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Jacob Wilson throws to first after getting a force out at second base against the Giants during on July 04, 2025.
On Friday September 12, 2025, the San Francisco Giants announced a historic MLB exhibition series that will take place on March 23 and 24 at Oracle Park against Mexican League team Sultanes De Monterrey.
The Giants also announced that they will debut a new “Gigantes” jersey during the series.
Many Giants fans are extremely excited about this celebration of Latino culture and international baseball. Mexican league baseball is dynamic and exciting and definitely deserves more love from American fans.
But one thing that no one is talking about is the fact that the exhibition is replacing the former “Battle of the Bay” exhibition series that traditionally took place at Oracle Park and the Oakland Coliseum. They played the Athletics in the Bay Area to finish off Spring Training for over 20 years.
This season, in 2025, the Giants hosted the Detroit Tigers instead of the Athletics, who now play in Sacramento. They did visit Sacramento during the Spring, but to take on their AAA affiliate, the Sacramento River Cats.
The Athletics played all of their spring games in Arizona in 2025, electing not to have a Spring Training game in California.
It seems like it would be convenient for these two teams to continue finishing out the spring with exhibition games against each other, at least while the A’s are in Sacramento. But instead, as soon as the A’s left Oakland, the two teams moved on from the series.
After two seasons in a row with no Northern California exhibition series, it seems safe to say that tradition is dead.
Giants 2025 Behavior Towards A’s Fans Receives Backlash
The Giants are set to play two series versus the Athletics in 2026, so it’s not like these two teams will never see each other again.
But it seems like the Giants don’t exactly know how to behave towards the A’s, and A’s fans.
When the Giants welcomed the A’s back to Oracle Park for a series spanning May 16-18, 2025 for the first time since they moved to Sacramento, they seemed to try to woo former diehard Oakland A’s fans over to the Orange and Black, while taking subtle shots at the A’s organization.
On August 16, the Giants publicly thanked the Oakland Ballers of the Pioneer league for “keeping Oakland Baseball alive.”
They hosted Oakland rappers, tried to rebrand the rivalry to the “Highway 80 series”, and most controversially, played the A’s former signature win song “Celebration” by Kool & The Gang, which was a fixture after victories in Oakland and is not played in Sacramento.
Following the playing of the traditional “I Left My Heart in San Francisco”, the #SFGiants troll the A’s by playing “Celebration” after completing the weekend sweep. 🧹🧹🧹 pic.twitter.com/MQ2AJxJBn6
— Loreen & Bryan 🥌⚾️ (@makiwolf) May 18, 2025
Their attempts to create a welcoming space for Oakland A’s fans and act like they somehow sided with Oakland fans over the Athletics organization ultimately backfired, according to SFGate’s A’s fan interviews back in May, because it’s impossible to take the moral high ground over an organization whose move to Las Vegas the Giants ultimately voted in favor of.
So, is the Giants pivot away from Spring Training games against the A’s an attempt to avoid the awkwardness, or a continued attempt to make it seem like the Giants are ghosting the A’s because they disapprove of them?
That may never be clear. But what is clear is that the Giants and A’s have killed, probably forever, one of the few chances that the remaining Oakland A’s fans will have to see their team play close to home.
The Sultanes de Monterrey Intruige
The Giants’ series against Sultannes De Monterrey will take place on the heels of the 2026 World Baseball Classic, which is set to take place March 5-17, 2026.
So when the Sultanes come to San Francisco, excitement about international baseball will still be very high. Gotta give the Giants credit for their timing here.
The Sultanes de Monterrey also boast several former MLB players on their 2025 roster, including former Giants infielder Ramiro Pena.
Other players with Big League experience include Raimel Tapia, Leonys Martin, Justus Sheffield and Esteban Quiroz.
Giants fans, are you excited to see the Sultanes de Monterrey come to town? How do you feel about the exhibition series against the A’s going away?
Ethan Inman is a sports journalist covering the San Francisco 49ers, San Francisco Giants and Las Vegas Raiders for heavy.com. He also co-hosts a college football podcast for The Voice of College Football, and writes about the NBA and MLB. He has previously covered the USC Trojans, the NHL, college baseball, and the intersection of sports and popular culture for other publications. He is based in the greater Los Angeles area. More about Ethan Inman
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