After a delay caused by the second-longest strike in MLB history, baseball has returned today, Friday, to the Bay Area. On Opening Day, the Giants host the Miami Marlins at Oracle Park. The A’s play in Philadelphia.
Both teams are dealing with major changes this season: The Giants are missing their star catcher Buster Posey, who announced his retirement last season, while the A’s have traded away several productive players — Chris Bassitt, Matt Olson and Matt Chapman — and beloved manager Bob Melvin, who left to manage the San Diego Padres.
“We’re all a little bit disconcerted because we’ve gotten attached to the players and Melvin,” said Joanne Hall, a longtime A’s fan, on Wednesday during a Giants-A’s joint event outside San Francisco’s Ferry Building to promote Opening Day. “But the A’s have a long history of building a good team, and I think we’re going to be starting a new one.”
Standing near her team’s mascot, Stomper the elephant, she addressed the other elephant in the dugout, so to speak: whether yet another Oakland sports team will relocate. The team wants to build a new waterfront ballpark, but owners also are checking out options in Las Vegas, where Oakland’s former NFL team, the Raiders, currently resides.
“It makes no sense to build a stadium out at the port when we’ve got a perfectly good site at the Coliseum and BART goes right to it. I think a lot of fans feel that way,” she said, holding a copy of “50 Years of Oakland A’s Baseball.” She hoped legendary A’s pitcher Vida Blue would sign it.
Blue, who also played for the Giants, appeared at Wednesday’s event. He weighed in on the future of the A’s.
