The Athletics' Vegas debut felt a lot like West Sacramento with extra glitz - ESPN

The inaugural but unofficial unveiling of the Las Vegas Athletics became, perhaps predictably, a theater of the absurd. Popups went up into the air and disappeared into the night. Ground balls popped off the ground without warning and bounded over infielders' heads. The A's traded a minor league home stadium in West Sacramento, California, for a minor league home stadium in the wind-swept desert and produced Major League Baseball as it was never intended.

It was definitely a spectacle. The A's spared no hype in introducing themselves to the city they expect to join for Opening Day 2028. There was a Backstreet Boy (Nick Carter) throwing out the first pitch and a fighter jet flyover and a tube in the visiting dugout that spewed green smoke into the air. They brought boxing ring announcer Bruce Buffer out to the pitcher's mound to announce the starting lineup, and it's safe to say you've never heard someone take longer to belt out the names of nine hitters and a starting pitcher.

Once the game started, no ground ball was routine, and no fly ball was lazy. Infielders had two jobs: 1) Try to predict the ball's unpredictable path, and 2) watch their teeth. When I asked A's shortstop Alika Williams to describe the difference between pavement and the infield at Las Vegas Stadium, he gave it almost no thought before saying, «Not much.» ERAs swelled like poison toads — there were 11 homers and 29 runs. Brewers starter Kyle Harrison, one of the best starters in baseball, gave up eight earned runs in 2⅓ innings; his ERA went from 1.57 to 2.72. A's backup catcher Jonah Heim tied the score at 14 with two outs in the ninth on a ball that left his bat at 95 mph at a preposterous 48-degree launch angle.

It was, in the best way possible,