Sacramento’s tepid MLB audition

OPINION – Major League Baseball is officially couch-surfing in Sacramento. The sport’s nomads, the Athletics, opened the 2025 season last Monday and now will spend the next three years at Sutter Health Park, pristine home of the Pacific Coast League’s Sacramento River Cats.

The A’s don’t need a room, thanks; the sofa’s fine. They don’t plan to stay.

In case you missed it, the A’s ginned up this Baldrick-like plan a year ago when its 57-year marriage to Oakland fell apart after negotiations for a new ballpark collapsed – again. The team announced it was moving to Las Vegas. In 2028. Short of forfeiting 243 home games over the next three seasons, they needed a temporary venue. Into the breach stepped Kings and River Cats’ owner Vivek Ranadive. Sac officials were OMG giddy at joining the ranks of big-league cities.

One small caveat: There would be no “Sacramento Athletics.” Just “Athletics.” The only nod to the region was a Tower Bridge shoulder patch on the uniform.

At least they had the good sense not to refer to themselves as “the Las Vegas A’s at Sacramento.”

But the A’s are here! We can see box scores from the opening three-game sweep by the Chicago Cubs. There is local TV news footage of fans arriving at Sutter Park. There was a slight uptick in business activity in Old Sac early last week.

They must be here.

Not that you could tell by Sacramento’s invisible welcome mat

I lease a writing studio in Old Sac across the bridge from Sutter Park. I often walk around downtown Sac, from my studio to the Capitol, but I have been hard-pressed to find any effort to promote the A’s. The only acknowledgment is a small welcome banner on Second Avenue put up by a private business. The Sacramento History Museum suspended a large banner above and extending across Second, but it promotes the Museum’s upcoming Spring Festival. More significant, a large store on Second that specializes in sports’ merchandise has five promotional banners in its front window – Kings, Giants, Dodgers, 49ers and Raiders. A’s gear can only be found inside, all stuff that’s been there forever.

In DOCO and east toward the Convention Center – nada. Tom’s Watch Bar tied green-and-yellow balloons to its patio fence for Opening Night, but they were gone the next day. The only other nod to the team is in a window at the Lids across from Golden One Arena – where a mannequin wears an A’s tee-shirt.

I’ve been attending major league baseball games for 70 years. I once lived walking-distance to Wrigley Field, took in numerous Spring Training games in the 1970s in Florida and held A’s season tickets in the 1980s and early ‘90s. There’s a raucous anticipation around a ballpark on game day. Navigating the walkway from BART to the Coliseum, you’d pass guys grilling brats, others hawking tickets and cold drinks, merch hanging on both sides of the fence, fans arguing about the team or the next home stand.

On Wednesday morning, I took the 15-minute walk to Sutter Park about an hour before game time, merely to catch some of that vibe.

There was no raucous, only the likes of a Mondavi crowd drifting in to hear a string quartet. I hung around the main gate eavesdropping on chats taking place on the patio. The talk was mostly about ballpark food and where to eat after the game. One family argued about putting their boat in the river over the weekend. There were several comments about the seals raising a ruckus below the bridge.

But not one person mentioned the name of a ballplayer – from either team. As ESPN’s Tim Keown noted in an online post last Thursday, it didn’t feel like a major-league crowd attending a major-league game. He described fans as “sedate.”

Numbers seem to underscore the city’s collective shrug. Official paid attendance for the three games against the Cubs – the CUBS, mind you, not the Angels or Marlins – was 31,556. That’s not even a sellout of the seats let alone 3000 or so spots on the lawn.

A shaky start for Sacramento – the city, not the team – as SFGate, ESPN and The Athletic (New York Times) all pointed out.

The Athletics are supposed to be an audition for Sacramento’s viability as a major-league city should the league expand or another team (even the A’s) seek to relocate. Unfortunately, at the start, the city hasn’t put its best foot forward.

Or, any foot forward.

A.G. Block is a lifelong baseball fan as well as the former associate director for the U.C. Center in Sacramento and the editor of the California Journal. He is also a board member for Open California.