{"id":251289,"date":"2026-04-04T07:20:18","date_gmt":"2026-04-04T07:20:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/251289\/"},"modified":"2026-04-04T07:20:18","modified_gmt":"2026-04-04T07:20:18","slug":"as-fans-pour-into-sutter-health-park-for-teams-second-home-opener-in-west-sacramento","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/251289\/","title":{"rendered":"A&#8217;s fans pour into Sutter Health Park for team&#8217;s second home opener in West Sacramento"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Athletics hosted their home opener in West Sacramento on Friday, taking a swing at their second season in a three-year stint at Sutter Health Park before moving to their new stadium in Las Vegas in 2028.<\/p>\n<p>The A&#8217;s dominated the Houston Astros in an 11-4 finish after starting the season on four back-to-back losses.<\/p>\n<p>In total, 150 games will be played at the ballpark between the A&#8217;s and their Triple-A affiliate, Sacramento River Cats, this season.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Every seat is a great seat,&#8221; said A&#8217;s fan Suzie Branda. &#8220;We were season ticket holders back in Oakland, so when we moved here and they came to play, it was like, yeah!&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The A&#8217;s recorded a sellout crowd of 12,410 on Friday, which the team says is the largest crowd to date for the A&#8217;s at Sutter Health Park.<\/p>\n<p>Sacramento area fans are buying in on the team, if only for a short time.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m originally from Sacramento, so I&#8217;ve always wanted the A&#8217;s to be here&#8230; since 1968,&#8221; said Ron Barrett. &#8220;Glad to be here, glad we are back. Wish it was more than three years.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p> The Griffiths family brought likely the youngest A&#8217;s fan to the ballpark Friday, Samantha&#8217;s 2-month-old daughter Emery.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I was born an A&#8217;s fan and now she&#8217;s born an A&#8217;s fan and she&#8217;s loving it so far,&#8221; said Samantha Griffiths.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s a family affair. We all meet here,&#8221; added her dad, David.<\/p>\n<p>Across the street from the stadium, Birdies Social Club is gearing up for its first full season in business..<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We want to be your pre-game destination, post-game destination. If you don&#8217;t have tickets to the game, we want to be that energetic spot to watch that game at,&#8221; said owner Nick Wootten.<\/p>\n<p>The restaurant, bar, golf simulator hybrid says they will have happy hour food prices both before and after River Cats and A&#8217;s games as well as music to host game after parties. They also offer 30% off for anyone with a gameday ticket for discounted golf.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We&#8217;ve got post-game happy hour, post-game DJ, post-game food,&#8221; said Wootten.<\/p>\n<p>They&#8217;re hoping baseball drives new business.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;This area is challenging without baseball. It&#8217;s sat empty for five months straight,&#8221; said Wootten. &#8220;Let&#8217;s get everyone staying on the West Sac side, doing the West Sac way.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>At the ballpark, longtime A&#8217;s fans are embracing the change.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We loved the Coliseum and I was a season ticket holder for years, but I live in Woodland. Taking the train to watch the A&#8217;s game, you can&#8217;t beat it,&#8221; said Dave Griffiths.<\/p>\n<p>For the first time at their game on Saturday, the A&#8217;s will wear Sacramento-themed jerseys, with the merch also going on sale in the fan shop the same day.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>      <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/as-jersey.jpg#.jpeg\" alt=\"as-jersey.jpg \" height=\"930\" width=\"620\"  loading=\"lazy\"\/><\/p>\n<p>                  A&#8217;s Sacramento themed jersey, debuting April 4<\/p>\n<p>                Athletics<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m really excited, I can&#8217;t wait to get one. I have seven of these (fake Sacramento jerseys) made. It would be nice to have an official one from Sacramento,&#8221; said Barrett.<\/p>\n<p>The A&#8217;s will also give out replica Sacramento jerseys as their promotion on Saturday.<\/p>\n<p>\n          More from CBS News\n        <\/p>\n<p class=\"content__tags__label\">In:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Athletics hosted their home opener in West Sacramento on Friday, taking a swing at their second season&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":251290,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[30942,121,123,122,2958],"class_list":{"0":"post-251289","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sacramento","8":"tag-athletics","9":"tag-sacramento","10":"tag-sacramento-headlines","11":"tag-sacramento-news","12":"tag-west-sacramento"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251289","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=251289"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251289\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/251290"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=251289"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=251289"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=251289"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}