SAN FRANCISCO (KRON) — Bay Area baseball fans and ballpark workers are breathing a sigh of relief now that the Major League Baseball lockout has ended.
This week, the league and the player’s association reached a collective bargaining agreement.
The deal guarantees a full regular season.
KRON4 spoke with employees who can now focus on the season rather then looking for another job.
MLB players were set to lose a lot of money if the owner’s lockout was prolonged.
But really, it was the ballpark workers who would have felt the pinch, economically and emotionally.
“When I didn’t have it during COVID, it definitely would have hurt,” said A’s vendor Hal Gordon.
Fortunately, vendors like Gordon won’t lose the work they covet like they did during the pandemic-shortened 2020 season.
Instead, Gordon, a PhD candidate at UC Berkeley, will return to the Oakland Coliseum when the regular season starts next month.
That’s where he has been affectionately known as hal “The hot dog guy” since 2017.
“When you’re a PhD economics student, you don’t often get a chance to get in front of a big group of people and make them smile,” Gordon said. “So, that’s something that I really enjoy, and it would have been a real shame for that to have gone away.”
Carmen Sandoval has been a maintenance worker at the Coliseum for 22 years.
KRON4 with her last week, when the league cancelled the first two series of the season, and she feared she would struggle paying her bills.
But now, that burden is off her plate.
“I was very, very worried about that. Less money, and everything is going up and the prices. But now, I’m so happy,” Sandoval said.
The Oakland Athletics start their season with a 10-game road trip, and will host their home opener against the Baltimore Orioles April 18.
“It’s exciting, because the fans can enjoy the whole season too,” Sandoval said.
“Being ‘hal the hot dog guy’ for the A’s is really a privileged job, and I will do it as long as I can,” Gordon said.
The San Francisco Giants open their season at home versus the Miami Marlins on April 8.