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Oakland Athletics head to West Sacramento
The Oakland Athletics will stay in West Sacramento for three seasons before moving to Las Vegas.
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The A’s playing in West Sacramento is not a betrayal of Oakland, where the A’s have played since 1968. Nor is it a betrayal of loyal A’s fans, some devastated today.
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Thursday’s announcement that the Sacramento region will be the home of the A’s for at least three years starting in 2025 is what happens when relationships end and organizations move on.
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The A’s moved on from a bitter relationship that was beyond repair with Oakland and some of their fans. A new relationship with the Sacramento region is clearly preferable to playing before empty stadiums and the constant drumbeat of anger from fans who believed they could pressure A’s owner John Fisher into selling the team.
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There was no way Fisher was going to allow that. There was no way Major League Baseball was going to allow that. And there was no way MLB was going to sign up for three more years of “Sell The Team” protests in Oakland before a potential A’s move to Las Vegas in 2028.
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Add Fisher’s existing relationship with Kings and River Cats owner Vivek Ranadive and you have Thursday’s announcement of the A’s playing in Sutter Health Park from the beginning of the 2025 baseball season to the end of the 2027 season. The deal contains an option for a fourth season. There is also the unwritten hope of some in Sacramento that the A’s will never make that move to Vegas and will remain here.
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A subset of A’s fans — and even some misguided people in Sacramento — seem to believe that, somehow, the A’s and Oakland could still make a deal to keep them in the East Bay. They seem to believe that, somehow, the Sacramento region should have taken a principled stand and rebuffed the A’s, thereby forcing them to stay in Oakland when that possibility had already died.
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It’s a function of X, the social media site formerly known as Twitter, that facts matter far less than provocative emotion. The fact that MLB owners already voted to approve an A’s move to Las Vegas is disregarded by people upset by Thursday’s announcement. By contrast, owners of the National Basketball Association never approved attempts to relocate the Kings to another market.
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The Kings were for sale and had viable suitors in Seattle, and that opened the door for a Sacramento ownership group led by Ranadive to persuade NBA owners to keep the team in California’s capital.
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The A’s are not for sale and when the A’s situation ultimately resulted in “Sell the team” cries among A’s fans, moving away from Oakland was inevitable. Anyone who believed otherwise was clouded by emotion.
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Fisher didn’t want to be in Oakland any longer, Las Vegas wasn’t ready, MLB had a PR nightmare of empty stadiums and discord in Oakland, Ranadive had a viable alternative to offer, West Sacramento, Sacramento and the region were eager to host the A’s, and that’s it.
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Ballgame.
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It’s understandable if one party remains angry after a divorce and can’t move on when the other party has. It’s understandable if the party that can’t move on wishes ill for the party that has and wishes ill for anyone associated with the party that has moved on. I understand.
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As someone who went to his first A’s game in 1971, I am truly sorry that Oakland and the Athletics got a divorce. In all divorces, there is usually a lot of blame to go around and there is in this one, but screaming over the warring details becomes irrelevant when the relationship ends.
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One can be sorry for Oakland but happy for West Sacramento, Sacramento and our entire region. That’s how I feel and that’s how I think many people feel, though some may be afraid to express it for fear of getting pummeled on X.
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It was heartening to see West Sacramento Mayor Martha Guerrero touting her city as the next home of the A’s. It made me wish, as I have many times, that the late Art Savage were alive to see this. He wanted to bring minor league baseball back to Sacramento and sadly, the city and county of Sacramento weren’t ready for it in the late 1990s.
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Back then, ambitious projects like a minor league stadium and a team found naysayers and opponents in Sacramento.
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So instead, Savage brought a team to the West Sacramento banks of the Sacramento River.
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West Sacramento was then and continues to be a “can-do” city. They got the former Raley Field built in no time. The team became the Sacramento River Cats in 2000, the Triple-A affiliate of the A’s until eventually becoming a San Francisco Giants affiliate.
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The region backed the team like no other minor league team in America. Savage always said that his beautiful stadium could be expanded. He was bullish on the Sacramento region and he remained so until his death.
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Meanwhile, the River Cats became part of the region’s summer ritual, putting to shame all the naysayers and opponents who had been hostile to the idea of the River Cats in Sacramento County.
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The connection of that history with Thursday’s announcement is clear. By the time the Kings had been put up for sale more than a decade ago, the political climate had changed in Sacramento. A majority of a city council led by former Mayor Kevin Johnson was united behind keeping the Kings. Current Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg was the leader of the state Senate then, and he played a key role in crafting legislation that prevented nuisance lawsuits from stopping the construction of Golden 1 Center.
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Ranadive bought the Kings and later, the River Cats. Raley Field became Sutter Health Park, which is a short drive from the Golden 1 Center and is part of an urban core connected on both sides of the Sacramento River connected by the Tower Bridge.
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Maybe the A’s only stay for three years in West Sacramento, maybe they don’t. But all the parties seem to understand what is possible and probable. For the A’s, this move makes sense. For the Sacramento region, this move makes sense.
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It is a cause for celebration locally and based on the history of our region, Guerrero’s welcoming words at Thursday’s press conference will come true. The Sacramento region will support this team.
This story was first published April 4, 2024, 12:24 PM.
Marcos Breton oversees the Sacramento Bee’s editorial board. He has been a California newspaper reporter for over 30 years. He is a San Jose State University graduate, a Baseball Hall of Fame voter, and a proud son of Mexican immigrants.
