Issue #24: What do Too $hort, Billie Joe Armstrong, and I have in common? The Oakland Ballers!
Announcing my sponsorship of the Oakland Ballers, four great homes in the Town, and a new blockbuster film by an Oakland native.
The Silvert Lining is a place where I talk about real estate, cool homes for sale, things I’m looking forward to, and how I’ve been spending my time. In addition to this newsletter, I also post regularly on Instagram. You can follow me at Dan Silvert Homes. If you would like to meet with me to discuss your home search, you can schedule time here.
Breaking news! I’m a new sponsor of the Oakland Ballers! Between innings at all 48 Ballers home games this season there will be a Scrappy's Scrap Sprint for Home sponsored by Dan Silvert Homes. The race will involve children racing around the bases with a cool prize for the winner. Being involved with the Ballers feels like a natural fit as I’m a proud East Bay native (born in Berkeley, grew up in Piedmont, and lived in Oakland most of my adult life) who loves playing and watching sports.
During the Ballers inaugural 2024 season, I loved attending games at Raimondi Field and wanted to become more involved this season. The Ballers have done an incredible job establishing themselves in the community, selling 100,000+ tickets, doing $1 million in merchandise sales, and raising over $3 million from over 2,500 investors, including hip hop legend Too $hort and Green Day’s Billie Joe Armstrong. Too $hort will be at the May 22 game; I hope he performs his 2006 anthem “Blow the Whistle” as it’s the undisputed anthem of all Oakland sports.
The Ballers compete in the Pioneer Baseball League, which was established in 1939 and is currently an MLB Partner League with teams in Montana, Idaho, Utah, Colorado, and California. Many of the players played collegiate baseball, and in 2024 four Ballers had their contracts purchased by MLB organizations.
The Ballers play at Raimondi Park in West Oakland. The team led the effort to renovate the neglected sports facility in advance of their 2024 opening day game. The park was created in 1911 and renamed Raimondi Park in 1947 to honor Ernie Raimondi, a former San Francisco Seals player (he was drafted at the age of 16 during his junior year of high school!) in the storied Pacific Coast League who was killed in action during World War II. Fun fact: I’m friends with Ernie’s great-nephew Matt Raimondi.
I will be sharing more about my sponsorship throughout the season. If you want to hang out this summer, I plan to be at many Ballers games cheering the team on. I’m also excited that the Prescott Market food hall just opened across the street from the ballpark and that a legacy BART car will eventually become a concession stand at Raimondi Park.
This week I thought it would be fitting to feature four great homes in the Town.
Let me know if you are looking for a new home and I can create a customized search based on your wants and needs that will email you homes that meet your search criteria. You can schedule time with me to discuss your search for a new home or selling your current home by emailing me at DanSilvertHomes@gmail.com. DRE #01963734
For the last few months, most of my nights and weekends have been filled with reffing high school lacrosse games. The regular season just concluded, and I’m finishing the season by reffing a few weeks of playoff games. Meanwhile, my girlfriend, Jessica, has been out and about having fun without me. She has seen most of the new movie releases and is curating a viewing schedule for me. Without further ado, here is Jessica’s number one movie recommendation that happens to be written and directed by an Oakland native, filmmaker Ryan Coogler.
Jessica here! If you see one movie at the theater right now, it should be Sinners. I saw the film on 70mm IMAX at San Francisco’s Metreon and plan to see it again with Dan on 70mm at the Grand Lake Theatre. Ryan Coogler - whose previous credits include the Black Panther movies and Creed - even made a short video explaining the different viewing formats. Sinners is technically a horror movie; I am a big baby when it comes to scary movies and I was completely fine throughout the movie. The vampires in Sinners are not particularly demonic or scary (the lead vampire is an Irish folk singing Riverdancer) and the bloodshed is very hyperbolic. Most horror is allegorical, and Sinners is rife with symbolism and historical references.
The first half of Sinners is a period drama wherein identical twin brothers (both played by Michael B. Jordan, one of the few actors with enough screen presence and charisma to believably play identical twins) return to Jim Crow Mississippi after fighting in WWI and then working for Al Capone in Chicago. The Smokestack twins come home with cash, bootleg beer and spirits, and plans to open a juke joint. They recruit their cousin, a talented blues musician and son of a pastor, to play at their opening night. But their inaugural revelry is interrupted by a trio of folk singing vampires who usher in the film’s second half of Southern Gothic vampire mayhem.
Make sure you stay until the very end of the credits as there are some important additional scenes!
EPIC! Love the involvement with the Ballers!!!
Can’t wait for Ballers games this year!