No Matter What It's Called - PacBell, SBC, AT&T or Oracle - Athletics' Canha is a Big Fan
The first time Mark Canha came to Oracle Park, it wasn’t Oracle Park.
It wasn’t even AT&T Park; that naming didn’t come until 2006 and lasted through 2018. Canha’s first visit came when he was growing up in San Jose, and the Giants home was known as PacBell Park when it opened in 2000. It would then become SBC park briefly before the AT&T name took over.
And he’d return when he was playing college baseball across San Francisco Bay at Cal. He was something of a Giants’ fan then, a far cry from now when he’s a fixture in the middle of the Oakland A’s lineup.
Because of his history going to games there in the park in San Francisco’s China Basin, the park will always have a special warmth for Canha. Add to that two of his most significant home runs have come there, including Saturday’s three-run homer in the ninth that lifted the A’s to a 7-6 win after having trailed in the ninth inning by three runs.
Back on July 14, 2018, the A’s were down 3-2 when Canha came off the bench to deliver his first career pinch-hit homer, a monster shot into the left field seats. You may remember it, because Canha knew it was gone and he gave a little mini-flip of his bat.
After the game he apologized for the bat flip. For about 30 seconds. He then said he didn’t really mean it. Canha would go on to be one of the key players in the expanding role of the bat flip in late 2018 and 2019.
After saying, “I’m sure a lot of San Franciscans” were offended by his relatively modest bat flip, Canha said simply, “I’m sorry.”
And then he reconsidered.
“You know what, people getting offended by bat flips is so silly,” he said that day. “I’m not sorry. I’m not really sorry. It’s part of our game. Everybody does it. If someone is going to throw at me because of it … I’ve gotten thrown at in the past for bat flipping. I clearly didn’t learn my lesson. If you are offended by that, I don’t care.”
Until this weekend, that homer was one of the most special in the Oakland outfielder’s career.
“It means a lot to me,” he said back in 2018. “It might be my favorite (homer) to date. I came to this park as a kid a lot, and it’s just going to be fun to go brag to all my Giants fans and say that I did that after having had a lot of really great childhood memories here.”
That homer is going to have to share space on the mental trophy shelf with Saturday’s. The A’s came into the inning down 6-3. Sean Murphy cut the deficit to two with a solo shot, and Canha came up with two out and two on. Facing Giants’ closer Trevor Gott and down to his last strike on a 3-2 count, Canha went deep to left, putting the A’s up 7-6. Reliever Liam Hendriks closed it out the win.
“This park holds a special place in my heart,” Canha said Saturday. “It’s just all the more meaningful to do that in this ballpark. It’s awesome. I’ll never forget that home run I hit in 2018, and I’ll never forget this one.”
Follow Athletics insider John Hickey on Twitter: @JHickey3
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