A’s fans ‘saddened’ by Vegas relocation news
OAKLAND, Calif. — Ryan Thibodaux relocated to the Bay Area years ago from Texas and instantly became a fan of the Oakland Athletics.
The one-time Astros fan cheered slugger Mark McGwire, who hit 52 home runs the following year. He saw the glory days of Eric Chavez, Jason Giambi and Miguel Tejada; of $2 BART rides and bargain bleacher seats in the third deck. The A’s “converted me over pretty quickly,” he said.
All these years later, Thibodaux and many Oakland fans already were heartbroken about the state of their struggling team — small crowds, bad baseball and dismal winters watching top players being traded away or lost in free agency.
Now, the greatest disappointment yet: Yes, the A’s are leaving for Las Vegas.
“This has seemed to be inevitable for a year or so, at least,” Thibodaux said Thursday. “I’m still more saddened than I thought I would be.”
The news came Wednesday night from team president Dave Kaval, who said Oakland signed a binding agreement to buy land on a 49-acre site near the Las Vegas Strip to build the intimate ballpark they’ve always coveted but couldn’t pull off in the Bay Area.
“This really is one of the saddest days,” said lifelong fan Jason Bressler, 40, who grew up in suburban Alamo and now lives in Los Angeles. “Some of my best childhood memories were in Section 216 of the Coliseum with my friends and family, and when they were on the road, Bill King was the soundtrack of my youth.
“Attending Game 4 of the 1989 World Series with my dad is an experience I’ll cherish forever.”
Even after moving out of the Bay Area and starting his own family, Bressler kept his allegiance, making it a “point to take in multiple games a year whether in Oakland or on the road.
“Now that they are leaving I can’t help but feel like a big piece of my childhood is going with them,” he said. “It pains me that I won’t be able to share those same experiences with my kids moving forward.”
Oakland’s last professional team lost its luster long ago for many supporters who were increasingly frustrated and furious about a rise in season-ticket prices and $30 parking fees — not to mention the carousel of players.
The A’s drew an announced crowd of just 3,035 fans on Monday, April 3, for the first game of a series with the Cleveland Guardians. It rose to 3,407 the next night — but 11 of 13 Triple-A games that day attracted larger crowds and four of them more than doubled the A’s total.
A billboard along a busy East Bay freeway advertises tickets starting at $10.
And one Twitter account, with the handle @OaklandPast, tried to organize fans to make a statement. An April 11 post mused about a sellout at the Coliseum to show their love for the A’s, and said team owner John Fisher is “bad for the game of baseball, Oakland and bad for a storied franchise like the A’s.”
“Bring signs, let the world know the problem is NOT THE FANS!” the post said.
The team declined to comment on its attendance situation.
Manager Mark Kotsay, his coaches and the players are trying to survive, too. They lost 102 games in 2022 and are 3-16 heading into a weekend series starting Friday at Texas.
After being swept by the Cubs this week at home, the team had already lost five games by 10 or more runs. The only seasons since moving to Oakland in 1968 when the A’s had more than five double-digit losses for an entire season were 1996 (8), 2008 (8), 1984 (7) and 1979 (6).
Former Mariners outfielder Jay Buhner used to say he could hear toilets flush in the third deck of the old Kingdome in Seattle. It’s like that now in the dilapidated Oakland Coliseum. Kotsay hears everything from the dugout, even things outside of the park.
“You can hear every sound here, every voice, every word, yeah, you can hear it. It’s not discouraging. It’s not discouraging because you get the opportunity to go play. From a player’s view you’ve got to have some thick skin and understand that it’s not necessarily directed at you,” he said.
Past A’s players say they’re sad about the state of the franchise, too, like the Mets’ Mark Canha, who always tried to focus on the positives of playing in Oakland.
“I always loved playing here, I didn’t need a big crowd to enjoy playing,” Canha said. “It was the guys in right field, there’s little things, the people that sit behind this dugout always made it good enough for me. It was those little groups of people that are always there that made it special.
“I always said what the Coliseum lacks in quantity of fans it has quality. It’s home, it’s home to me. I love this place. … I was coming here when I was a kid. It’s comfortable, it’s nostalgic, it’s all that stuff.”
In May 2021, MLB told the A’s to explore relocation options, saying the Oakland Coliseum was no longer a viable option. The A’s had previously proposed and withdrawn plans for ballparks in Fremont and San Jose, and Kaval had worked on a plan for a new state-of-the-art ballpark in the city’s Howard Terminal area.
Never an A’s season ticketholder, the 41-year-old Thibodaux still comes out to the Coliseum from time to time and can appreciate the game itself if not the product. He still held out hope for a new ballpark in the East Bay — but acknowledged it’s hard to be optimistic with so many empty seats and such a public courtship with Sin City.
The loyal fans, Thibodaux included, and the the men in the green-and-gold uniforms have known this day was coming.
“It hasn’t been the same for a long time,” he said.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Sports
‘I told them the best option was him’: Pete Alonso showing why he’s the guy Juan Soto wanted hitting behind him
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Jorge Castillo
NEW YORK — Juan Soto had several questions for the New York Mets during his free agent negotiations this past winter. One was about their lineup construction.
Soto had just spent the 2024 season in the Bronx as half of a historically productive duo who drew constant comparisons to Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig. He and Aaron Judge, the American League MVP, were a strenuous puzzle to solve in the New York Yankees‘ lineup. The left-handed Soto hit second. The right-handed Judge batted third. They protected each other and pulverized pitchers. Leaving the Yankees would mean leaving Judge.
“That was one of the essential parts of the discussion,” Soto told ESPN in Spanish on Tuesday. “Who was going to bat behind me?”
The answer seemed clear. Pete Alonso remained a free agent. The first baseman is homegrown and adored in Queens. More importantly, for lineup construction purposes, he’s a right-handed slugger. He isn’t on Judge’s level — who is? — but he ranks right behind Judge in home runs since debuting in 2019. He was an obvious complement to Soto.
“I told them the best option was him,” Soto said.
By late January, Alonso’s return still appeared unlikely. Mets owner Steve Cohen, during a fan event at Citi Field, called the negotiation “exhausting” and “worse” than the Soto pursuit. He left the door open, but much to the chagrin of Mets fans in the crowd that day, he also said the organization was ready to move on from the four-time All-Star.
Less than two weeks later, just days before spring training, the sides came to an agreement on a two-year contract with an opt-out after this season. The 30-year-old Alonso went from seemingly in the Mets’ past to protecting the franchise’s $765 million investment. Two months into the partnership, the early returns of the 2025 season support Soto’s opinion. The best example came in Tuesday’s win over the Miami Marlins.
The Mets, leading 6-5, had runners on the corners with one out in the sixth inning for Soto. Marlins manager Clayton McCullough brought in right-hander Ronny Henriquez — and, despite the runner on first, made the unusual decision to intentionally walk Soto. That loaded the bases for Alonso and created an inning-ending double-play opportunity with a righty-righty matchup — though McCullough made another unusual call by pulling in the infield and the outfield. Mets manager Carlos Mendoza said he wasn’t surprised by the Marlins’ decision to walk Soto.
“I think it gets to a point where it’s pick your poison there,” Mendoza said.
Two pitches later, Alonso cracked a 93-mph sinker into the left-center field gap for a bases-clearing triple, blowing the game open on a cold, blustery afternoon in Queens.
It was Alonso’s second double of the day — his first, a Texas Leaguer to right field in the third inning, drove in the Mets’ first two runs. Alonso has served as the offense’s engine in the three hole, behind leadoff man Francisco Lindor and Soto, batting .333 with three home runs, 15 RBIs and a 1.139 OPS through the club’s first 12 games.
“It seems like teams are trying to not get beat with Soto,” Mendoza said. “And then, before you know it, they’re making mistakes with Pete, and he’s been ready to go and making them pay.”
Alonso is looking to reverse a three-year decline in offensive production, making better swing decisions after the worst offensive campaign of his career in 2024. It’s early, but so far Alonso is laying off pitches outside the strike zone more often. He’s barreling pitches over the plate at a higher percentage. He’s crushing pitches the other way — in the Mets’ home opener Friday, he clubbed a 95-mph fastball from Kevin Gausman down and out of the strike zone for a two-run home run to right field.
Hitting behind Soto, who has a .404 on-base percentage as a Met, has made his work a little easier.
“He’s such a pro,” Alonso said of Soto. “Obviously, we know he has power, he has the hit tool. He can hit for average. Super dynamic player offensively. But the thing that I really benefit from is just seeing — because he sees a ton of pitches and just kind of seeing what they’re doing to him, obviously, it really helps because they’re trying to stay away from the middle of the zone with him and I can kind of take some mental notes with that.”
With more pitches to Soto, the game’s most disciplined hitter, comes more strain for pitchers. With more runners on base, comes more pitches — and fastballs — over the plate for Alonso to devour. It is a formula Soto envisioned over the winter. Whether it extends beyond this season remains unknown.
There’s no question he is popular with fans. During the Mets’ home opener Friday, Citi Field roared for Alonso during pregame introductions. The fans did so again when he stepped into the batter’s box for his first at-bat. And then once more, moments later, when he emerged from the dugout for a curtain call after hitting a two-run home run.
This week, one option for replacing Alonso was taken off the board when first baseman Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and the Toronto Blue Jays agreed to a 14-year, $500 million contract extension. Guerrero’s contract should help Alonso’s earning potential if he chooses, as expected, to opt out of his contract and hit free agency again this winter.
For now, in his seventh season, Alonso is thriving as the Mets’ first baseman, hitting behind his team’s most valuable player.
“That’s why you want [protection] like that,” Soto said. “First of all, to have the chance to do more damage and stuff. But whenever they don’t want to pitch me, I know I have a guy behind me that could make it even worse for them.”
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