Oakland Coliseum has a plumbing issue, and the Yankees are its latest victim

(Stephen Lam/Getty Images)

Oakland’s stadium situation isn’t just messy. As the New York Yankees discovered Friday night, it’s wet and smelly, too.

Water started leaking into the visitors dugout during Friday’s game at the Oakland Coliseum, an issue stemming from a backed-up toilet. The stench remained Saturday as maintenance workers attempted for nearly an hour to clean up the mess.

There's a little issue with the restroom in the visiting dugout... pic.twitter.com/bmjEaFfqe3

— Bryan Hoch (@BryanHoch) May 21, 2016

Commitment to Excrement: workers cleaning up plumbing leak in Yankees dugout bathroom. pic.twitter.com/EvCwjtue1h

— Billy Witz (@billywitz) May 21, 2016

The leak has only been a minor obstacle this weekend, but plumbing issues have been a recurring problem at the 50-year-old stadium. In 2013, a sewage backup created a stink and pools of water in both clubhouses, and those problems resurfaced with multiple incidents in 2014.

Back in Oakland? Sewage problems in clubhouse!! Yep. We are BACK BABAY!

— Josh Reddick (@RealJoshReddick) March 29, 2014

The stink comes to the surface as the team finds itself in a stadium predicament. The Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum, owned by the city and county, is shared by the A’s and the Oakland Raiders. The A’s want to build their own stadium next to the ballpark, while the Raiders want to tear the stadium down and have both teams play elsewhere while two new arenas are being built (if they remain in Oakland at all).

The city’s preference, meanwhile, is to move the A’s downtown. But the A’s owners said that location would be too far from mass transit and the city’s interstates, and would make the stadium less accessible.

“It would be easier to build on Treasure Island,” A’s co-owner Lew Wolff said in 2013.

In February, Commissioner Rob Manfred said this was a local issue, and that the preference was to keep the team in its current market.

“That’s for the A’s to sort out,” Manfred said. “I really do feel that the degree of influence that we should exercise in the process should be related to telling the club that we’d like them to stay in the market they are.”

As for who would pay for the stadium, Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf said it won’t be the taxpayers.