Last Saturday, I was lucky enough to have tickets for the A’s game at Sutter Health Park. It was the second home game of the 2026 season, and the first game dubbed as “Sacramento Saturday”. We faced off against division rival Houston Astros, a team still despised by many for their 2017 sign stealing scandal. Just ask Jose Altuve, who is still booed by A’s fans (and plenty of others) each time his name is announced. Despite the lingering resentment toward the Astros and their fans, there was a significant
number of fans wearing their jerseys, caps and their team colors in the stands. But we’ll get back to that in a few moments.
First pitch was at 1:05 PM, and it was 76 degrees with a light breeze. In other words, it was a perfect day to play baseball and a perfect day to watch it live at the ballpark. The A’s sweetened the pot (so to speak) with their first Sacramento focused Stadium Give Away (SGA), a replica, gold Sacramento jersey, matching what the players would be wearing on the field that day. It’s a nice-looking jersey, considering the quality of most SGA clothing and to be fair I’d say more than half of the game attendees wore the jersey that day. I think it was a bit of a slap in the face to local fans that it had the Las Vegas patch on the sleeve and not the Sacramento bridge patch, but other than that it was nice, and I suspect that you’ll see fans wearing them around town and at future games for a large part of the season. (For those interested, they sell actual MLB replica Sacramento jerseys in the team store for the paltry sum of $180.)
By now, many of you may be asking what my point in all of this is, is it just a summary of my game day experience, no, that’s not it. My point is with beautiful weather, a rival opponent, a quality SGA, and it being the first day game at our home park, we still did not sell out. Even with calling the game “Sacramento Saturday”, the A’s could not entice more than 12,000 fans to come out to the game. The tally was officially 12,015 and a sellout for Sutter Health Park, the smallest stadium in Major League Baseball, is 14,014.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m NOT blaming the local fan’s for not turning out for this team. Right from the onset, when the team brass was crystal clear about a name change saying this would not be the Sacramento Athletics, they were starting to build a moat around the team with their potential new fans. When you add to that the overall cost to attend an A’s game for a family of four, selecting the cheapest tickets, parking and a typical meal of stadium fare was the third highest in all of baseball at $324. The A’s only trail the LA Dodgers ($413.) and the Boston Red Sox ($373) and rank slightly above the Chicago Cubs ($314). This report was recently released by Bookies.com.
The team doubled down last year waiting until nearly the end of the season to release any official team merchandise with the Sacramento logos after the fans were begging for it. And yet, when I attended a game on Sept. 14 of last season, they were offering buy one, get one half price on all Sacramento logo items. It didn’t have to be this way. It would be a stretch to think that angry Bay Area fans would consistently make the trip 2+ hours away to watch a team that truly jilted them; but it would not be a stretch to expect local baseball fans, welcomed and embraced by the A’s to fill this stadium on a perfect day for baseball. Maybe if the A’s start living up to the expectation of being a solid baseball team sniffing at the door of the playoffs all while legitimately working to build a sense of a baseball community in the Sacramento area, they can turn this thing around. But if not, it’s going to be a long two more years here watching the fans dwindle down to just the diehards. I’d say that I’ll probably be one that sticks around, but truly, I don’t know if I’m willing to make that promise.
