OAKLAND, Calif. _First the Raiders, now the A's?
Oakland's baseball team found itself connected to Las Vegas on Friday with the report that Major League Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred had brought up Las Vegas a possible new home for either the A's or the Tampa Bay Rays.
A's management was quick to quell talk of an A's move, reiterating that while the Raiders may be en route to Las Vegas, the A's plans to announce the site and building schedule for a new Oakland baseball-only stadium remain on target.
"We're building in Oakland," team president Dave Kaval told the Bay Area News Group. "All of our effort is going into that. We're working with all our stakeholders to get this done. We're looking at four sites in Oakland and we're on target to announce the site and the timeline this year. We're committed to Oakland."
All of this took place before the sun set. Once it did, the A's put together homers from Trevor Plouffe and Yonder Alonso to earn Oakland's season-best fourth consecutive win, 3-1 over the Seattle Mariners.
The A's, now in second place in the American League West at 9-8, saw starter Sean Manaea allow one run in six innings before relievers Ryan Dull, Sean Doolittle and Santiago Casilla cleaned up.
Plouffe's 100th career homer, his fourth in the last seven games, got Oakland into a 1-1 tie with the Mariners in the fifth. Alonso's third homer of the season broke the tie in the sixth, and Stephen Vogt added a sacrifice fly later in the inning, a play set up by a Jed Lowrie double.
According to The Chicago Tribune, Manfred told a group of sports editors "if we were looking at relocation, Las Vegas would be on the list." He then added that "until the Tampa Bay and Oakland situations are settled, I can't see talking about expansion."
The A's doubled down on its commitment Friday afternoon with a post on its Facebook page. Under its "Rooted in Oakland" logo were the words: "We are here. We are Oakland. A ballpark site in Oakland will be announced later this year. #RootedInOakland."
The club is looking at the current Coliseum site in addition to Howard Terminal at Jack London Square and two locations near the Lake Merritt BART station, Laney College and Brooklyn Basin. Manfred has made it clear he would like to see new facilities for the A's and the Rays, both of whom are playing in outdated stadiums. The Coliseum is in its 50th year of hosting baseball.
Last month, Clark County Commission chairman Steve Sisolak, who helped engineer the deal bringing the Raiders to the desert, summarily dismissed the idea of having a major league team in Las Vegas, the nation's 40th-largest media market. He said "I don't see a lot of support for another sport that needs a specific stadium. We're getting a little sticker shock."
