When And If A’s Move To Las Vegas In 2028, Oakland Coliseum Head Groundskeeper Would Welcome Chance To Run Groundskeeping Operation In Ballpark In Sin City
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By Alan Snel. LVSportsBiz.com Publisher-Writer
Clay Wood knows the facts.
The Athletics are leaving Oakland and the Coliseum after the 2024 Major League Baseball season.
And Wood, the head groundskeeper at the Coliseum after starting at the stadium in 1989, knows he will be losing his current Coliseum job as the A’s play three seasons in Sacramento from 2025-2027 before moving to their planned permanent stadium on the Strip in Las Vegas in 2028.
Other Coliseum workers — from ushers and security to beer vendors to parking attendants — will also be losing their A’s game day jobs when the team leaves Oakland after the MLB team arrived in 1968 from Kansas City.
Wood, though, outlined his perfect job situation — work as a groundskeeping consultant at the Triple-A minor league stadium in Sacramento for three years and then return as head groundskeeper at the 33,000-seat domed stadium that will have to use an artificial playing surface in Las Vegas.
Wood pointed out a baseball field, even one that is an artificial turf, needs groundskeeping work on the infield and pitcher’s mound with the artificial turf requiring grooming and cleaning.
Wood is well known in Oakland and so is his work partner — an eight-year-old yellow lab named Reba who accompanies Wood on the field every time he and his staff of seven full-timers and more part-timers prepare the manicured Coliseum field for A’s home game. Reba routinely hops in a crate on the back of Wood’s groundskeeping cart for rides around the ballpark.
Wood knows more about the Coliseum field than just about anyone. He noted the ballfield is 22 feet below sea level.
And an assortment of animals have frolicked on the field, with Wood finding raccoons, skunks, possums and feral cats on the field.
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The Baltimore Orioles arrived in Oakland for Game 1 of a three-game series at the Coliseum.
The Birds entered Friday’s game with a 55-32 record, leading the Yankees by two games in the American League East.
It’s also Jerry Garcia Night at the Coliseum.
