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By Alan Snel, LVSportsBiz.com Publisher-Writer
SEATTLE, Washington — It’s 4:55 PM and Mark Kotsay the Athletics manager takes a seat on the A’s bench in the third base dugout in Seattle’s T-Mobile Park. It’s a little more than two hours before the visiting A’s play the Mariners in this gorgeous, hunter green-decorated ball yard that has sliding roof panels and passing freight train blaring their horns beyond the right field bleachers.
Kotsay is the unflappable A’s manager with a demeanor built to guide this nomadic Major League Baseball franchise from Oakland in 2024 to Sacramento for three seasons and then to Las Vegas in 2028 when the historic American League teame plans to open a new $2 billion, 33,000-fan domed stadium at the former Tropicana hotel-casino site on the Strip.
Only Las Vegas would be so audacious to build a maor league sports stadium on its world-famous Main Street, the Strip.
Kotsay serves up steady answers to the questions posed by MLB.com A’s beat reporter Martin Gallegos, who asks the skipper about a half-dozen topics like what did the A’s manager think about infielder Max Schuemann optioned Friday to the Athletics’ Triple-A club, the Las Vegas Aviators.
Kotsay said the 28-year-old Schuemann played the role of a “super utility player” for the A’s, but the team was giving a look at 27-year-old Brett Harris as its third baseman.
The questions end and the easy-going Kotsay hears the Rock With You song playing on the stadium sound system and belts out, “I wanna rock with you!” before chatting with A’s radio broadcaster Ken Korach.
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It’s not easy for a major league sports team to move.
It’s been nearly 11 months since the A’s played their last game at the Coliseum in Oakland after 57 years that included four World Series championships and some of the sport’s most talented and colorful performers from Reggie Jackson and Catfish Hunter to Jose Canseco and Rickey Henderson to Jason Giambi and Barry Zito.
Only a day before in Las Vegas, A’s team president Marc Badain told the Las Vegas Stadium Authority Board that it’s full steam ahead for the construction of a ballpark on the Strip that will have the exterior architectural design reminscent of an armadillo shell.
A’s TV broadcast analyst Dallas Braden has effectively walked the fine line between calling A’s games, supporting heartbroken A’s fans in Oakland and pulling off a well-spoken performance of emceeing the A’s Las Vegas stadium groundbreaking ceremony inside a giant temporary structure at the venue site in late June.
The fluffy-bearded, big-hearted 42-year-old Braden is an immensely likable former A’s pitcher who hurled the 19th perfect game in Major League Baseball against Tampa Bay in May 2010. He talked with LVSportsBiz.com about how sports are a common ground for people in these divisive times.
The elevator operator who pushed the button 200 level to reach the press box level smiled when she talked about Braden’s kindness for giving her a special lapel pin that she wears proudly even though she is a Seattle Mariners fan.
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The A’s season has endured three very distinct parts.
The team won 22 of its first 42 games at the schedule’s quarter mark and was contending for a playoff spot.
Then the wheels fell off the A’s playoff wagon. After blasting the Dodgers in Los Angeles in mid-May, the A’s went on to lose a stunning 20 of 21 games from May 14 to June 4.
Then the A’s bounced back, winning 36 of 66 games and featuring the game’s most exciting young slugger, 22-year-old Nick Kurtz. The Natural known as “The Big Amish” realized baseball immortality with a four home run performance in Houston and has belted 26 dingers.
Entering tonight’s game, the A’s have won 59 games and lost 70. With tonight’s loss, the A’s dropped to a dozen games below the .500 level.
The first pitch from Mariners pitcher Bryan Woo came at 7:11 PM on a pleasant and balmy night feturing 81-degree weather here in Seattle. The stadium features a superstructure with sliding panels capable of covering the stadium, but there is no need on a lovely night like tonight.
This stadium has special meaning for LVSportsBiz.com because I was working for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer newspaper in July 1999 when I covered the opening of this beautiful ballyard with a capacity of 47,368. I interviewed the very first fan to enter the building. He told me he was from Pittsburgh.
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The A’s ballpark is Las Vegas will feature premium seating, clubs and points of sale and a unique way of seeing the interior by introducing the primary entrance through the outfield and offering an unobstructed view of the field and seating bowl.
Years ago, the Mariners converted a former press box space into a swanky “Press Club” area with fine food and a bar.
Expect the A’s stadium to include some impressive club and food options like this as pictured in these graphics:
Back at the Mariners stadium, its 100 level main concourse is packed with food and drink options, from clams to burgers.
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The A’s-Mariners game was moving along with five and a half innings in the books in the first 90 minutes. Before the game, I mentioned to A’s broadcaster Braden that Commissioner Rob Manfred’s greatest contribution was the pitch clock and speeding up MLB games. If you recall, Braden, when he hosted the stadium groundbreaking ceremony in Las Vegas, half-joked at the start of the event that the ceremony’s speakers should have an eternal pitch count when serving up their speeches that day.
For the record, the Mariners’ 3-2 win was played in a tidy time of two hours and 18 minutes. A’s right fielder JJ Bleday struck out with the bases loaded and two outs in the top of the ninth inning and the A’s walked off the field with a painful one-run loss tonight.
There are still naysayers out there that insist A’s ower John Fisher, whose family owns the Gap retail clothing empire, lacks the funding for the $2 billion stadium project on the Strip.
But Badain countered before the stadium board yesterday that the ballpark will go vertical and contingencies are built in to cover unexpected cost increases.
Fisher attracted his food/bev concessionaire by cutting a $175 million, 20-year deal with Aramark, with the food/drink provider including $100 million of the $175 million s an equity investment in the team.
He’s still looking for more investors.
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The ol’ stadium here in Seattle still looks beautiful. The Mariners announced attendance at 36,958 as the lower bowl filled up nicely.
See you Saturday.
PSA
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