Ice hockey in Las Vegas was an afterthought at best before the Golden Knights arrived. Eight successful seasons and one Stanley Cup later, Vegas is an enthusiastic hockey town where you see locals wearing VGK gear every day and youth participation in the sport surging.
In this instance, the chicken made way for the egg as Las Vegas rapidly evolved into a professional sports mecca. The next team and game looking for a new beginning in this city will have a much more established foundation on which to build.
Vegas hits the big leagues once again when the storied Athletics, currently fielding a last-place team out of Sacramento’s minor league Sutter Health Park, arrive at their $2 billion Strip stadium that broke ground on June 23 and is expected to open in 2028. While the A’s will be hoping for more success on the field in their new home, the deeply entrenched legacy of America’s pastime in Las Vegas will definitely benefit the franchise.
But how might our own storied local baseball culture shift with the A’s in town? To find out, the Weekly spoke with three local stalwarts who have played a major role in developing that sports culture and current and future Hall of Famers like all-universe pitcher Greg Maddux and perennial superstar outfielder Bryce Harper.
Their recollections paint a vivid picture of Vegas’ historic ties to the game, as well as how that legacy will intersect with our Major League future.
A Battle Born pipeline
With top-shelf professional exports like Maddux and Harper—plus other notable MLB stars like Chicago Cubs curse-breaker and 2016 MVP Kris Bryant, Nevada prep home-run king Joey Gallo and 2012 World Series champion pitcher Barry Zito—Las Vegas has undeniably produced an outsized number of franchise-altering ballplayers.
Today, nine active MLB players hail from Southern Nevada, with roughly the same number striving to be called up from the minors. The latest draftee is Tate Southisene, a recent state champion shortstop from Basic Academy who went 22nd overall to the Atlanta Braves this summer.
Officials help break ground for the new Athletics ballpark on the Las Vegas Strip on June 23, 2025.
As president and COO of Las Vegas’ minor league team the Aviators, Don Logan has seen this pipeline develop firsthand for decades.
“You’ll get a very baseball-biased opinion from me, but I think it’s founded in fact,” Logan says. “And the fact is that a disproportionate number of baseball players have come out of Southern Nevada.”
Logan started his career with the team as an executive in 1984 and helped guide the roster to two Pacific Coast League titles in 1986 and 1988. He rose to general manager in 1991 before he was again promoted to president in 2000.
The team was known as the Stars back then, but Logan’s leadership coincided with two name changes as the team adopted the 51s moniker in 2001, and then became the Aviators in 2019 when the team moved from Downtown’s Cashman Field to the $150 million Las Vegas Ballpark in Summerlin. That was also the year when the Aviators became the Athletics’ top minor league affiliate.
“Major league sports were inevitably going to come to the Valley. The market grew so much, and having the MLB here is the culminating element,” Logan says. “Having had some role in developing us as a baseball market, it was gratifying. It made all those long, hot nights at Cashman Field worthwhile.”
Sun, sand and skipper savants
As a seasoned minor league executive, Logan is no stranger to the revolving door of players who regularly funnel in and out of Summerlin with dreams of someday making The Show. Talent is frequently called up and sent down to lower affiliate teams at the drop of a cap or routine fly ball, but Las Vegas’ baseball reputation ultimately lies in homegrown talent.
When it comes to developing youth players, former high school coach Rodger Fairless sits far ahead of the pack. In a 19-year coaching career at three schools, Fairless fielded an unmatched 12 state championship teams—including six consecutive with Green Valley High School from 1993 to 1998. He retired at the top after that last title, with future MLB veterans like Maddux, Mike Morgan and Tyler Houston helping him amass a stunning 493-80 career record.
Fairless’ aura still looms over the Valley sandlot scene decades later, thanks to an extensive coaching tree made up of former players like NCAA skipper Steve Rodriguez and Las Vegas High School coach Sam Thomas.
Thomas played for Fairless’ Valley High teams in the early 1980s, where he caught pitches from Maddux himself. After an injury hindered his own playing career, Thomas got his coaching start as an assistant under Fairless in 1998.
“I have a mental book of all the coaches I’ve ever had or known, and Fairless probably has 80 out of 100 chapters,” Thomas says, adding that the region was a hotbed of talent during his playing days. “The competitiveness was unreal, and anybody that played for Fairless knows it was a winning and learning culture that translated to the next level better than any I’ve ever seen.”
Thomas—who recently surpassed his own 500 career win threshold—is one of many who have carried that torch since Fairless stepped aside. But he’s not much for talking about being teammates with Maddux, a future four-time Cy Young winner who still lives here today.
“Greg is Greg. He’s arguably one of the best pitchers in the history of the game. I was just the guy who caught his pitches his junior year,” he explains. “It usually gets brought up, but I don’t feel a need to brag about it.”
Thomas’ tone shifts when it comes to coaching a young Bryce Harper—the Maddux to his Fairless—at LVHS in 2008 and 2009. While Maddux grew up in a military family that eventually settled here during his formative years, Harper is inarguably the greatest player born on Nevada soil.
“His family lived two blocks away from the school, and when I first saw him play in eighth grade, it was like winning the lottery,” Thomas says. “I’ve yet to find another player with his work ethic, but as talented as he was, people also don’t understand that he was one of the best teammates you could ever have.”
Now a 14-year MLB veteran, two-time National League MVP and eight-time All-Star, Harper was one of the first sporting prodigies to debut during the height of the internet. For Thomas, that by itself was enough to inspire countless youth players in the area to pick up a glove.
“There were a so many pressures that Bryce had to deal with in a time where social media was getting big. Sports Illustrated came out and called him the LeBron of baseball, and he was immediately under a microscope,” Thomas says. “For him to be the player that he is today, after going through all of that, is just a credit to him and his family. To me, that puts him above everybody else.”
A full count
College of Southern Nevada head coach Nick Garritano is another important link between Vegas’ existing baseball legacy and what it could become as an MLB town.
A former infielder on Chaparral High School’s 1991 state championship squad, Garritano opted to play football at UNLV before taking up his first head coaching gig as Fairless’ replacement at Green Valley in 1999. He led the Gators to back-to-back state titles in 2001 and 2002 before accepting the same role at CSN in 2010.
Had he made the move one year earlier, he would have also coached Harper for a season before the teenage phenom became the first overall pick in the 2010 MLB Draft.
Athletics ballpark rendering
“I can tell you right now that Harper’s name comes up in many of our recruiting conversations,” Garritano says. “These kids were four or five years old when he started and have always known him as one of the faces of baseball. Some parents don’t realize a [junior college] kid could do that. Well, it’s happened before here at CSN.”
Garritano’s Coyote teams have featured nearly 30 players who were later drafted by MLB clubs. They’ve consistently been one of the top junior college programs in the nation, including a fifth place finish at the 2024 NJCAA World Series.
Though he already sources three quarters of an average roster from Nevada-born players, Garritano expects to see an even larger proportion of local talent sprout up during the A’s tenure.
“Our Valley has grown to close to three million people. That’s already so many more high school baseball players out there than there ever were,” he says. “I think the A’s influence will only entice even more young kids into playing, because they’re going to see the faces of the game come in and out of town regularly.”
But with the Aviators already providing what Logan calls “affordable, family entertainment”—plus the presence of the Golden Knights, Raiders and Aces—A’s owner John Fisher will have to stick the landing if he hopes to draw locals to the Strip for 81 home games per season.
“I don’t think it’s going to be long before we get an NBA team as well, but I still think the A’s are going to be an outstanding move,” Garritano predicts. “You’ve got to make it affordable and friendly for the local fans—and you’ve got to win.”
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