Bryce Harper pans A's relocation, says Las Vegas should get expansion team - ESPN

The Oakland Athletics' planned relocation to Las Vegas, which cleared a major hurdle Wednesday, has been widely panned by players and fans around Major League Baseball.

Even a pair of Vegas-born teammates, Bryce Harper and Bryson Stott, say their hometown would be better served with an MLB expansion franchise, with the A's remaining in Oakland.

«I feel sorry for the fans in Oakland,» Harper told USA Today Sports in a report published Thursday. «It's just not right. They have so much history in Oakland. You're taking a team out of a city. I'm pretty sad because of all of the history and all of the greatness they've seen there.

»I see the A's as Oakland. I don't see them as Vegas."

Harper first gained national stardom at Las Vegas High School and still resides in nearby Henderson, Nevada. The Phillies slugger compared the A's to two of Las Vegas' other major professional sports teams: the recently relocated Raiders and the reigning Stanley Cup champion Golden Knights, who were an expansion franchise in 2017.

«Look at the Knights — they won the Cup, but they were an expansion franchise,» Harper told USA Today. «They were Vegas-born, as people would say. It's the first team that came to Vegas. I don't think you can really match that.

»It's just going to be tough for those guys. It was tough for the Raiders last year. People thought the Raiders would be successful. Maybe they will be, but you have to build a fanbase. Those 5-and 6-year-olds are going to grow up as Raiders fans or A's fans, so by the time they are 16-, 17-years-old, they're going to have fans."

Stott, 25, was a high school star in Enterprise, Nevada, and played collegiately at UNLV. The Phillies' second-year infielder agreed with Harper that Las Vegas «would