Written by AFR show producer Keith “Cpl RFA” Salminen

For the second year in a row, Oakland A’s FanFest was held in the Oracle Arena in Oakland on January 27th from 10:30 am to 3:30 pm. This was the first time for fans to purchase tickets for all 2013 home games, meet the 2013 team as well as Oakland A’s legends & get their autographs, buy game used memorabilia, take photos with current & former A’s players and a side show of other little events going on. The A’s also held their 2nd BlogFest event, which A’s Fan Radio was a part of and also marked the first time in the show’s 10 year history that it had a press pass for an Oakland A’s event.

For the most part, this event also marks when most of the LF & RF Bleacher Bums, aka “The FANily”, link up after not seeing each other during the off-season. The gang has made it a habit to tailgate before, during and after FanFest. And before anyone asks, yes they were Bernie Leanin’ all damn day!

While I did have a wee bit more fun than I did at last year’s FanFest and did have a blast having a press pass for the first time ever in my life, I am still a huge supporter of the fact than the Arena is just not made to hold an event like this as it was still a pain in the ass to walk around both the lower and upper concourse. This event could have easily been held in the Coliseum, regardless if there was a motor cross event the night before. Other locations that should have been looked at could have been the Coliseum parking lot or even moving the event back to Jack London Square, which was the spot it was held at for most of the ’90’s.

Aside from that, I did have a great time seeing everyone again and it was a weird yet awesome time going to a FanFest were I was part of the media. Getting to be part of something like BlogFest is something that this show has tried to do for a very long time and myself as well as the rest of the AFR cast are happy to see it finally happen regardless if took over a decade for us to get our first press pass and we all look forward to more of it in the months and years to come.

Photos from both FanFest & BlogFest will be posted on our Facebook page at some point before tomorrow night’s show.