“Mystery Mass” Caused Oakland Coliseum Sewage Flood

Someone clogged the toilets at O.co Coliseum over the weekend.

It's not Oakland's fault. And it's definitely not the coliseum's fault.

The much-maligned O.co Coliseum received even more negative press this week when the aging stadium's plumbing flooded over the weekend, sending raw sewage into locker rooms at the Oakland Athletics' home.

Many used the incident as further proof that the A's need to leave Oakland for a new stadium in San Jose (and San Jose, playing its part, filed a lawsuit against MLB over the long-ago proposed move this week). But the Coliseum isn't to blame -- the pipes are just fine.

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Rather, a still-unidentified someone flushed a still-unidentified something down the pipes, which clogged the toilets and caused Sunday's "big stink," as the San Francisco Chronicle put it.

The general manager of the Coliseum, Chris Wright, also bristled at reports -- such as the ones made by A's owner Lew Wolff -- that this is a common problem at the Coliseum. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Sunday was "the first time" such a thing had gone down -- or failed to go down -- according to Wright.

Meanwhile, the City of Oakland and Alameda County -- the entities which own the stadium -- spent "tens of thousands of dollars" to clean up, the newspaper reported.

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