The Oakland Athletics' 20-Game Winning Streak and the Raiders' Last Super Bowl Appearance
Three years ago, the Oakland A's won thirteen games in a row (April 9 - April 24)
to go from sole possession of the worst record in Major League Baseball to sole pesssion of the best record in the American League. As incredible as that winning streak was,
it was seven games shorter than their longest winning streak ever! My move from Cupertino to UC Berkeley (on August 18, 2002) at the age of seventeen occurred during that historic winning streak (August 13, 2002 - September 4, 2002). That move to UC Berkeley was my only move to the East Bay during my life and the A's are the only MLB team headquartered in the East Bay.
The winning streak is tied for the fifth-longest winning streak in MLB history. The A's ended up winning the AL West and 103 games that year. Sadly, they became the second Bay Area 103-win MLB team not to play in the League Championship Series when they were defeated by the Minnesota Twins in the Division Series.
(The 1993 Giants were the first such Bay Area team.)
UC Berkeley is located approximately eleven miles from the
Oakland Coliseum (see map below), where the A's play their home games.
The Oakland Coliseum was also where the Oakland Raiders played their home games for many years. (Because they shared the same stadium, the Raiders were forced
to play a 2019 "home" preseason game on an 80-yard field (!?!) in Canada since the A's were scheduled to play a home game on the same day.) A few months after the A's incredible winning streak, the Raiders made it to the Super Bowl for the first time since I was born (1984). I watched the game with several of my UC Berkeley dormmates on the television
in the dorm lounge. Although the Raiders lost to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers (Steve Young's first NFL team), we had a good time.
The A's 13-game winning streak last year was their longest winning streak since the
20-game winning streak in 2002. The Raiders have played in only two playoff games since the 2003 Super Bowl, have not
made it back to the Super Bowl, and moved from Oakland to Las Vegas three years ago.
