Everyone who lived in the Bay Area on this date remembers where they were at 5:04 p.m.

I was a 12-year-old in Castro Valley, sitting on my bed with the TV on, ready to watch Game 3 of the World Series. And then it hit. And in the aftermath of the quake, over the course of hours and days, baseball didn’t seem so important.

The 1989 championship is, to date, the only Oakland A’s world championship of my lifetime. And, like me, I can bet many of those A’s fans born from the mid1970s on do not remember much about the actual games. Sure, I remember Dennis Eckersley covering first on the final out in Game 4. But I couldn’t tell you about specific plays of any other games. I don’t know who hit home runs, or how many bases Rickey Henderson stole. All I know is there was a World Series in which my team won… but the Nimitz Freeway collapsed, buildings burned down, people died… what baseball game?

And then the series resumed on October 27, but there are still no baseball memories. Recovery efforts extended into the following weeks, months, and years, as the A’s were upset in the 1990 World Series and then declined into the forgettable mid- and late-90s.

So today I’m watching some YouTube clips, thinking back on the day everyone forgot about the A’s. As the Bay Area came together and recovered in the years following the quake, here’s hoping the A’s can do the same. Let’s not wait another 20 years. Go A’s…