Giants welcome spurned A's fans as rivalry trades Bay Bridge for ‘Highway 80'

Hanging in the merchandise shops scattered around Oracle Park is a new T-shirt designed for the San Francisco Giants' weekend series against the Athletics.
Merging orange and black with green and gold, a familiar blend for local baseball fans, the shirt depicts a span of the Bay Bridge with 'Highway 80' scrawled across the front in bold letters. With the Athletics' move to Sacramento, it's the Giants' acknowledgement of a local rivalry now separated by an extra 80 miles west down Interstate 80 (where did Highway 80 come from?).
Major League Baseball deemed it 'Rivalry Week' across baseball, but this quasi-local affair shines a light on the awkward transition the once storied Bay Bridge rivalry has made.
Despite the 'Highway 80' shirts and the patch on the A's jerseys, the A's won't officially claim Sacramento their home as they pursue an uncertain future in Las Vegas. It's created a behemoth of an opportunity for the Giants in Northern California as they're in position to claim wayward East Bay fans who've lost their local team.
It's fair to wonder if the Giants had those lost A's fans in mind when the organization hung a sprawling banner across the right-field bleachers. The sign had San Francisco's 415 area code and the East Bay's 510 area code with a massive heart connecting the two.
The sign was a message that 'all baseball fans are welcome to the park, but especially this weekend those from the 510. (The) East Bay,' the Giants said in a statement. The Giants haven't raised a banner for any other team's arrival.
The crowd for Friday's series opener was a rich blend of green and orange, but not just for the rivalry. Some A's fans in attendance, including Alameda's Joseph Hoyt, came to the game because it was one of few opportunities to watch his favorite team play close to home.
To him, the 'Highway 80' series served as a reminder of the role the Giants played in the A's departure from Oakland. He's acutely aware that it was a unanimous vote among MLB owners to let John Fisher's A's move out of the Town.
'It's really interesting, because it feels like the Giants really pushed the A's out of town,' Hoyt said. 'Their ownership voted for them to leave. And it's just unfortunate that the A's ownership group decided to take this path, because there are lots of different options. If John Fisher didn't want to build in Oakland, he could have sold to Joe Lacob or anyone else and they would have done the same thing. So I'm disappointed overall. But at the same time, I'm happy to be here and root for my team. But it's totally bittersweet.'
Since the A's moved out of the Coliseum, where Hoyt grew up playing catch in the parking lots outside before catching a game, he's become more of an Arizona Diamondbacks fan. Because his grandparents are huge Giants fans, Hoyt came to a fair amount of games in San Francisco – he saw Barry Bonds hit home runs No. 72 and 73 in 2001. But he doesn't anticipate more frequent visits to watch the Giants.
'You would think I would naturally come over to the Giants, but I don't have that kind of emotional attachment to the Giants even though I'm from here,' he said. 'I'm following the A's, but it doesn't feel as important. I know the Diamondbacks are going to play the A's in a few weeks. I'm rooting for the Diamondbacks because they're in a playoff hunt and I'm not sure the A's will do anything.'
For those involved on the field, the local rivalry feels very much the same – with a few notable differences. The A's, traveling back from a series against the Los Angeles Dodgers, will stay at a hotel instead of in their Bay Area homes – as was normal for the A's and Giants during the Bay Bridge Series in previous years.
Giants manager Bob Melvin, who managed the A's for more than a decade and grew up attending concerts at the Coliseum, has previously expressed his sadness that baseball is no longer at the Coliseum. But he said the baseball rivalry felt just as strong despite the A's playing ball at Sutter Health Park.
'I think it's going to be the same energy here as across the Bay and up the road a little bit,' Melvin said. 'It's a much better team, they're playing good baseball, and it's always electric when the A's play the Giants. So it's not going to be any different for me.'
The crowd might've had the same rivalry feel, but the dynamic is undeniably different.
'It does (feel different). I thought I would have an easier commute today than I've had, but the bridge traffic was terrible,' A's general manager David Forst said. 'It's different. A's and Giants will be a rivalry for a while, there's always generations of fans who will see A's and Giants and think of it the same way, but it's definitely different. We're not right across the bay.'
The strangeness could intensify when the Giants visit for the second part of the season series at Sutter Health Park over Fourth of July weekend. Not just because of how small the Sacramento ballpark plays, but because the A's temporary home doubles as the home of the Giants' Triple-A River Cats.

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