Oakland A’s Triple-A club headed to Las Vegas next season

Tahoe Onstage
Zach Borenstein of the Las Vegas 51s slides safely into first base during a game last season in Reno. Next year, the Oakland A’s top minor league team will move into the brand new Las Vegas Ballpark, which will have a capacity of 10,000.
Tim Parsons / Tahoe Onstage

That’s no UFO, it’s the Oakland A’s top minor league team that will land in the Reno Aces’ division next season.

Oakland’s Triple-A squad is leaving Tennessee after four seasons. It will drop one clever name – Nashville Sounds – for another: Las Vegas 51s. Baseball fans in Reno will now have more opportunities to see the top minor league teams of the two closest big league teams, Oakland and San Francisco.

The Las Vegas 51s are in the Pacific Coast League’s Pacific Northern division, along with the Reno Aces, who are affiliated with the Arizona Diamondbacks, Sacramento (Giants), Tacoma (Mariners) and Fresno (Astros). Las Vegas and Reno will play each other 16 times in 2019.

Las Vegas has had a PCL team for 36 years, and its most recent MLB affiliate was the New York Mets, who are moving their Triple-A team to Syracuse, New York.

Oakland signed a two-year deal with Las Vegas, which will open a new $150 million stadium– Las Vegas Ballpark, located 13 miles from the Strip at Summerlin — in time for the start of the 2019 season.

The announcement was made Monday by MiLB.com.

A two-year agreement is interesting because the Oakland Raiders will move to Las Vegas in 2020 and will play in a new domed facility that’s under construction. Perhaps the city known for gambling is betting on a two-of-a-kind deal with the Raiders and A’s. Earlier this year, Arizona announced it was extending its player development contract with the Reno Aces through 2020.

Not to drone on, but Area 51 is a highly classified remote detachment of Edwards Air Force Base. Aliens? Probably not. Radioactively hot? Perhaps.

— Tim Parsons

ABOUT Tim Parsons

Picture of Tim Parsons
Tim Parsons is the editor of Tahoe Onstage who first moved to Lake Tahoe in 1992. Before starting Tahoe Onstage in 2013, he worked for 29 years at newspapers, including the Tahoe Daily Tribune, Eureka Times-Standard and Contra Costa Times. He was the recipient of the 2011 Keeping the Blues Alive award for Journalism.

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One Response

  1. The new stadium here in Vegas will get a new team and a new name. The 51’s nickname is going away. The new name has not been announced yet

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