A’s fans visit Sacramento Triple-A game to protest move out of Oakland: ‘We got to keep fighting’

By CHRIS BIDERMAN | Sacramento Bee

The grass berm beyond the right field wall at Sutter Health Park was spattered with a bright green armada on Saturday night as Oakland Athletics fans made the trip to the team’s future home to continue voicing their disapproval of the team’s ownership.

It was another protest event put on by the fan group Last Dive Bar and the first in the capital region ahead of the A’s temporary move to West Sacramento. It was a quiet protest that gained its voice in the top of the fifth inning of the game between the River Cats and Las Vegas Aviators.

“Sell! The! Team! Sell! The! Team!” a couple of hundred fans chanted, donning their green “Sell” shirts while unfurling their matching flags.

Many of the fans participating made the drive northeast up Interstate 80 from the Bay Area while others were from the Central Valley, some of whom attended the game after pondering A’s owner John Fisher’s decision to move the team out of Oakland.

In the meantime, of course, the A’s will play at Sutter Health Park for at least three seasons beginning next year instead of staying in the East Bay, their home since 1968.

“I’ve been a fan since ’71,” said Steve Torres, a securities principal living in Stockton. “And as I thought about it more and more, I was like, ‘Why am I going to give my money to Fisher?’ I love the A’s, obviously, but I just couldn’t be giving money to him, helping him to make that transition to Las Vegas.”

Torres, like many other Northern California fans, was conflicted about the A’s coming to West Sacramento to play in a minor league ballpark. He believes it’s a good opportunity for the city to showcase itself on a bigger stage and expects local fans to fill the 14,000-seat stadium.

He ultimately decided he wouldn’t support the team out of principle because they are leaving Oakland.

“It’s an easy drive from Stockton,” Torres said of the A’s playing in West Sacramento. “But now I’m leaning towards not attending anything.”

Sacramento city officials have long hoped for more professional sports to come to town. The A’s bringing Major League Baseball to the region has some believing Sacramento could become a candidate for expansion should the league add two additional teams after the A’s longstanding stadium issue gets solved.

There’s also been speculation Sacramento could become a permanent home for the A’s should the Las Vegas stadium plan fall through, leaving Fisher to pivot again. Fisher has been part of the A’s failed attempts to build stadiums in San Jose, Fremont and two different sites in downtown Oakland, which led to his pending attempt in Las Vegas.

The point of the fans’ protest has been for Fisher to sell the team to someone committed to keeping the team in Oakland — anyone suited to get a stadium deal done there.

“I still think there’s some hope. There’s been no shovel in the ground yet, right?” Torres said, noting a teachers union in Nevada is attempting to challenge the legality of a bill that would grant the A’s $380 million in public money for a Vegas stadium.

“We got to keep fighting to keep them in Oakland,” Torres said.

As Last Dive Bar co-founder Bryan Johansen pointed out, there are logistical challenges of housing a Major League team in a minor league stadium that lacks the typical big league amenities. A glaring example is having clubhouses that sit beyond the left field wall rather than underneath the grandstands behind the dugouts, which forces players to trek some 400 feet across the field to get to their locker rooms.

There’s also staffing to consider, given the A’s will be sharing the stadium with the River Cats. There’s likely to be a game every day during baseball season instead of the breaks allowed by the River Cats going on the road.

“I love it as a Triple-A ballpark, as a minor league field,” Johansen said of Sutter Health Park while attending a game there for the first time. “… But how do I envision this on an MLB scale? I have no fathomable idea how they can potentially pull off having two teams play on this field.

“How are the A’s going to staff this place up? Are they going to train people that come here? Are they able to accommodate 81 games of 10,000 to 15,000 people a night? We’ll see. John Fisher has not been able to accomplish anything in his career as an owner, and so it’s kind of hard to believe he could pull anything even here in a Triple-A ballpark.”

A’s president Dave Kaval told reporters earlier this month the team would lay off some of its workforce based in Oakland.

“There’s going to be some reductions in staffing,” Kaval said. “It’s part of the situation. It’s a sad thing.”

And since the A’s are partnering with the River Cats, who are owned by the Sacramento Kings owner Vivek Ranadivé, the staff will be a mix of the A’s, River Cats and Kings employees.

Johansen hopes Saturday’s protest will continue the movement to push Fisher into a sale.

“The fact that you have a few hundred people out here, that shows that these people care enough to drive all the way to Sacramento,” he said. “That in itself shows their displeasure.”

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