The Sacramento River Cats is a minor league baseball team based in Sacramento, California. The team plays in the Pacific Coast League (PCL) and is the Triple-A affiliate of Major League Baseball's Oakland Athletics.
The River Cats play at Raley Field, located in West Sacramento. The team began play in 1978 as the Vancouver Canadians, and played their home games at Nat Bailey Stadium until the 1999 season. Following that season, in which they won the Triple-A World Series, the team was purchased by a group led by Art Savage and moved to West Sacramento for the 2000 season. Savage was the majority owner of the team until his death on November 21, 2009 at age 58. His widow, Susan Savage, became majority owner upon her husband's death.
Sacramento has led all of minor league baseball in attendance during each of its first eight seasons at Raley Field. The team averaged approximately 10,000 fans per game during the 2007 regular season, for a total attendance figure of 710,235.
The PCL franchise in Sacramento for many years was the Sacramento Solons, a charter member of the PCL which was founded in 1903. Three different versions of the Solons represented California's capital city in 1903, 1905, from 1909 through 1914, from 1918 through 1960, and from 1974 through 1976. Sacramento is the only charter city that still hosts a PCL team.
Read more about Sacramento River Cats: Attendance, Playoff History, Roster, Players, Notable Former River Cats Currently in The Major Leagues
Famous quotes containing the words river and/or cats:
“If a walker is indeed an individualist there is nowhere he can’t go at dawn and not many places he can’t go at noon. But just as it demeans life to live alongside a great river you can no longer swim in or drink from, to be crowded into safer areas and hours takes much of the gloss off walking—one sport you shouldn’t have to reserve a time and a court for.”
—Edward Hoagland (b. 1932)
“You may say a cat uses good grammar. Well, a cat does—but you let a cat get excited once; you let a cat get to pulling fur with another cat on a shed, nights, and you’ll hear grammar that will give you the lockjaw. Ignorant people think it’s the noise which fighting cats make that is so aggravating, but it ain’t so; it’s the sickening grammar they use.”
—Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835–1910)