One month into the 2025 MLB season, one of the more bizarre subplots has emerged in the form of the nomadic nature of the Athletics.
The team no longer plays in Oakland, but is still nearly three full seasons away from moving to Las Vegas. But despite being one month into its three-year stint in California’s capital city, the team — which dons Las Vegas patches on its jersey sleeves — insists that it doesn’t want to be know as he “Sacramento Athletics” or the “Las Vegas Athletics,” preferring instead to merely be known as the “Athletics” for the next three years.
Ahead of Tuesday night’s matchup between the Texas Rangers and Athletics in Sacramento, the visiting team’s broadcast booth made note of the home team’s unique situation. Setting up the start of the game, Rangers Sports Network’s Dave Raymond didn’t refer to the A’s as hailing from Oakland, Sacramento or Las Vegas. Rather, he called it like he saw it.
“There you go, Tower Bridge over the top of the Sacramento River,” Raymond said as he narrated a drone shot making its way through the city. “Then you come across here to West Sacramento, now home of the Athletics — frankly, the homeless Athletics. We don’t have anything other than their Athletics moniker to put on them.”
While Sacramento might technically be the A’s home, is that really the case if the franchise doesn’t claim the city? And if not, then who do the A’s belong to? They no longer play in Oakland and they’re still more than a quarter of a decade away away from moving to Sin City.
In the meantime, the Athletics are just the Athletics, whether you want to call them “homeless” (or “unhoused”) or not. In any event, this isn’t the first piece of content the franchise’s strange situation has inspired, nor will it likely be the last.