Keown: The A's first game in Vegas was a travesty ...
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- The A's first unofficial game at Las Vegas Stadium produced 11 home runs and 29 runs, with popups vanishing into the night wind and ground balls bounding over infielders' heads off the unpredictable infield.
- Brewers starter Kyle Harrison, entering as one of baseball's top starters, was torched for eight earned runs in 2⅓ innings, sending his ERA from 1.57 to 2.72.
- A's owner John Fisher, who kept a private persona in Oakland, was on the field shaking hands, sang the national anthem (yelling "Knights" at the cue), and watched from the last left-field-line suite with executives and investors.
- The $2 billion new ballpark at Tropicana Avenue and Las Vegas Boulevard, toured by the team Tuesday, will seat 30,000 with 3,000 standing-room — the smallest permanent MLB park — and feature cable-net glass and a player-performance center with three hydro pools.
- Temperatures for the upcoming three-game series against the Colorado Rockies are forecast at 107°F Friday, 108°F Saturday and 109°F Sunday, with Sunday a day game.
- Shortstop Alika Williams compared the Las Vegas infield to pavement: "Not much," and A's rookie Gage Jump called the unfinished ballpark "a lot cooler than I could have pictured" after his tour.
- The pregame spectacle included a first pitch from Backstreet Boy Nick Carter, a fighter jet flyover, boxing ring announcer Bruce Buffer reading the lineup, and 60 boxes of VEGAS No. 28 T-shirts stacked on the concourse.
Why it matters: With a 109°F forecast for Sunday's Rockies game and a wind-blown infield that turned an MLB game into 29-run chaos, the A's trial run is stress-testing whether Las Vegas can host summer baseball — a live issue for the $2 billion stadium Fisher is selling to investors ahead of the targeted 2028 opening. A's manager Mark Kotsay himself acknowledged the park plays as an offensive environment, an inconvenient selling point for a franchise that lost most of its Oakland fanbase in the move.
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