Comical Brewers-A’s slugfest shows just how insane MLB’s Las Vegas dream really is

All of the cliché Las Vegas puns and references during Monday’s Brewers vs. Athletics game were bad enough. The reminder that Major League Baseball wants to make this a reality is when things officially transition into something far worse.

On the one hand, it’s hard to blame the A’s for playing this week’s homestand at the aptly named Las Vegas Ballpark. Assuming that things go as planned, the Athletics will officially move to Las Vegas and open their new ballpark in 2028.

Well, you know what they say about assumptions, because the longer that the A’s play in minor-league stadiums, the more shameful a look it is for both the franchise and the league itself.

Monday’s Brewers-A’s game in Las Vegas is another sad insult to Oakland

Sports are a business, and the problem isn’t necessarily that the A’s left Oakland for somewhere they’d have a new, modern stadium. The time had come for the A’s to get as far away from the Coliseum as possible.

But, as baseball fans have collectively said from the start, the A’s lack of a plan proved to be the worst possible one.

Look at what we watched on Monday night. Even those who love nonstop action, including 11 combined home runs, have to admit the sight of two teams—one of whom leads their division and another who is a Wild Card contender—battling it out in a minor-league ballpark is appalling.

Need we say anything more than Athletics catcher Jonah Heim’s game-tying home run in the 10th inning? When you hit a ball, and everyone in the stadium believes it’s going to be a pop-up, then it’s almost always a pop-up.

Instead, Heim’s flyball carried over the right-field fence. The popular MLB Home Runs Twitter/X account found that the home run would have been an out in all 30 stadiums—and that includes Sutter Health Park, the A’s current home in Sacramento.

Call me a traditionalist, but I’ve never liked the idea of playing regular-season games in stadiums with extreme dimensions. There are no playing-related issues with NFL games in London or the NHL with their Stadium Series because you’re still dealing with a regular football field or hockey rink.

Yes, weather may have an impact, but not to the drastic levels that hitting a baseball at high altitude does. There’s a reason Coors Field has used a humidor for over 20 years, even though it hasn’t stopped Rockies pitchers from struggling to have a sub-4 ERA.

“I’ve never seen anything like that in Major League Baseball,” Brewers right fielder Jake Bauers said. “The guys up here that work in the clubhouse were telling me that they have games like that on a nightly basis in this yard.”

That’s exactly what the league should want in a regular-season game. Truly. Great job by all.

All of this could have been avoided had the A’s found a way to stay in Oakland until the new stadium was built. This isn’t like the Jaguars, who are playing their home games in Orlando this year while their stadium is renovated. The Athletics left an outdated, dysfunctional ballpark for the minor leagues before they even broke ground on the new stadium.

If Monday’s loss comes back to haunt the A’s, it’s on them in more ways than one. And considering that they’re 3.5 games back in a mediocre AL West, they might want to hit the slots and try winning enough to fund the creation of a time machine. Preferably, one that could bring them back long before the Coliseum began falling into disarray. 

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