Even if the Oakland Athletics leave for Las Vegas, the city will still have a professional baseball team to support.

A consortium of dozens of Oakland-area fans, led by a pair of high school friends, banded together to start the Oakland Ballers -- known as the B's -- who plan to play in the independent Pioneer League starting this summer wearing the same green and gold as the A's.

The team's co-founders, Paul Freedman and Bryan Carmel, said they've hired former Seattle Mariners manager Don Wakamatsu, who went to high school in nearby Hayward, California, as executive vice president of baseball operations.

The A's will play at Oakland Coliseum, their dilapidated home, for the 2024 season, but plans beyond that are unclear until their new stadium in Las Vegas opens for the 2028 season.