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There will be more time to digest all this, but in a nutshell:
—The A’s announced Thursday they’ll leave the Coliseum in Oakland after this season and play for at least the next three years at a Triple-A ballpark in Sacramento while they wait for their new place to get built in Las Vegas.
—The Sacramento venue, Sutter Health Park, has permanent seating of about 10,600, plus room for another 3,000 or so on the outfield berms.
—MLB doesn’t really “do” outfield berms except in Spring Training, so we’ll see about all that.
—The Athletics’ plan is to move to Las Vegas for the 2028 season. At this point, there’s little reason to believe that’ll happen on schedule. (Some would say “at all.”)
—So the A’s added an optional fourth year in Sacramento if needed.
We easily — easily — don’t know more about all this than we do know. But what we do know is fascinating.
For one thing, we are left to presume that the 29 other MLB franchise ownership groups don’t mind if a major-league team squats in a Triple-A building for, I don’t know, four years or so. That alone ought to ping your radar — it is *highly* unusual.
Let me back up and say that, by minor-league standards, Sutter Health Park is way up there. Located in West Sacramento just across the river from Sacramento’s downtown and the state Capitol, it’s a gem of a park. (I live about a 12-minute drive away.) Great sight-lines from every seat, good view of the local landmark Tower Bridge beyond the center field fence. The park plays fair, with a well-kept infield. It all works.
Crowds will be no issue. The River Cats, the Triple-A team that actually plays in West Sacramento, led the Pacific Coast League in attendance for nine straight years upon their debut in 2000. They were an A’s affiliate back then, the Giants’ top affiliate now. Though attendance has tailed off in the post-pandemic years, it won’t be hard to fill the joint for MLB games.
But that designation, Triple-A, means a lot. These are small ballparks designed to minor-league standards, on small footprints. (“Small” is of course a relative term here.) As such, Sutter Health Park has clubhouses located beyond the outfield walls, not under the stadium connected to the dugouts. They’ve got a video board, but one that fits the size of the ballpark, not a behemoth.
Will visiting teams have family rooms for their spouses and children? Their own dedicated batting cage(s)? This isn’t the most shaded ballpark, either, and let me assure you that Central Valley weather is, um, not the same as life at the coast.
One of the great unknowns, at least so far, is what the A’s will do about any of this. The first reflex is to say “nothing,” given owner John Fisher’s parsimonious run in Oakland, but my sources say there are major upgrades planned at Sutter Health.
The River Cats, who are owned by the Sacramento Kings and thus by Kings chairman and CEO Vivek Ranadive, just completed an extensive re-do of their clubhouse and weight room. My guess is that the A’s would have to build out batting cages, probably re-work the bullpens, perhaps create family spaces, maybe place temporary or permanent seating in both right field and left field. I’m just doing that off the top of my head; MLB ballparks in general are light years beyond their minor-league affiliates.
None of that will be cheap, but it’s way less than Fisher would wind up paying just in rent to stay in Oakland for the next few years. And while we’re here: The entire Oakland saga is a lament for another day. Suffice it to say, it should never have come to this. All other conversations aside, for any team to move to a minor-league park for three or four years is a terrible, terrible look for Major League Baseball.
In the end, we’ll be watching to see who gets what. John Fisher gets out of Oakland, which he obviously wanted, based upon every action he’s taken over the past several years.
Vivek Ranadive, who’s likely going to have to move his River Cats around (maybe even to other ballparks) in order to accommodate the A’s, gets some money, possibly some upgrades, and — he hopes — a good enough showing from Sacramento fans to start pressing MLB for a franchise there.
Per the SF Chronicle’s John Shea, the MLB Players Association has to sign off on all this. We don’t yet know what the union will need on behalf of its players, both home team and visitors, in order to approve Sacramento as a landing spot. (I should mention here that all of these guys spent at least part of their professional careers desperately trying to get out of Triple-A, so, you know, irony.)
And MLB itself? What do the owners want? Why would they allow something this desolate and self-incriminating to occur? Since few of them have the guts to speak publicly on virtually any issue, we’ll probably go on not knowing.
The Vegas play is — it’s whatever. The A’s are trying to get in there only after both the NHL and NFL already arrived and college hoops basically made a second home there. The mayor of Las Vegas has been quoted as saying the A’s should stay in Oakland and work out a deal, adding that their Vegas plan “does not make sense.”
Okay, but here we go. The A’s are headed for the minors, and not for a minute. Whatever else you make of it, this is a weird moment even by pro sports standards. More to come.
Can we assume that lawn chairs and ice chests will be allowed on the berms?
Great column on a mess of a situation. How often do you hear a mayor tell a pro sports franchise to stay where you are and figure out a plan? That sums this mess up.