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By Alan Snel, LVSportsBiz.com Publisher-Writer
MESA, Arizona — Hospital employee Eric Jones came to Athletics spring training camp with his wife and kids from the Bay area to see A’s players engage in the time-honored rite of taking cuts at batting practice, infielders fielding ground balls and pitchers firing baseballs to catchers in warmup areas.
The 45-year-old Jones watched A’s players run through drills at their spring training complex at the Lew Wolff Training Complex, about four blocks from the Athletics’ spring training venue — Hohokam Stadium in Mesa, Arizona in the metro Phoenix area.
Jones knows that Athletics owner John Fisher says he wants to move the franchise to a stadium on the Strip in Las Vegas.
But until the “shovels are in the ground” at the Tropicana hotel site, as Jones said, the A’s fan is holding out for a miracle that the team stays in Oakland.
“The shovels are not in the ground yet. Until they actually move, all bets are off,” said Jones, who lives in Pinole, California and attends about five games a year at the Coliseum.
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The Athletics are in their tenth year in Mesa.
The drive off the 202 loop highway on West McKellips Road outside Phoenix takes only a few miles to Hohokam Stadium, which is across the street from the city cemetery.
You drive past a Jiffy Lube, McDonald’s and convenience stores along the six-lane road to North Central Street, which cuts through neighborhoods of modest, concrete houses to the A’s spring stadium and then the practice fields at the practice complex.
The walls inside the spring training clubhouse facility is covered with images of former A’s greats like JIm “Catfish” Hunter.
It’s a strange juxtaposition.
There’s an outside world of national baseball observers like Jeff Passan and Ken Rosenthal wondering if the Athletics have their act together to pull off building a 33,000-seat, $1.5 billion stadium on the Strip.
Then, there’s the inside world at the spring training complex in Mesa where Athletics coaches guide young hurlers on how to pitch to batters based on the pitching count and the game situation.
The A’s stadium saga is playing out in both Oakland and Las Vegas.
The fans in Oakland have been through this — losing a major league team to the Las Vegas market thanks to a new partially-subsidized stadium in the Strip entertainment corridor.
Athletics fan Jones told LVSportsBiz.com, “We’re also Raiders fans so this is not our first rodeo.”
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Friday is a quiet day at the practice fields before the A’s play their first exhibition game at the nearby stadium Saturday.
One coach is hitting ground balls to pitchers, who whirl and fire to an infielder covering second base in a double play drill.
By 11:30 AM, some players are already grabbing lunch in the practice field complex lunchroom.
In a quiet classroom, other coaches are doling out advice to pitchers on the strategy of approaching batters like when to throw cutters and avoiding getting behind a hitter by throwing two balls outside the strike zone.
The Athletics stadium planned for the Tropicana hotel site at Tropicana Avenue and Las Vegas Boulevard is the furthest thing from the minds of these earnest Athletics players.
Spring training is a wonderful timeless bubble shielding those inside at baseball camps from the volatility of the politics surrounding the state of Nevada granting $380 million to the A’s to build a venue with some type of roof on the Strip. The A’s have offered few details about the stadium. There are no drawings offered to the public. And the public doesn’t know whether the roof will be fixed or retractable.
All those topics just don’t exist at spring training where the A’s play the Colorado Rockies at 1 PM Saturday.