Baseball Hall claiming numerous A’s Oakland Coliseum finale mementos

Baseball Hall claiming numerous A’s Oakland Coliseum finale mementos originally appeared on NBC Sports Bay Area

A significant piece of the Oakland Coliseum is headed to the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y.

After the final Athletics game at the venerable ballpark Thursday, an Oakland grounds crew member dug up home plate.

An MLB authenticator was on site to conduct the extensive authentication, placing an embedded hologram sticker on the plate. Now the plate is destined to land in the hallowed halls of Cooperstown.

A sold-out crowd of 46,889 came to the ballpark for one last experience at MLB’s fifth-oldest stadium, with the A’s appropriately closing things out with a 3-2 win over the Texas Rangers.

Plenty of other memorabilia from the final game will also make its way to Cooperstown, including a game-used baseball, replica Coliseum the team gave away to fans in attendance, an A’s flag and the scorecard. The National Baseball Hall of Fame also will collect Mark Kotsay’s jersey and the scorecard from the A’s season finale on Sunday against the Seattle Mariners.

The event punctuated an emotional day in Oakland, as the place many fans called their second home no longer will feature a major league franchise with the A’s set to head to West Sacramento for at least the next three seasons.

After a series of failed negotiations with the city of Oakland on a lease extension, the A’s will play three seasons in at Sutter Health Park while a new stadium on the Las Vegas Strip is built.

Forlorn A’s fans can take solace in the fact that a piece of the Coliseum will reside in the National Baseball Hall of Fame.