Yankee Stadium should be rocking Friday when the Bronx Bombers start a three-game series with the Oakland A’s.
For the first time since 2019, the Yankees will be allowed to host a capacity crowd. And the A’s, who have not played before a full house all season, say they can’t wait.
“Just overall, it’s always good to have a packed house,” A’s left-hander Cole Irvin said. “We’re going to go to New York with a little something to gain, just by the fans being there.”
Earlier this week, the Yankees announced that they had received approval from the state, city, and Major League Baseball to return to normal capacity. Ticketholders no longer need to provide proof of a negative COVID-19 test or full vaccination to go to games.
The Yankees made the announcement just hours after New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said he was lifting most COVID restrictions with the vaccination rate among adults reaching 70 percent across the state.
The A’s are expected to start right-hander James Kaprielian on Friday as they look to extend their win streak to seven games. It’ll be Oakland’s first series at Yankee Stadium since Aug. 30-Sept. 1, 2019, when the average announced attendance was just under 45,000 per game.
“Going into New York, it’s a lot of fun. We haven’t been there in a while,” A’s manager Bob Melvin said. “It’s getting back to the norm as far as life goes, and that can be a pretty rowdy place that’s a lot of fun to play in.”
The largest crowds the A’s have played before this year were in Houston from April 8-10 and Denver for a three-game set with the Colorado Rockies earlier this month.
Over 21,000 fans attended each of the three A’s-Astros games as Minute Maid Park operated at 50 percent capacity, and an average of about 26,000 fans attended the three games at Coors Field, which operated at 70 percent capacity.
“Even to an extent this year with limited capacities, it didn’t feel the same,” Melvin said. “Everybody’s looking forward to having full capacity and playing the game for the fans with the inspiration of them like we normally do.”
It’s a growing trend around the big leagues as local governments loosen restrictions after a 2020 regular season in which no fans were allowed to attend games.
As of this week, more than half of MLB’s 30 teams had already started to host capacity crowds or had announced plans to do so in the coming days and weeks. Just this month, Baltimore, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Detroit, Washington, Philadelphia, St. Louis, and the Chicago Cubs started to allow capacity crowds.
The Rangers, who the A’s play next week at Globe Life Field in Arlington, were the only MLB team to start the season at 100 percent capacity. The week before, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott – to the dismay of President Joe Biden and health experts at the time — said he was rescinding the state’s mask mandate and opening Texas “100%.”
So far, the Rangers have a combined attendance of 844,727, tops among all big-league clubs.
When the A’s start a three-game series in San Francisco on June 25, it’ll mark the first time since Sept 29, 2019 – Bruce Bochy’s last game as the Giants’ manager – that every seat at Oracle Park will be available for purchase. It should be an intriguing interleague series between two of baseball’s best teams.
“That’s what these guys play for and that’s what was really missed last year, is some of the places that you go that you certainly don’t have to get up for,” Melvin said. “It was a completely different story (last season).”
The A’s will be allowed to sell every seat they can when they return to the Coliseum on June 29 for the start of a three-game series with the Rangers. They then host the Boston Red Sox for three games from July 2-4, with a fireworks night set for July 2.
“It’s exciting,” Irvin said. “We’re looking forward to coming back home and having 100 percent.”
The Associated Press contributed to this story.
