SACRAMENTO, Calif.—Approaching Sutter Health Park from the Sacramento riverfront, I looked for any sign of the Athletics’ impending residency. Briefly, I even wondered if we were at the right park.
Construction fences surrounded much of the outfield concourse, and a River Cats sign was the only branding on the reverse of the centerfield scoreboard.
My friend Tyler and I had come to California’s capital on a work trip, and we took a downtown detour to check out one of MLB’s newest stadiums—the permanent home of the San Francisco Giants’ Triple-A team, built in 2000.
Just across the yellow Tower Bridge from downtown, the park’s location is pristine. Tyler pointed out that the field had many of the same elements of Pittsburgh’s PNC Park: a yellow bridge, a river, and a downtown skyline.
However, all the parts were slightly more disjointed than Pittsburgh’s jewel, making this more of an off-brand, elementary-school-art-class rendering of PNC.
The Athletics are barely even calling it home for the next three seasons. They won’t be called the Sacramento Athletics; they’re not planning to stay. They certainly won’t be the Oakland Athletics; the city they abandoned doesn’t care for them either. And it feels too soon to call them the Las Vegas Athletics; doubts remain about the new ballpark’s viability.
On opponents’ schedules, they’ll be labeled “ATH,” simply the Athletics.
This season, and through 2027, the Athletics will share Sutter Health Park with the River Cats, which means the park will host a game nearly every day six months of the year. The pairing is a bit ironic because the Giants and A’s were cross-bay rivals for so long.
We didn’t spend quite enough time in the city to tell if Sacramentans even care for the A’s, but based on the lack of advertising around town, my guess is no.
We parked between the ballpark and a gentrified/modern/industrial-looking apartment complex on the first base side and walked toward the home plate gate. Finally, the first Athletics branding appeared—Kelly green block “ATHLETICS” lettering on an outfield LED board.
The team store was closed, but I pressed my face against the glass, looking for anything green. Nothing. All the merchandise I could see was River Cats or Giants-branded.
The ballpark did invest in a nice window sign on the team store announcing Sacramento is “In our Golden Era” and featuring both Athletics and River Cats logos.
I’m willing to wager American dollars that the team assigned the poster to an underpaid social media intern who also happened to be a Taylor Swift fan. The sign sniffs of unenthusiastic branding on behalf of two teams who are equally unenthusiastic about the cramped quarters.
Speaking of sniffs, Sacramento did add a nice touch of Oakland with a rank smell of urine (or just some putrid flora) outside the box office. Additionally, a stray cat wandered up onto the sidewalk. I don’t know if this is the fabled river feline or just a neighborhood wanderer.
Papers taped crudely to the box office windows offered QR codes for Athletics tickets, which are priced optimistically. They start at $40, but sitting behind the dugouts will run you around $100. My guess is you’ll find much cheaper seats on second-hand marketplaces.
According to press releases, the A’s and River Cats are significantly upgrading the park with high-tech amenities including new video boards, clubhouses, a kitchen, and even “infield moisture sensors.”
Of course, I couldn’t confirm any of these upgrades with my unwelcome view through construction fences and locked gates.
On the left field side, more construction blocked the view of a geometric mural, surely by a local artist. I never attended a game at the Oakland Coliseum, but I can confidently assume this is at least one more exterior mural than that concrete behemoth possessed.
After the novelty of an MLB team in the city wears off, there’s a distinct possibility that the River Cats will outdraw the Athletics in attendance. Or, if the A’s do draw fans, they’ll be coming to see the away team in an intimate setting.
If you see a game in Sacramento, you’ll enjoy the relatively small downtown. A nice-looking Embassy Suites sits across the bridge from the park. And you’re just a few blocks from the capitol building where you can go picket Gavin Newsom if you so desire.
Actually, construction fences surrounded the capitol as well. The whole city is getting a facelift, I suppose.
The Athletics’ home opener is March 31 against the Chicago Cubs. By the looks of it on March 24, the stadium is not remotely ready to host an MLB game. Fortunately, they have three years to get it right.
Photos by Steve Miller and Tyler Bergstrom
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