Berkeley business owner talks about creating staff uniforms for the Oakland A’s

Everyone is talking about the team moving and what it means to fans and workers, but there are several local businesses that do work for the team, like Alliance Graphics in Berkeley.

Their screen printing and embroidery shop provides all the uniforms for the staff – like ticket takers, ushers, guest services, security and the list goes on. The owner said he’s been an A’s fan since he moved to the Bay Area in 1984.

“This is a jacket the security guys and women wear,” said Howard Levine as he holds up a black fleece-lined jacket.

The pride he has for his work can be heard in his voice as he talks about all the work he’s done over the years with the Oakland Athletics.

“I’d walk past and say hi to one of the security guards, and I’d say, ‘We made your hat, we made your jacket,'” he said.

A longtime season ticket holder, Howard couldn’t believe it almost 30 years ago when the A’s approached him to make some uniform shirts for support staff.

“It was dumb luck. The guy they’d been using couldn’t get a job done fast enough, so some of the guest services people walked into our shop and said, ‘We’re in a jam, can you help us? I said, ‘Yes, I can help you.’ Because I love the A’s and we wanted to do it, and from there we just built it, built it up over the years,” he said.

Howard and Alliance quickly took over the contract. They make all the staff uniforms, think parking lot attendants, ushers, security guards, guest services, ticket takers, Stomper’s crew, and even the A’s broadcast team. He can’t remember all the departments he’s made uniforms for over the years. The team’s account became a significant part of the shop’s business.

“All security people get a jacket, they’d get a hat, they’d get a shirt, often they’d get a sweater, and if you have 500, 600 people doing that … for a while there a couple hundred thousand dollars a year for us, and now it’s all going away,” he said.

The team hasn’t told him directly they won’t be using him, but he said he’s 90% sure the A’s will find a local vendor in Sacramento to take over the work, which also means his clothing vendor in Fresno is going to be losing business as well.

“You can’t just rip out something as important to the community as the A’s and expect there not to be fall out,” he said. “I’ve been a big A’s fan, so for me it was like, the A’s want me to work for them, it couldn’t have been better right. And so now you know, in addition to the business part, my heart is breaking like so many of the other fans that we are losing something that’s so important to us.”

Howard and his disabled son treasure their nights together at the ballpark. While everyone else at the stadium is focused on the players, Howard is more concerned with the staff.

“I would go out there and I would actually, almost every time we’d go there, I’d take photographs of the people wearing our stuff because it was so fun, you know I made that, and I’d take a picture of them,” he said.

All those uniforms, now just a box of files – within them every design the shop ever made for the team. It’s a part of A’s history Howard still can’t bring himself to throw away.

“We’ll hang onto it for a while because we’re pack rats, and we don’t throw anything out. It’s a sad day for us,” he told KPIX.

Howard said he’s thinking about sewing one of every design he’s ever made for the team to create a quilt, which would be their own piece of A’s history to keep around the shop.