WEST SACRAMENTO — Where am I?
I know what the dateline says — the A’s are playing here, but they won’t tell me what “here” is.
We’re in a ballpark where the Giants’ Triple-A affiliate played here yesterday, but those are two big-league teams on the diamond, playing in front of a single bowl of seats and a berm of grass in the outfield.
I see “Sacramento” in a few places, “Las Vegas” in even more, and a spattering of A’s branding that was synonymous with Oakland for over half a century.
Welcome to the strangest show in The Show: (Please don’t call us Oakland or Sacramento) Athletics baseball.
“It makes me feel like I’m in [the] minor leagues again,” A’s outfielder Lawrence Butler said.
I’ll give the A’s some credit: they put a bit of effort into making Sutter Health Park just a smidge less minor-leaguey. Of course, it wasn’t enough to convince their new franchise cornerstone — Butler signed a seven-year deal worth $65.5 million earlier this month — but the team’s new home clubhouse has the same aesthetic tone of a mid-range airport hotel, which is to say it is totally fine.
The A’s even erected a half-tent, half-storage container in the corner of the concourse for press conferences that became an internet darling within hours.
(The folding chair and table as a dais and whipping winds drowning out the questions and answers presented Four Seasons Landscaping energy to it. Scratch that — Three Seasons in Sacramento energy.)
There’s also a new big screen in the right field, which really emphasizes the fact that there are no seats out there.
Overall, the A’s took a dated, unremarkable minor-league ballpark and turned it into something that would resemble the sixth or seventh-best facility in the Cactus League.
Why couldn’t they have put some of this investment into the Oakland Coliseum, keeping it up with even the lowest big-league standards?
Well, that wouldn’t have been part of ownership’s master plan to recreate the plot of Major League.
And that’s left them looking undeniably minor league.
Maybe that’s the closure the East Bay still seeks. The A’s might have left us, but they’re not doing any better.
But the A’s are invested and excited to be in Sacramento, as long as no one knows about it. This region is the A’s secret second family, if you will.
And in three years, this strange period will end and the A’s will move to their true home: Las Vegas.
Or maybe it’ll be four years. Or five. It took 20 years for the A’s to not build a ballpark in the East Bay, so you never know how long this will take.
About Las Vegas. Just in case anyone in the Sacramento area started to feel some attachment to this baseball team, the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority has decided to plaster their logo, which simply says “Las Vegas,” all around this temporary (but maybe not) park.
It might have been bad karma for Sacramento Kings, Sacramento RiverCats, and Sutter Park owner Vivek Ranadivé to give A’s owner John Fisher a couch for his baseball team to crash on for a few seasons, but the people of the Valley didn’t do anything to deserve such passive aggression.
They signed up to be foster fans, and yet the A’s refuse to wear Sacramento on their uniforms, save for a small sleeve patch with the Tower Bridge. The other sleeve has, you guessed it, that Las Vegas logo.
Fisher left outfielder Brent Rooker to explain that the Las Vegas patch is, in fact, from a “private entity.” What’s the point of paying a player $60 million if you can’t have him spin things for you?
Still, “It’s a very hopeful time,” Fisher told reporters Monday.
Hope is all he has. Fisher talked about how they’re finalizing plans in Las Vegas, but a shovel hasn’t been put in the ground yet, and until one is, there’s little reason to think that the A’s stay in Sacramento will be limited to just the three declared years. Meanwhile, Fisher’s business partner for the new ballpark in Las Vegas — Bally’s — saw their credit rating drop from a B to a B-minus by a top Wall Street ratings agency last week, which indicates a clear bankruptcy risk.
And so we’re here… wherever this is.
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A sell out of more than 14,000 was expected for the A’s not-actually-our-home opener, which is a few hundred more than what the A’s drew at the Oakland Coliseum to open last season. That’s surely that devoid-of-context talking point will play for whoever is still defending Fisher in the public arena.
But that’s tiddlywinks compared to what the Cubs drew at the beginning of the month.
And I’m not talking about at Wrigley Field.
The Cubs have drawn more than 16,000 multiple times at their Spring Training ballpark in Arizona, which is a much nicer overall facility.
The first rule of the big leagues — the thing every veteran tells the recent call-up not to do — is “don’t look up.”
The significance of playing Major League Baseball is easily signified by the height of a proper big-league ballpark — even the most “charming” and “intimate” parks have seating decks that seemingly go up forever. It’s enough to wig out even the most confident ballplayers.
But when you show up in West Sacramento, the motto might as well be “keep your eyes down.” If you focus on the field, it’s still the big leagues.
Everything above that level is a reminder that you’re playing for or against Fisher’s A’s.
You haven’t quite made it to the real big leagues yet.