramento with intentions to eventually move permanently to Las Vegas.

The Cardinals only play the Athletics once a year since they are in the American League, so with this news about Oakland officially leaving Oakland, on Wednesday, April 17th, it will be the Cardinals' final regular season game at the Coliseum.

As of 2023, every major league team will play every team at least 3 times during the regular season, so the sample size for Cardinals vs Athletics match-ups are rather bleak. And with inter-league play not being adapted until 1997, the Cardinals did not see Oakland during their heyday as a franchise.

The Athletics franchise has been in the MLB since 1901 when they were in Philadelphia and they won 5 World Series, their final championship came in 1930 against the Cardinals. Then they were briefly in Kansas City from 1955 to 1967 until they moved to Oakland in 1968. When you talk about the success the Athletics have had as an organization in Oakland, you can easily compare their success to the Cardinals' success over that same period of time.

From 1968 to the present day, the Cardinals and Athletics have combined to win 7 World Series Championships, 14 pennants, and 29 division titles. The two teams have also shared some baseball legends who are most known for their time with these two franchises. Names such as Tony La Russa who won a combined 3 World Series and 6 pennants with the A's and Cards as their manager, Mark McGwire who played his entire career with both franchises, pitching coach Dave Duncan, who left Oakland to join La Russa in St. Louis before the 1996 season, and also played for both the Kansas City and Oakland A's during his playing career, and first base coach Dave McKay, who also went with La Russa to St.Louis in '96.

With there being no National League versus American League play until 1997, and no cross-divisional AL versus NL play until 2002, the Cardinals and Athletics did not face each other until the A's 37th season in Oakland ( from 1997-2001 the NL Central only played the AL Central in interleague play). The first match-up between the Cards and the Oakland A's came on June 15, 2004, at the old Busch Stadium, the Cardinals won that game 8-4 and they swept the three-game series. St. Louis would not make their first trip to the Coliseum until June 15, 2007, it was an ugly game for the Cards as they fell 14-3, but they would score 15 runs and 10 runs in the following 2 games respectively to take the series.

As of this Wednesday, the Cardinals have only played the Athletics a total of 25 times. The Cardinals have the slight edge going 13-12 in those games, and with Wednesday's 6-3 loss they finished with a 5-6 record at the Oakland Coliseum. If there are no changes to how the MLB schedule is constructed, the Cardinals will host Sacramento in 2025, and they will travel to Sacramento for the 2026 season where the story between these two franchises will start a new chapter.