Tag Archives: travel

12.30.25
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A Visit to the A’s Ballpark Site (December 2025)

This morning I woke up before dawn to the cacophony of rumbling diesel engines and banging. When I looked outside a wave of relief – no, catharsis – washed over me because I saw this:

View of the Athletics Ballpark construction site from the Oyo Hotel ninth floor

Greetings from the Oyo Hotel and Casino, just east of the A’s ballpark site on the Strip (formerly the Tropicana). I’m in Vegas for a family trip. Some flexibility allowed me to spend Monday night and Tuesday morning at Oyo, previously the Howard Johnson/San Remo/Hooters. If you’re not aware, Oyo is a multi-national hotel brand based in India. When I checked one of the signage displays behind the front desk briefly showed a promo for ballpark construction workers.

Anyway, my plans were to head out to the Athletics Ballpark Experience Center at uncommons in the southwest part of Las Vegas Valley. Unfortunately those plans were foiled by more important matters.

According to MLB.com’s Martin Gallegos, the press conference for the Soderstrom signing will be held at the Ballpark Experience Center, so they literally have bigger fish to fry. At least we’ll get to see video of Sodey in the virtual ballpark. I’ll be back later, when it’s fully open to the public. For now, I’ll settle for progress in the form of working construction crews on December 30, 2025. I spent twenty years on this website waiting seemingly in vain, plus ten more since the Raiders moved back to Oakland and destroyed the Coliseum. I can say with great certainty that I’ve been waiting my entire adult life for this moment as the A’s haven’t had a proper home since they left Shibe Park. I only wish the moment was in Oakland, San Jose, or Fremont instead. Alas.

I’ll spend the rest of the morning here before I meet with the fam at Treasure Island. I observed how fleeting this moment is.

My intent was for this post to be a year-in-review as you typically see after Christmas. Instead I’m going to have breakfast and coffee, enjoy this view and the noise for a few hours, then take the monorail to see my niece and nephew. I’ll do the wrap-up post later. I’ll have plenty of comments about the state of pro sports venue financing, the NBA in Vegas, and the future of pro sports in NorCal. It’ll be a doozy.

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P.S. – In June 2023 I wrote about how MLB effectively seized the best real estate landing spot at the Tropicana instead of the NBA. It’s worth a revisit considering Adam Silver’s recent comments about expansion and the NBA’s attitude towards the Vegas market. Relocation of the Dallas Mavericks, who are now owned by Miriam Adelson, seem far from a certainty at this point. Even the NBA (Emirates) Cup might not make a permanent home in Vegas.

03.31.25
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The Grass Is Green(er)… For Now

There used to be a Bay Bridge Series featuring the two Bay Area MLB franchises, the Giants and A’s. It served as a ceremonial bridge between Spring Training and the long regular season. That’s gone, probably for good. It was replaced this year by some warmup games in Sacramento featuring the Giants and their AAA affiliate, the Sacramento River Cats. The A’s played out their Cactus League string in Arizona before starting the regular season on the road in Seattle.

Meanwhile in Oakland, the Coliseum hosted the Roots’ home opener against fellow USL Championship side San Antonio. The match brought in 26,000 fans who filled both the field and plaza levels. Next week’s game will have a much smaller crowd based on what sections are being sold. At least the sports-starved in the East Bay got a taste. And while there’s no longer a Bay Bridge Series, the San Jose Giants will host the Oakland Ballers in “Battle of the Bay 2.0” at Excite/SJ Muni on April 2nd. So there’s that.

Going back to Sacramento, the main question going into this season concerns the ability of Sutter Health Park’s grass field to withstand the nearly daily pounding of baseballs and baseball cleats.

The previous field was ripped out after the final River Cats game last season, replaced by a very high-tech solution called AirPAT from The Motz Group. AirPAT uses a combination of irrigation and aeration to the grass surface and roots to make for ideal outdoor maintenance conditions. The high-tech part comes from the use of various sensors and drones to monitor surface temperatures, hydration, and drainage. Coincidentally, a spring storm is blowing through California right now just to give the new field its first real test. The forecast calls for the rain to end shortly before first pitch, so we’ll get to see both the field and the grounds crew tested. Motz has a blog post explaining how their system works, though it’s curious that much of the expertise involves artificial turf fields – experience that maps better to Vegas or the original plan to replace grass at Sutter Health Park with a turf system. Motz isn’t bereft of grass experience, as they constructed the field at the Braves’ Truist Park.

In any case, the first half of the 2025 is somewhat frontloaded with A’s games, 51 out of the scheduled 81. They won’t come back to West Sac until July 28, a full two weeks between home games. The River Cats will have nine games during that span, so they’ll get to break in a potentially resodded field just like they broke in the new field last weekend. If there are rainouts, they’re more likely to occur during this first opening series with Cubs than at any other time. That makes August and the first two weeks of September the crucial period for the grass to survive. The second half schedule has nine mutual off days to schedule makeup games if needed, though that may be more necessary for games on the East Coast. Should AirPAT work as advertised, the grass along the river will stay lush and green while much of the surrounding area turns brown.

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P.S. – Here’s hoping the River Cats’ operation avoids the ignominy of the non-rain rainout of April 4, 2014. Oof.