The Phillies opponent this weekend is one that the team hasn’t played too much over the course of history. The A’s and the Phillies aren’t natural rivals of course due to the distance between the two teams. The Athletics …. Where do we say they are from? Surely not Oakland… The city of Oakland tried to make a new home for the team, but it all fell through. The ownership of the Athletics didn’t agree to a ‘new’ ballpark that was proposed by city government to keep the team there, no, the ownership decided to shop the market of ‘available’ cities and just happened to select Las Vegas as the place that this team will eventually move to.
So someone came up to me recently and asked me, where is this team from now? What do we call them? And that is a very good question. This is in effect a ‘homeless’ team at this point. It’s a team that is still together and playing but it is a homeless team and it just happened to find a shelter in a minor league stadium.
I asked Google…. ‘Where do the Oakland Athletics play?
The A’s will begin playing in West Sacramento at the start of the 2025 MLB season and will continue until their permanent home in Las Vegas is ready to welcome fans, which is projected for Opening Day 2028. Sutter Health Park has a capacity of 14,000.
So there you have it….. a team that used to be called ‘Oakland’ due the geographic area that they play in, and provided a place for the fans to go and enjoy them, now is on the ‘road’ in West Sacramento. Trust and believe that this kind of thing doesn’t happen everyday. The MLB has a big legal department and I’m sure they looked into this cockamamie plan to uproot this team from it’s home in Oakland and eventually end up in Las Vegas. But, should they have allowed the ownership of this team to effectively take a major league team and allow it to downsize to the stadium that they are playing at now, a minor league stadium that only holds 14,000 fans, and become a ‘less than MLB standards’ franchise for several years until a ‘new stadium and city’ is ready? This writer doesn’t think so. No, this plan by Oakland ownership should have been rejected by the MLB and their legal department. It’s kind of a laughable thing that the MLB allowed this to happen. It’s also embarrassing to baseball.
I have a friend, who is a huge baseball fan, he happens to be an author of a great baseball book as well, called Baseball And The Law (he is a retired attorney and ex- Florida judge) which you can buy here. I was in touch with him for this Memorial Day Weekend and he is at the Phillies vs Athletics series to check out the stadium. I am going to be talking with him as well for a segment on the Phillies Talk Podcast which I will record this holiday weekend as well.
So tune in and find out all about ‘Oakland’ or more specifically, the West Sacramento A’s as they wrap up the Memorial Day 2025 series with the Phillies. By the way, of course the teams will be in special Memorial Day caps to honor those men and women who sacrificed their lives to give you freedom in the United States of America.
God bless, get out and do a bar-b-que and enjoy the Memorial Day Weekend, Go Phillies!!!
