A's Open Las Vegas Ballpark Homestand With Brewers, Rockies Coming
The Athletics opened a six-game homestand at las vegas ballpark on Monday night, starting at 7:05 p.m. against the Milwaukee Brewers. The week gives Las Vegas another look at the A’s before their planned move to the city in the 2028 season.
Don Logan on the A’s draw
Don Logan, the Las Vegas Aviators president and chief operating officer, said the club is the main attraction. “The A’s are the draw,” he said, adding, “You’re starting to see it more now. Developing the fanbase in Southern Nevada is important, so that’s another element of doing this game here that is important and smart for the A’s to do.”
The Athletics are playing home games in West Sacramento while their new ballpark is being built at the site of the old Tropicana Hotel on the Las Vegas Strip. That makes this week’s games more than a simple road trip; they are a current, in-person preview of the team’s future home market.
Las Vegas saw the A’s in 1996
This is not the first time the franchise has played regular-season games in the city. The Athletics played six regular-season games in Las Vegas in 1996, with two against the Toronto Blue Jays and four against the Detroit Tigers.
Cashman Field had opened in 1983 and had already hosted spring training MLB games through the annual Big League Weekend event by the time the A’s came to town. Their first six games of the 1996 regular season were held there because of renovations to the Oakland Coliseum, work intended to help welcome back the Raiders after they returned to Oakland from Los Angeles after the 1994 season.
Brewers now, Rockies Friday
The six-game homestand began with a three-game set against the Brewers on Monday night, and the Colorado Rockies are scheduled to follow with a three-game series beginning Friday. Logan said the franchise had a personal connection to Las Vegas in 1996, when the games came together under Stephen Schott and Ken Hofmann after they bought the team in 1995.
He also pointed to the day-to-day logistics that made the earlier visit work. “They trusted us,” he said. “They knew we did things right because we had done the exhibition games. We knew how to handle taking care of the players, transporting, setting up good hotels, transportation from the hotels to the ballpark, the food, the medical equipment, setting up the locker rooms. They knew we knew how to take care of them.”
