Las Vegas Aviators president and COO Don Logan has longed believed that Las Vegas could support a Major League Baseball team.
He witnessed that in 1996 when the then-Oakland Athletics played its first six games of the regular season at Cashman Field due to renovations to the Oakland Coliseum. The upgrades were to help welcome back the Raiders, who returned to Oakland from Los Angeles after the 1994 season.
The A’s played two games against the Toronto Blue Jays and four against the Detroit Tigers in 1996 in Las Vegas.
Thirty years later, the Athletics are playing games in Las Vegas this week. This time, the games come as a brand new ballpark is under construction on the Las Vegas Strip in a city that has transformed into a mecca for sports.
The A’s begin a six-game homestand at Las Vegas Ballpark beginning at 7:05 p.m. Monday with a three-game set against the Milwaukee Brewers. The Colorado Rockies then come to Las Vegas for a three-game series beginning Friday.
Las Vegas is set to welcome the A’s for the 2028 season. While their new ballpark, at the site of the old Tropicana Hotel, is being built, the team is playing its home games in West Sacramento.
“The A’s are the draw,” Logan said. “That’s something that they haven’t experienced. You see it this year in Sacramento, they’re playing better, the attendance is better, the energy is better. You don’t hear all the murmur complaints that was going on last year. The A’s are in a good spot.
“You’re starting to see it more now. Developing the fanbase in Southern Nevada is important, so that’s another element of doing this game here that is important and smart for the A’s to do.”
‘A fun experience’
The A’s were in a time of transition entering the 1996 season with new ownership after Stephen Schott and Ken Hofmann bought the franchise in 1995.
Hall of Fame manager Tony La Russa, who led the A’s to three straight World Series appearances (1988-1990), left to take over the St. Louis Cardinals job after the 1995 season. The A’s were getting more and more distance from their dominance in the late 1980s and early 1990s.
The Raiders returned to Oakland and the Coliseum was under construction after the 1995 NFL season to add more than 20,000 seats, update the locker rooms and add more luxury suites as part of the NFL team’s new agreement with the facility.
By 1996, Cashman Field, which opened in 1983, had already hosted spring training MLB games as part of the annual Big League Weekend event.
Logan and the Las Vegas Stars organization had a good relationship with the A’s, including general manger Sandy Alderson. That led to the A’s reaching out to Las Vegas to find a temporary home for their first six games of the 1996 season.
“There was a personal connection with the A’s, and it made it easy to do,” Logan said.
Former LVCVA head Manny Cortez helped get funding approved to make sure Cashman Field and the city were able to accommodate the A’s, and the visiting Toronto Blue Jays and Detroit Tigers.
“They trusted us,” Logan said. “They knew we did things right because we had done the exhibition games. We knew how to handle taking care of the players, transporting, setting up good hotels, transportation from the hotels to the ballpark, the food, the medical equipment, setting up the locker rooms. They knew we knew how to take care of them.”
The Cashman Convention Center was to be utilized as a training room for players.
“It was a fun experience,” Logan said. “To me, even then, when I saw how the tickets sold so quickly for a lot more money that we were charging, it’s what tipped me off that this was going to be a good major league town. There was just a high level of interest.”
‘Marketed itself’
On the field in 1996, the A’s went 2-4 in their six games in Las Vegas. They lost twice to the Blue Jays and split the four-game series with the Tigers. Geronimo Berroa hit a walk-off home run in a 7-6 win for the A’s against the Tigers in the final game of the six-game Las Vegas series.
“Don Logan and his staff went out of their way because this was an unusual situation to have six major league games here in a Triple-A ballpark,” said Ken Korach, who was in his first season as the A’s radio broadcaster. “They went out of their way to do the best possible job they could to accommodate everyone – fans, players – to turn this into a place that worked out fine for us those six games. I was really impressed by the effort.”
The A’s averaged 9,164 fans for the six games, with three games surpassing the listed capacity of Cashman Field (9,334), despite superstar Mark McGwire not playing with an injury. Logan added that the Blue Jays flew in people from Canada from the games and recalled hearing from people around the city with Detroit roots wanting tickets.
“It marketed itself,” Logan said. “It was a really fun time. The weather was great, the games were good. It proved to me again Major League Baseball is going to work here.”
Korach, who has lived in Henderson since 1992, was the Stars’ full-time radio announcer from 1989-1991 and worked in a part-time role with the team the next four years before getting the A’s job.
During Korach’s time broadcasting the Stars, he said he became are of how much baseball meant to Las Vegas.
“I always felt that Vegas could support a Major League Baseball team, but my feeling was not now (then in 1996),” Korach said. “But now is now. We’ve come a long way as a community. Thirty years, that’s a long time ago. The city has grown from 1996 to 2026.”
‘A’s are the draw’
Logan said then the LVCVA hired an outside firm to look at the viability of the A’s moving to Las Vegas during that time period, which he added was a mistake with the firm not fully understanding the Las Vegas market.
“There was interest. There was a thought of doing it then,” Logan said. “The piece of it that didn’t get understood is the market was growing and has continued to grow. But the amount of interest from the visiting team’s fans, which is really what’s great for Vegas because we’re a tourism-driven economy.
“It’s just another reason to come here. You go to Raiders games, Knights games, there’s thousands and thousands of people because of that. Same thing’s going to happen when the A’s are here.”
Thirty years later, the A’s are back in Las Vegas for regular-season games.
“(The six-game series) is a great precursor to their move here in 2028,” Logan said. “They’re playing better. Pretty much everybody on that team but for a couple guys played here for (the Aviators, the A’s Triple-A affiliate), so it‘s a neat thing for the fans to see the progression to the big leagues.
“There’s an excitement about it. People are fired up.”
Contact Alex Wright at awright@reviewjournal.com. Follow @AlexWright1028 on X.