The Warriors celebrated their NBA title with the city of Oakland on Friday.(Photo Kelley L. Cox USA TODAY Sports)
When the group led by Joe Lacob and Peter Guber bought the Golden State Warriors five summers ago the location of their first press conference said everything about the direction they wanted to take their new team.
It took place at a seaside restaurant in San Francisco not far from the Bay Bridge that will eventually serve as the path from the Warriors' current home in Oakland to their new one. That day is still expected to come but give the Warriors owners credit for holding their championship party on Friday in the city that they've called home since 1971. Forty years after Rick Barry and those Warriors boys won it all in 1975 Oakland deserved to feel all the pride that comes with a parade.
When people say the Warriors belong to The Bay it's not just a marketing move to loop in the masses and all of their wallets. The history supports that stance as they were the San Francisco Warriors for nine seasons before moving to Oakland and adopted the kind of team name Golden State that was perfect as a catch all solution.
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Oakland celebrates Warriors' NBA championship with parade
But when it came time to pick the spot for the parade Oakland was the only way to go because well those folks needed a championship celebration to call their own before their team skips town. No one knows that better than Stanley Burrell the Oakland native and resident spokesman better known as MC Hammer who is as tried and true a Warriors fan if ever there was one.
Back in his Oakland Athletics batboy days when he was known as The Little Hammer by players because he looked like a miniature Hank Aaron Burrell and his two brothers used to jump from the baseball stadium to the Warriors' nearby basketball arena as if they were at a neighborhood park. They had no idea that a championship drought would eventually come that the Oakland Raiders' NFL title in 1980 and the A's World Series crown in 1989 would begin a dry spell that the Warriors broke with their series deciding Game 6 win over the Cleveland Cavaliers on Tuesday night.
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Last SlideNext SlideThey call Oakland The Town now but it used to be known as Championship Town.
I was 13 years old and we had just came off of three consecutive World Series with the Oakland A's '72 '73 and '74 and so the whole city was on fire from winning all those World Series Burrell the 53 year old who rode one of the Warriors' floats on Friday told USA TODAY Sports before Game 6 in Cleveland on Tuesday. The Warriors won in '75 and the Raiders won in '76. Oakland was championship town. And in '75 all of us kids who hung out at the baseball games we'd go right over and watch the basketball games. It's what we did.
I was (then A's owner Charlie) Finley's (hire after the batboy position) the youngest executive vice president in Major League Baseball. So I traveled with the team. My brother was the batboy and my other brother was the assistant clubhouse manager. My whole family we were always out there every day. When the Warriors were hot and driving for the NBA championship we were in the arena watching all the games.
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He's still there to this day but he's everywhere in modern day Oakland too. He was there seven months ago on the downtown city streets preaching peace with the locals during the Ferguson inspired riots that shared some of the same streets as the Warriors' confetti filled route amid some 500 000 fans on Friday. He was there at the celebration riding one of the floats while one of his many hit songs 2 Legit 2 Quit blared in the background. He'll surely be there tomorrow no doubt disappointed that a nearby shooting that took place during the parade stole some of the headlines in the worst kind of way.
This would be a big lift for the city and we're all ready for it Hammer had said just before Game 6 tipped off. We're ready for it. Just excitement. Just celebration.
Oakland's sports heartache was nothing compared to the Cleveland stretch of 51 years without a title that continues of course but it had its own tortured place because of the other city by the Bay. In nearby San Francisco the 49ers won their five titles from 1981 to 1994 while the Giants would go on to win three Major League Baseball championships in the past five seasons. Meanwhile the Raiders' eventual departure from Oakland seems inevitable after so many years of talks about heading for Southern California.
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The Warriors brought all of that to an end and it was only right that the finish line to their magical season came in Oakland. San Francisco will have its fun with this team soon enough.
If they only go five or six miles away we'd be alright Hammer declared.
Translated in true Hammer tongue They can't touch this Oakland memory.
Follow Sam Amick on Twitter sam_amick.
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