Just about a block or so away from the Oakland Ballers' Raimondi Park home, local resident Harvinder Singh sets off on his mission to help rebuild the brand of an Oakland neighborhood.'Two years ago, if you came and looked at this area, it was in bad shape. None of the streets were paved. There were homeless encampments everywhere,' said Singh.
'It's kind of amazing,' she replied.Singh says the community has really banded together over the last few years to bring color to what was to many, a bleak picture of the neighborhood. The birth of the Ballers, he says, couldn't have come at a better time.'The Ballers' existence just catapulted us,' he said.Andrea Mallea, manager of Kilovolt Coffee, a West Oakland staple since 2014, says the Ballers' first homestand did actually bring home more business.