Remembering the Dead: A Visit to San Jose’s Hacienda Cemetery
With Halloween and Día de los Muertos upon us, we dispatched a local writer to document her favorite cemetery in the Bay — which features a one-arm burial site.
Culture
Where Did All the Abandoned A’s Elephants Go?
A scrappy group of Oaklanders have built a “sanctuary” for the sculptures that the A’s left behind.
In 2018, the Oakland Athletics flooded the city with elephants. Fifty of them, each measuring six feet tall and weighing 650 pounds, released in various locations around town.
Look, they weren’t living elephants — they were statues of the team’s mascot, Stomper, each uniquely decorated by local artists and fans, representing the baseball franchise’s 50th anniversary of playing in Oakland. This herd of Stompers were painted with A’s players, hip-hop tributes, modern art, geographic nods, glittery mosaics, and, in one case, weirdly nightmarish images of ghoulish hands and creepy eyes. There was “Luchador Stomper” and “Steampunk Stomper” and “Bat Boy” (not to be confused with MC Hammer, who was once an actual bat boy for the A’s).