Update 9/12 – In response to some local Sacramento reporting that the interim ballpark terms may not be approved, MLB released the following statement:
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It’s Labor Day, which means there is less than one month remaining in the A’s season, and less than a month remaining in the incarnation known as the “Oakland Athletics.” For at least the next three years, the team will simply be known as the “Athletics,” with no city affiliation to Sacramento, their temporary home, or anywhere else. Once the Vegas ballpark is built at the Tropicana site, the team will go by “Las Vegas Athletics” but not until that point.
The twilight of the Oakland Athletics means there are 13 home games left in the season (and in Oakland history) including tonight’s game vs. the Mariners. The final series against the Rangers sold well, with the final game selling out and commanding ludicrous prices on the secondary market. Unsurprisingly, the penultimate series against the New York Yankees also commands high prices.
I made my last visit to the Coliseum in May with a doubleheader, so that chapter is closed for me. While I have an upcoming trip that puts me in the Bay Area on the same weekend as the Yankees series, I have precious little interest in going to the Coliseum. This funereal final month is a chance for fans to say goodbye. I already did that months ago.
Instead, I plan to attend the final game of the A’s-Cubs series at Wrigley Field on September 18. It’s a day game, a Ferries Buehler school-cutting special, and I’ve never gone to a day game at the “friendly confines.” So I’ll fly in, catch the final interleague contest for the “Oakland Athletics” and grab an Italian Beef and a Chicago dog along the way.
Then I’ll hop on another Southwest flight and head to Omaha, where I’ll have a couple hours to kill before boarding Amtrak’s westbound California Zephyr, destination Sacramento. Much of the trip will be in darkness, which will give me some precious shut-eye time and the always scenic views of the Rockies. I’ll arrive on Friday, September 20 a few hours before the River Cats take on the Sugar Land Space Cowboys (Skeeters) at Sutter Health Park. I’ll take in that game, survey the grounds and the state of affairs before the major improvements to accommodate the “Athletics” begin in earnest. After the game I expect to head down to the Bay Area for the rest of the weekend.
The A’s, who won’t pay rent during their tenure at the former Raley Field in West Sacramento, will share the AAA ballpark with the River Cats. To accommodate the MLB club, grass will be replaced with artificial turf, specifically Shaw Sports’ B1K product in use at numerous MLB domed facilities. B1K is also in use at a number of outdoor college ballparks, though the schedule of NCAA regular season baseball isn’t subject to summer heat the same way any MLB stadium would. Supposedly the A’s are installing a ‘hydration’ element on the surface, which means sprinklers? Many turf facilities water the surface before the game and at halftime for soccer use to help cool down the turf and the infill via evaporation. As baseball doesn’t have halftime, I’ll be curious to see how this is implemented. The A’s are paying for many of the improvements, including building their own clubhouse behind the plate instead of using the River Cats’ clubhouse in the outfield. Visiting teams still have to use the visiting clubhouse (correction: road teams will use the River Cats’ clubhouse), which most of the time is merely sufficient even in MLB facilities.
Regardless of the hydration implementation or its efficacy, it’s important to consider how many times it will need to be considered. I took a look at the A’s 2024 schedule and found 13 dates during the summer months of June, July, and August that for scheduling purposes have to be day games. The graphic above circles those dates in gold. White circles indicate non-summer dates, though we all how prolonged summer can feel in California. For night games, a quick spritz before the game will be fine as the evening begins and the atmosphere cools. Night games in Northern California tend to cool off quickly as the sun goes down, so the turf won’t need active cooling or monitoring for heat. I’m more interested in the use of the B1K infill system, which is made of sand and coconut husks instead of the crumb rubber pellets used in the typical football stadium artificial turf. The net effect there is that any infill flyout should be less of a health issue in terms of accidental inhalation of swallowing. That can be a tradeoff for rubber’s greater durability, which is a requirement of football’s higher intensity usage.
Weather Spark charts climate comfort for every city based on historical data in a neat chart format, so you can see what the best times are to play a baseball game in each city irrespective of daily weather changes like storms. For Sacramento (specifically West Sacramento) it looks like this:
Pending weather, the idea is to schedule games away from the “Hot” section (85-94°F) as frequently as possible, or to mitigate its potential effects. The slightly darker contour at the top and bottom of the graph is after sunset and before sunrise, respectively, and includes the effect of twilight and daylight savings time when they occur. A similar graph for Vegas shows that there’s little escape from the heat, hence the need for a roof. Both Vegas and Phoenix have an extra contour labeled “Sweltering” when the temperature surpasses 95°F. There is talk in Sacramento of starting getaway day games before noon to mitigate the heat. At least there’s some flexibility. In Vegas the chart looks like this:
You might be wondering what Oakland’s climate chart looks like. It looks quite pleasant with no mention of the marine layer’s summer effects. That goes to show you how being in a nice climate only gets you so far. Onward, and enjoy what’s left of the Oakland Athletics while they’re still in Oakland.
Or don’t. Pro sports has proven its willingness to leave Oakland in the dust.
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P.S. – Some folks are crazy enough to suggest opening Mount Davis for the final game on September 26 without opening restrooms or concession stands up there (because they may not be working). Frankly, it could set a world’s record for the largest golden shower. Anyone up for that?
newballpark.org 
Do you know how MLB visiting teams will use the River Cats’ locker room if the River Cats are in-season themselves? I thought I had read that the Cats and Athletics would be playing sometimes on the same day, right?
The schedule will be set so there is no overlap between MLB and AAA games on the same day, so prep for all teams should be routine. If there are rainouts it could be a different story.
I guess there’s some Amtrak closure that I’m unaware of. I’ve taken the Zephyr from Chicago all the way to SLC and then it terminates at Jack London or Emeryville. Is there a closure between Omaha and Chicago? Or did they reduce it to Omaha to Emeryville?
No closure. The game started at 1:20 PM, the train departed at 2:00 PM from Union Station. I stayed for the whole game, rushed to MDW and burned some Southwest points to take me part of the way west. From prior experience I knew the IL-IA section was dull so I planned it this way. TBH the NE section had rough rails so I probably could’ve skipped that too.