Like it or not, they have a new house, and it is a victory for this City Scrappy

West Sacramento, California – The arrival of a major league team to this decidedly minor city last week was not, as they say in baseball, without error.

A players of A, formerly of Oakland and finally to be from Las Vegas, were not familiar with the layout of their temporary house, Sutter Health Park. There were “a lot of chaos,” said manager Mark Kotsay at Sacramento Bee, while the team was trying to understand how to sail in the much smaller footprint of a triple-a stadium.

Wi-fi fell. The radio broadcast has cut several times. The beer line was epic. The match was arrested after someone slipped a drone on the field during the seventh round. Many unconditional fans of Oakland present have always been rolled by a feeling of betrayal to the way the team left Oakland. And then there was the score: the A lost against the cubs, 18-3.

Any summary, the SFIST website Pumped With its title: “The first A in Sacramento match was a complete debacle, and losing 18-3 was probably the least embarrassing game.”

But for the boosters of the unknown city of West Sacramento – a shredded city of 54,000 people that many people, even in the region in the broad sense, do not realize East A city – None of this was of any importance.

The excitement has been raised since the team officials announced that the A was leafing through at the 14,000 -seat stadium in the Cats in the Minor River League – the Triple -A of the Giants of San Francisco – for three years while the future house of A on the Las Vegas band is built.

It was widely described In the national press as a move to the city of Sacramento, the capital of California, which is in front of the west of Sacramento and in another county. Most of the press organizations that have piled up to cover the opening of the season and the players they mentioned did not seem to record the existence of West Sacramento.

The comments of the relief launcher of TJ McFarland were typical. “It is a beautiful city, the capital of the state,” he told the Sacramento bee, standing in the heart of the most precious civic monument in West Sacramento.

West Sacramento took everything in stride. City officials are used to living in the shadow of Sacramento, and they are convinced that here – even if no one seems to know that the team is here – will be a boon.

After all, this is not the first time that the magic of baseball has raised the fortune of this city.

“I could not be happier to share the spotlights with our neighbors on the other side of the river,” said state senator Christopher Cabaldon (D-Yolo), who served two decades as mayor of West Sacramento before being elected in the Senate last year.

However, Martha Guerrero, the mayor of the city, said clearly: “We prefer West Sacramento. This is the official location. “

West Sacramento has long been the lean steps in the region of a municipality. The city of Sacramento, 526,000 inhabitants, with its dome of luminous capitol, its graceful canopy and its prominence of the era of gold, was incorporated in 1850. Through the Sacramento river and the county line, the other big cities of the county of Yolo followed shortly after. Woodland dates back to 1871. Winters was formed in 1898. And even the newcomer Davis became an official city in 1917. Woodland was known for his majestic Victorian houses; Winters for its picturesque city center and its kilometers of walnut orchards, Green Velvet against the Vaca Purple mountains; And Davis for his lively campus of the University of California.

But for most of the 20th century, which is now called West Sacramento was a collection of small known communities, in many ways, like a dumping ground for people and pets that the city of Sacramento did not want.

At the time, the Sacramento authorities “escorted their criminals, morphine drug addicts and alcoholics” in the region, according to a historian quoted in Sacramento bee in 1984. During the ban, the region was known as “Sin City” because it did not adopt the edict of non-alcool of the time. During depression, a long -standing resident told a local newspaper, it was common for the sacramentans to throw dogs and cats that they could no longer afford to feed on the west side of the river.

In the early 1980s, the region was known as a hub for drugs and prostitution, especially along a bunch of dilapidated motels that bordered West Capital Avenue.

However, local leaders have always had great dreams. In the 1940s, the Congress authorized the construction of a deep water canal which linked the community to the bay of Sanun. In the 1960s, the port of West Sacramento (originally the port of Sacramento) became operational, welcoming large cargo -carics and giving birth to a flourishing industrial base.

In the 1980s, the developers considered the potential of the region as an affordable community of chambers for legislative aid and other state employees working a few minutes by car or by bicycle in the city center of Sacramento, on the other side of the Pont de la Tour Claire. The unified houses began to get on what had been large hectares of corn, tomatoes, melons and rice.

And in 1987, voters in the region finally voted to integrate.

It was shortly after that that Cabaldon moved to town.

“I accidentally found myself in West Sacramento,” he said. The year was in 1993 and he began to work as a member of the legislative staff. A real estate agent took him to a “large district” which was “unusually affordable” and promised that shops, restaurants, parks and other exciting amenities were coming soon. Cabaldon was sold. “I didn’t know it was the other side of the tracks, and no one wanted to go there at night,” he said.

Cabaldon grew up to love his small town. He admired his magnificent river – mainly underused, but so much potential. However, he noticed that many of the amenities that the real estate agent had promised were nowhere on the horizon. And he also gathered that the city had felt for a long time like an outsider.

Instead of moving, he ran for the municipal council. He lost, but ran again and won in 1996. In 1998, he was mayor. Shortly after, he remembers, he was approached by developers who wanted to build a minor league stadium in the city.

“We have somehow run with it,” he said. “It really changed the idea that we were the armpit in the region.”

The park was built and, in 2001, the River Cats had moved (originally in the agricultural team for the Oakland before becoming a triple-a of the Giants in 2015). The stadium, which is a stone throwing of the Sacramento river and about a mile from the Capitol, quickly became a draw for the people of the region.

Of course, the team took the name of Sacramento River Cats, but their presence in the west of Sacramento has helped stimulate a brand new wave of development: condos, apartments and houses in an affordable row intended for young workers and, finally, for long -standing restaurants and large -scale stores so that all these new residents have places to eat and shop without crossing the river. Parcel by parcel, the land along the city’s seafront was transformed into entertainment sites, parks and trails.

“We have done so much ribbon cuttings,” said Guerrero, the mayor.

West Sacramento was on the way, even before the very bad break of A with Oakland.

The Oakland Coliseum, the longtime house of the A, was widely considered one of the most dilapidated stadiums in the major leagues – the last diving bar of baseball, as the Guardian newspaper said. There were, famous, wild cats wandering in the complex. Dead mice where they did not belong. Sewer problems. Barbed wire. And so much concrete.

“It’s a giant concrete toilet bowl,” said baseball analyst Eric Byrnes, who played six seasons for A. “But it’s their toilet bowl, and it’s a special toilet bowl.”

The owner of the A, John Fisher, did not hide his desire to get out, and when he finally did it, develops a plan to go to a stadium of $ 1.5 billion on the strip of Las Vegas, residents of Oakland – and a host of nostalgic sports orders – broke out of fury and sorrow.

In a photo of 2023, fans of the Oakland Coliseum protest on the plans of A to move.

(Jed Jacobsohn / Associated Press)

“The argument could be advanced according to which the departure of A of their dilapidated house for the riches of Las Vegas is a large part of what is wrong with American professional sports today,” said the New York Times.

“The Oakland A had been so much for so many of us for so long, and now they are no longer at all,” wrote Ellen Cushing in the Atlantic.

During the last match of the Colosseum, desperate fans assaulted the owner with strong songs of “Sell The Team”. Then they waited online to recover the dirt from the old diamond.

It is said that there are two sides with each break. But in this divorce, it seemed that almost everyone had taken the side of Oakland and his fans.

The opening of season A in West Sacramento was marked by operational problems when the team understood how to sail in the much smaller footprint of a triple-a stadium.

(Scott Marshall / Associated Press)

All these months later, the officials of West Sacramento stressed that they did not play any role in the theft of the Oakland team. But they do not hide their pride in being the rebounded city of the A – even if it is only for three years.

They spent the dead season to make improvements to the stadium, including a new clubhouse and extensive changing rooms. They offered a parking plan to welcome what should be a larger crowd. They added premium seats.

The dream, said Guerrero, is that the short -term relationship of the A with West Sacramento is such a success that Major League Baseball considers the region of an expansion team. And all the most dreamed if they put this team in their city – and not this half -sister on the other side of the river.

“West Sacramento has a solid fans base,” said Guerrero. “We are a baseball city.”