This is what everyone has been waiting for. Or at least, it’s what Athletics owner John Fisher was selling last year when he announced he was moving his team to a minor league ballpark in Sacramento until their permanent home in Las Vegas was built.
“We’re excited to be here for the next three years playing in this beautiful ballpark, but also being able to watch some of the best players in baseball, whether they be Athletics players or Aaron Judge and others launch home runs out of this very intimate, the most intimate ballpark in all of Major League Baseball, for the next three years,” he said at a press conference announcing the move.
The comments, highlighting Judge by name and essentially predicting his own pitchers would get hit hard, drew instant backlash from the team’s remaining fans and around baseball.
Now, with Judge and the New York Yankees opening a three-game series against the A’s at Sacramento’s Sutter Health Park, Fisher can watch it play out in real time.
And, let’s be honest, the rest of us are waiting to see if Judge can really send one (or more) out of the ballpark.
He’s certainly primed to.
Judge enters the series leading Major League Baseball with a .400 batting average, 12 home runs, 34 RBIs, and a 1.241 OPS. His most recent homer tied him for the MLB lead, continuing a stretch that has made him the early front-runner for AL MVP.
And, it’s a perfect setting for a strong series.
The 33-year-old is back in his home state of California, and Sacramento is actually closer to his hometown of Linden than the Oakland Coliseum was. He told the San Francisco Standard’s John Shea that he went to games at this ballpark as a kid and even played here during college.
Now, he returns to Sutter Health Park as one of the best hitters of his generation, with a chance to make a big splash and Fisher look like the ultimate salesman.
This article first appeared on Athlon Sports and was syndicated with permission.
