Sports

A’s Offer Free Admission To Honor Stadium’s 50th Anniversary

Photo: Kelley L Cox-USA TODAY Sports

Mike Brest Reporter
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To celebrate the Oakland Athletics stadium’s 50th anniversary, the club offered free admission to their game against the White Sox on Tuesday night.

According to ESPN, the game had 46,028 fans in attendance, which is remarkably higher than the previous night’s game, which only had 7,479 people there.

Players from Athletics and the White Sox wore 1968 replica uniforms.

A’s manager Bob Melvin told ESPN after the game, “It looked like the place was packed. That was the objective, and I really wanted to put on a good show for them and our guys did right away. It was great to score some runs early on and get the crowd into it. When they get into it they have a lot of fun.”

Thirty-nine years ago Tuesday also marked the A’s lowest attended game ever. The Mercury News said they sold 653 tickets to that game, but only about 250 people were actually in attendance for the game. Oakland beat the Seattle Mariners that night – April 17, 1979.

In Oakland’s 10 home games in 2018, they have an average attendance of 17,520, which ranks 25th out of the 30 Major League Baseball teams. Before this game, their average attendance was only 14,353, which was only ahead of the Pittsburgh Pirates and Miami Marlins.

A’s pitcher Trevor Cahill took the mound as their starter Tuesday, making his first start in an A’s uniform since his previous tenure with the team back in 2011. He pitched seven scoreless innings, and they won 10-2 to pull within two games of .500.