San Francisco Sports Today

San Francisco Sports News Continuously Updated

Elephant Rumblings: A’s sell out for Opening Day

by

MLB: Texas Rangers at Oakland Athletics
Neville E. Guard-Imagn Images

MLB news roundup

Rise and shine, A’s fans! It’s Friday Junior, aka Thursday.

The Athletics’ move to Sacramento was met with heartbreak, fury, and grief from East Bay natives, and rightfully so. The place where the team has called home is no longer the current home of the A’s as they embark on a new journey that will first take them to Sacramento before likely ending up in Las Vegas. Not the outcome any of us wanted but here we are.

The city of Sacramento has been pushing for a team of their own for a while now, and while it isn’t an organic situation they finally have one, albeit on rental. Sacramento is also home to the Triple-A Sacramento River Cats, a former A’s minor league squad before they jumped ship to the Giants a few years back. There are evidently still A’s fans in the area though based off the early ticket sales happening so far. The club announced yesterday that the 2025 home opener has sold out, the first year of Major League Baseball in Sacramento:

The inaugural season of Sacramento baseball will kick off in front of a packed house, which is a mere 10,624 “fixed” seats. For comparisons sake, the Oakland Coliseum has the largest capacity of any baseball stadium in the entire country at 56,000. And the Cleveland Guardians, who have the least capacity among MLB teams, can seat almost 35,000 per game. The bar to sell out Sutter Health Park is much lower than other teams.

Conicidentally the Athletics won’t be the only major league team playing in a minor league ballpark this coming season. The Tampa Bay Rays will also be playing at a new field this year, calling the New York Yankees’ spring training complex home for the majority of the coming season. That is due to the massive hurricane that destroyed their current home at The Trop, which was a temporary home for them anyway as they seek a new stadium of their own. The field they’ll be playing at this year, named after former Yankees owner George Steinbrenner, is also the home of the Yanks’ Single-A team. Could you imagine if the A’s and Rays faced off in the playoffs? Would baseball allow a series to be played entirely in minor league ballparks?

If you still want tickets then all hope is not lost. The club is keeping a select number of outfield grass “seats” open for the public to claim, though on a first-come, first-served basis:

While it’s not seats, it’ll definitely be giving spring training vibes for whoever dares to brave the California Summer sun in the outfield grass portion. There’s sure to be plenty of home runs hit that way if you’ve never caught one and want to cross that off your bucket list.

The 2025 season promises to be interesting if nothing else. A major league team playing in a minor league ballpark, combined with the fact that that team is finally on the rise, figures to draw plenty of attention from national figures across the sports world. Still, it’s a minuscule park compared to other major league teams. It is not everyday you see a situation like the one the A’s find themselves in right now, and hopefully it’s a situation that is short-lived and temporary.

Have a great day everyone!

A’s Coverage:

MLB News & Interest:

Best of X:

No comment…

Filed Under: A's