Legendary players such as Joe Morgan, Frank Robinson, Willie Stargell, Curt Flood, and Vada Pinson shown that Oakland could produce excellent baseball even prior to Charlie Finley moving the Athletics from Kansas City to the west in 1968. Now, once the A’s leave for Las Vegas, local boys-made-good Paul Freedman and Bryan Carmel are making sure Oakland will continue to have baseball.
The Oakland Ballers (B’s), the newest professional team in Oakland, were announced in a press conference on Tuesday, right behind the Laney College baseball diamond in downtown Oakland. Freedman is an educational entrepreneur, and Carmel is a producer of films and television shows.
As the first club on the West Coast, the Bruins will compete in the independent Pioneer League, where the majority of the teams are from the Midwest states of Montana, Idaho, Colorado, and Utah
In a video posted to social media, the new team was introduced by founding members and supporters.
The 96-game schedule for the B’s will include 48 home games at Laney, a refurbished stadium with seating for around 3,000 spectators.
“I was in high school here in Oakland in the mid-1990s, and I met Paul Freedman,” Carmel remarked. “Our mutual passion for East Bay sports was what first brought us together.”
“The town has the best sports supporters on the planet, as everyone who follows Oakland sports knows,” he remarked. “Like other Oakland sports fans this summer, we felt like our hearts had been torn apart when we learned that the A’s were probably going to be leaving Oakland and moving to Las Vegas.
“A lot of people have been saying that Oakland can’t finish it,” Carmel remarked. That Oakland might not be a major sports city. Today, we are here to inform you that we do not agree with that idea. We are aware of our worth and identity. A community’s baseball legacy cannot be taken with you when you go. It’s simply not possible.
Teams united the community “with shared joy, shared enthusiasm and shared identity,” according to Freedman.
