Oakland Athletics
The Oakland Athletics (often referred to as the Oakland A's) are an American professional baseball team based in Oakland, California. The Athletics compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) West Division. The team currently plays its home games at the Oakland Coliseum, with plans to temporarily move to Sutter Health Park in West Sacramento, California, for the 2025–2027 seasons (with an option for the 2028 season), prior to their permanent move to Las Vegas.[4] The nine World Series championships, fifteen pennants, and seventeen division titles that the A's have won throughout their history is the second-highest in the American League after the New York Yankees.
"A's" redirects here. For the Latin character, see A. For other uses, see AS and A (disambiguation).
One of the American League's eight charter franchises, the team was founded in Philadelphia in 1901 as the Philadelphia Athletics. They won three World Series championships in 1910, 1911, and 1913, and back-to-back titles in 1929 and 1930. The team's owner and manager for its first 50 years was Connie Mack, and Hall of Fame players included Chief Bender, Frank "Home Run" Baker, Jimmie Foxx, and Lefty Grove. The team left Philadelphia for Kansas City in 1955 and became the Kansas City Athletics before moving to Oakland in 1968. Nicknamed the "Swingin' A's", they won three consecutive World Series in 1972, 1973, and 1974, led by players including Vida Blue, Catfish Hunter, Reggie Jackson, Rollie Fingers, and owner Charlie O. Finley. After being sold by Finley to Walter A. Haas Jr., the team won three consecutive pennants and the 1989 World Series behind the "Bash Brothers", Jose Canseco and Mark McGwire, as well as Hall of Famers Dennis Eckersley, Rickey Henderson and manager Tony La Russa. In 2002, the Athletics set the record for most consecutive wins in a season with twenty, an event that would go on to be the pioneering step in the application of sabermetrics in baseball.
Following the California Golden Seals' relocation to Cleveland in 1976, the Golden State Warriors' move across the bay to San Francisco in 2019, and the Oakland Raiders' move to Las Vegas in 2020, the Athletics were left as the sole remaining professional sports team in Oakland. However, on April 20, 2023, the Athletics announced they had entered a land purchase agreement with Red Rock Resort located near Las Vegas, Nevada to build a new ballpark on the Las Vegas Strip, finalizing the Athletics' plans to relocate from Oakland to the Las Vegas Valley.[5][6][7][8] On May 9, 2023, the Athletics switched their planned location in the Las Vegas area to the site of the Tropicana Las Vegas hotel and casino, which will be demolished to construct a 33,000-seat partially retractable ballpark and a 1,500-room hotel and casino.[9] By June 15, 2023, Nevada governor Joe Lombardo signed an MLB stadium funding bill known as SB1 into law after the bill was approved by the Nevada Legislature, and the Athletics officially announced they would begin the relocation process.[10] On November 16, 2023, MLB owners unanimously approved the Athletics' request to relocate to the Las Vegas area.[11][12] Before the scheduled move to Las Vegas in 2028, the team will play in West Sacramento, California at Sutter Health Park (home of the San Francisco Giants' Triple-A affiliate, the Sacramento River Cats) for the 2025–2027 seasons (with an option for the 2028 season if necessary).[13] While in West Sacramento, the team plans on being referred to as simply the "A's" and "Athletics," with no city name attached.[14]
From 1901 through the end of 2023, the franchise's overall win–loss record is 9,260–9,766–87 (.487). Since moving to Oakland in 1968, the Athletics have an overall win–loss record of 4,545–4,294 (.514) through the end of 2023.[15]
In popular culture[edit]
The 2003 Michael Lewis book Moneyball chronicles the 2002 Oakland Athletics season, with a focus on Billy Beane's economic approach to managing the organization under significant financial constraints. Beginning in June 2003, the book remained on The New York Times Best Seller list for 18 consecutive weeks, peaking at number 2.[78][79] In 2011, Columbia Pictures released a film adaptation based on Lewis' book, which featured Brad Pitt playing the role of Beane. On September 19, 2011, the U.S. premiere of Moneyball was held at the Paramount Theatre in Oakland, which featured a green carpet for attendees to walk, rather than the traditional red carpet.[80]
The blog that spawned the full-fledged popular sports blog site SBNation was dedicated to the Oakland Athletics.[81][82]
Eric Shaun Lynch, a former member of The Howard Stern Show's Wack Pack who went by the name "Eric the Actor" (and previously, "Eric the Midget"), was a huge fan of the Athletics and would occasionally talk about them on Stern's show. Following his death in September 2014, the team broadcasters offered a tribute by using Lynch's signature sign off "bye for now" at the end of an Athletics game broadcast. During the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic, when American baseball teams were using cutouts of fans to show solidarity in their absence, the Athletics placed a cutout of Lynch among other cutouts of the team's fans.