A’s played two game series in Las Vegas against the Cincinnati Reds at triple A affiliate Las Vegas Aviators park Cashman Park in Las Vegas on Sun Mar 5, 2023 (photo from mlb.com)

A’s Roll the Dice: Weekend in Vegas

That’s Amaury News and Commentary

Amaury Pi-González

One of the many Frank Sinatra hits over decades was “Luck be A Lady” which he also sang in the 1955 film “Guys and Dolls”, which also featured Marlon Brando. Sinatra and the famous Rat Pack was the King of Las Vegas, years before Elvis Presley arrived in Sin City. I had the pleasure of seeing both of them live in concert, there was nothing like it. If the Oakland A’s move to Las Vegas, there will also be nothing like it because it would be the first time in history that Las Vegas, Nevada would be home to a major league baseball franchise. And they will have 81 shows each summe

“Big League Weekend” A’s sent a split-squad of players to Las Vegas for two games against the Cincinnati Reds. The games were played at Las Vegas Ballpark, the home of the Oakland A’s Triple-a affiliate, the Aviators in Summerlin, a 20 minute drive from the strip.

Las Vegas has been home to a Triple-A team since 1983. This weekend the folks had the chance of watching the 2023 Oakland A’s in action. In 1996, the A’s played their first six games of their regular season at Cashman Field, Las Vegas, while the Oakland Coliseum was still under renovation with the return of the Raiders in 1995 from Los Angeles.

Remember? Yes, the Raiders who are now permanent residents of…Las Vegas. (Raiders’ owner Al Davis who moved to LA signed a letter of intent to bring the team back to Oakland in return the City of Oakland renovated the Coliseum (Mt.Davis) to the tune of millions of dollars which left Oakland taxpayers on the hook)

Quotes from this weekend series:

(Saturday)

–Jason Giambi was the 2000 American League MVP for the A’s and he is all for the A’s to make their permanent residence in Las Vegas, where he has lived since 1998. He mentioned either the A’s or an expansion team. Giambi was at Saturday’s game with his traveling youth baseball team, the Henderson Hawks, and spoke about the possibility of the A’s moving to Las Vegas. He said he felt for “some of the greatest fans in the world” with an A’s move, “But also,” he added, “to be relevant anymore in baseball, you have to be competitive.”

A new stadium, in a new market, might allow for that. Giambi also said “there is no competition for the summer sports dollar in Las Vegas “I came here as a Triple-A player, and it was the best five days of my life. Are you kidding me?” “There’s nothing like it. You can wake up in the middle of night, 2 o’clock in the morning, go get breakfast, go watch a show, anything you want to do. It’s a little bit of the Wild, Wild West. It’s not like that anywhere else.”

Saturday score: Reds beat the A’s 10-9, in front of 8,805 paid fans (capacity at Aviators Stadium is 10,000) the attendance was 88% of capacity.

–A’s Manager Mark Kotsay: “It’s no secret that we’ve been pursuing paths in Oakland and Vegas. So maybe there’s more buzz around it because we’re going right now and the process has seemed to be shifted a little bit,” Kotsay said, “For us as an organization, we continue to pursue both in Oakland and in Vegas and we call that the parallel path. For us, we’re always looking for the opportunity in front of us.”

–Don Logan, president and COO of the Triple-A Aviators, told ESPN.”It makes sense. My perspective, make the best deal you can in Vegas and start to turn this community on” “Las Vegas offers a dynamic that no other team has. We have 45 million visitors annually in this market, and that’s what we want — heads in beds. That’s what Las Vegas is about.”Logan also mentioned that a retractable-roof stadium would be needed for the summer when temperatures regularly hit 110 degrees who added that Las Vegas first look at the A’s in a ‘quiet examination’ for a potential relocation in the year 2004.

–David Forst, general manager of the Oakland A’s said “I’m hoping the A’s get a stadium. I don’t take sides. The only thing that affects the way we operate in baseball operations is actually having a facility. “We really can’t spend a lot of time thinking about the where right now.”

Sunday score: Reds beat the A’s 12-4, in front of 8,024 paid fans.

Next for the A’s: With three weeks of Spring Training left, they will face Colombia who is one of the teams in the World Baseball Classic that starts the competition this week. A’s will open regular season on March 30th when they host the LA Angels, first pitch at 7:07.

Join Amaury Pi Gonzalez and Manolo Hernandez Douen for all the play by play of Oakland A’s baseball on the A’s Spanish radio network and catch That’s Amaury News and Commentary at http://www.sportsradioservice.com