By Rory Carroll
(Reuters) – Oakland Athletics owner John Fisher on Monday apologized to fans for the team’s upcoming move to Las Vegas, saying the relocation was due to the failure to come to an agreement on building a new stadium in the San Francisco Bay Area.
The A’s, who have called Oakland home since 1968, will play their final home game at the Oakland Coliseum on Sept. 26 and their last game as the Oakland A’s three days later in Seattle.
“I know there is great disappointment, even bitterness,” Fisher said in a letter to fans.
“Though I wish I could speak to each one of you individually, I can tell you this from the heart: we tried. Staying in Oakland was our goal, it was our mission, and we failed to achieve it. And for that I am genuinely sorry.”
Fisher said he was unable to strike a deal with city officials to build a new stadium in Oakland as the much-maligned Coliseum developed a widely held reputation as MLB’s worst ballpark.
“When Lew Wolff and I bought the team in 2005, our dream was to win world championships and build a new ballpark in Oakland,” he said.
“Over the next 18 years, we did our very best to make that happen. We proposed and pursued five different locations in the Bay Area. And despite mutual and ongoing efforts to get a deal done for the Howard Terminal project, we came up short.”
The team, whose move to Las Vegas was approved by MLB owners late last year, will see its lease with the Oakland Coliseum expire at the end of the year.
The A’s will play their next three seasons at Sutter Health Park in Sacramento while their $1.5 billion stadium on the Las Vegas Strip is being built.
The A’s future home will be a 33,000-capacity ballpark with views of the city’s skyline, with play there expected to start in 2028.
The A’s played in Philadelphia from 1901-54, then moved to Kansas City for 13 seasons before going to California in 1968.
The team won four World Series titles, six pennants, 17 division titles and produced seven Hall of Famers during its 57 years in Oakland.
(Reporting by Rory Carroll in Los Angeles; Editing by Shri Navaratnam)
