The Oakland Athletics are 11 weeks away from extinction.
They want to set up shop in Sacramento for three or four years before moving to Las Vegas permanently. Naturally, A’s fans despise the concept. Nevada’s elected authorities, who approved $380 million in public funding for a new ballpark in Las Vegas, overwhelmingly support the plan.
Las Vegas boasts a thriving baseball community and a rising roster of major leaguers. I spent the last few weeks asking major leaguers with Las Vegas origins what they thought of the A’s move and whether they felt the team would be successful there. The majority of their responses were intelligent and nuanced.
“I think it’s a terrible idea,” Arizona Diamondbacks closer Paul Sewald stated. “The whole thing, I fear, is going to be an abject disaster.”
Sewald stated that he would prefer that public funds be spent for schools and roads. He was also unconvinced that Las Vegas could sustain the A’s given that the Raiders and 2023 Stanley Cup winner Golden Knights are already there, the two-time defending champion WNBA Aces have sold out their whole season, and an NBA expansion team may beat the A’s to town.
“We just don’t have enough bandwidth to invest in three, four, five professional teams,” Sewald told reporters. “We simply don’t have enough people. That’s okay. We do not have to be a city that hosts all four major sports.”
Bryce Harper, the All-Star first baseman for the Philadelphia Phillies, expressed doubts about the A’s chances in Las Vegas. He prefers an expansion team, one that can make its own history, such to the expansion Golden Knights.
“Everybody is still locked in on the Golden Knights,” Harper told the crowd. “It’s tough to see the A’s leave Oakland. There is so much tradition and history there: the green, yellow, and white cleats, Eric Chavez and all those people who played there, Barry Zito, [Mark] Mulder, Huddy [Tim Hudson], and the teams they had.
I saw it in Oakland. I do not see it in Vegas.”
Mike Maddux, pitching coach for the Texas Rangers, stated, “I think it would be terrific to have a big league franchise, whether it was a moving or expanding team.
“I believe the economy is there. It has expanded to the point that it can support an entire team. All individuals need is a cause to visit Vegas. If you’re going to go there to watch a ballgame, use that as an excuse.”
Sewald is not confident that Las Vegas baseball fans will become A’s fans.
“They are all Dodgers fans,” he remarked. “Ninety percent of the folks come from California. That’s how my father got there. That’s how I became a Dodgers fan as a kid. They’re not quitting the Dodgers fan base simply because you have a team.
Chicago White Sox outfielder Tommy Pham acknowledged the doubt. He also claimed he had heard it before.
“They said the same thing about the Golden Knights: Would this be a hockey town?” Pham stated. “And the Golden Knights were winning, as you can see now. In Vegas, everyone now wears Golden Knights gear.
Maddux was confident that the A’s would enjoy their honeymoon in Las Vegas.
“They’ll always come at the beginning,” he told me. “Then you have to sustain it.”
That is the primary issue of all the Las Vegans I spoke with for this column.
“Seeing the A’s, and going to their park the last few years and seeing how that has been kept up,” Angels All-Star pitcher Tyler Anderson said, “and how they run their team — a lot of times, they have really good teams, but it appears that as soon as they get a good team, they start trading guys before they get too expensive.
“It is difficult for a fan to connect with the players and teams there. You hope they come [to Las Vegas] and things change a little.”
The Oakland Athletics have placed last in payroll for the past two years and have not been among the top 20 since 2007. They are on track to lose 100 games for the third straight season.
“No one in Vegas is an A’s fan,” Sewald explained. “Why are they going to change allegiances to a team that is not trying to win?”
That is essentially the $380 million question: has Nevada bought itself a winner?
The only person who really knows the answer is John Fisher, the A’s owner. I asked him.
“By moving into our new stadium on the Las Vegas Strip,” Fisher said reporters in a statement, “we will finally have the resources to significantly increase our payroll, retain our most talented young players, and make acquisitions through trades and in the free-agent market.”
A’s supporters like to remind out—and they may be texting me right now—that Fisher’s Major League Soccer team, the San José Earthquakes, went into a new stadium nine years ago. Since then, the Earthquakes have neither won a game or hosted a playoff game, and their payroll is consistently in the bottom half of the league.
What Fisher’s teams did in the Bay Area may not be applicable in Nevada. If the A’s invest to win in Las Vegas, Pham believes they should not worry about winning over their new community.
“Shouldn’t be,” Pham replied. “It shouldn’t be, guy. You do realize that these owners are profiting? They cry because they are broken.
I do the same thing. I cry when people ask for money, yet deep down I know I have it. It’s what people with money do.
