Oakland Ballers Announce Home Opener

Last week the Oakland Ballers, or Oakland B's, announced that they would be Oakland's new baseball team with the A's likely headed to Las Vegas. The B's are a brand new Pioneer League team that will play their inaugural season in 2024. We now know when that'll begin.

The Ballers will be making their Oakland debut on Tuesday, June 4^th. Included in the schedule announcement was another bit of intrigue: That home opener will be played against a yet-to-be-announced expansion team also located in Northern California. Oakland will be playing 30 games against this unnamed team over the course of the 2024 season, likely for travel purposes. 

The rest of the league is comprised of two teams from Colorado, two from Idaho, and two from Montana. It's just easier on travel expenses to have the two teams in a state play each other an ungodly number of times. Further news on tickets and promotions will be revealed at a later date, but the co-founders said in a Zoom interview last week that we should start seeing some player announcements for the B's in the near future as well. 

While the home opener is on June 4^th, the season opener actually comes on the road on May 21st against the Glacier Range Riders, who finished the 2023 season 54-42. That will be a six game series to start the season, similar to how series work in the minor leagues with the teams having nearly every Monday off. 

After that trip to Montana, the Ballers travel to Colorado to play the Rocky Mountain Vibes, who finished 48-47 in 2023. Last season the Vibes had 10-year MLB veteran catcher Ryan Lavarnway on their roster. He played six games for the A's in 2017. 

The B's will be playing 96 games in total, split into two 48 game halves. The top two teams in each half will make the playoffs at the end of the season. The playoffs will be two rounds, each consisting of a three-game series. 

Ballers hats are still available for pre-order through Oaklandish.