Athletics fan and runner
Feb 11, 2008 May 30, 2012 45 2788
I run. I watch the A's. That is what you need to know about me.
website: my bloggy blog.
email:
a fan of
Oakland Athletics
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Eddie Merckx
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My A's hat habit and superstition.
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It just got real.
Reddick has bad facial hair.
Our shiny new outfielder has some bad facial hair going on. At least he doesn't eat 30 pounds of meat a day.
Chili Davis: Hitting instructor for 2012.
It appears that Chili Davis is our new hitting instructor. I remember him warming up with like 6 bats in each hand.
Mark Ellis signs with Dodgers
Good luck Mark. May you play well against the Gnats.
Jeff Sullivan says Ryan Sweeney will be our starting outfield next season?
yes, he said it.
Who wants to bet that Sweeney will have a higher OPS than Ichiro next season?
Jose Reyes to MArlins? Hanley Ramirez to A's!
While this may just be internet rumor fodder it sounds quite fun to think about. If the Marlins acquire Reyes could they move Hanley for maybe some pitching? It would be a buy low on Hanley and thus the Marlins might handle some of the 46.5 Mil remaining on his deal.... maybe....
Who the heck was Phillip Hollingsworth?
I see that we have traded for Kila Ka'aihue. He put up some monster numbers at AAA as an overaged 26 in 2010 (.319 .463 .598 1.060 avg, obp, slg, ops) so he might be worth a small loss gamble. Why not, really.
That said, who the heck was Phillip Hollingsworth? I can't find information on him anywhere. Was he somebody, some franken non prospect, that Billy built based on some left over broken parts (you know, Harden's alarm clock, Mecir's foot, Geren's heart)? There seems to be nothing on him.
Kouzmanoff to Rockies
Good for Mr. Kouzmanoff. He said all the right things when he was sent down, played about as well as he could have potentially played, and now might get another shot.
I don't imagine that we will get anything of value in return for him at this point but I would be interested to see who we get back if it is not for cash considerations.
Good for him. I hope he does well at the big league level against the Giants especially.
Brandon Allen called up
Is it me or is he going to be Chuck Norris, Henry Rollins, and Bruce Lee all rolled into one? No, that would be beneath him.
Coco to DL maybe? Taylor?
So, Coco might be heading to the DL. Coud we see Taylor soon?
Obvously I would not want to wish injury on Crisp but I would love to see Taylor get some big league at bats in the coming weeks.
Ziegler traded to Arizona.
No word on the return.
I will miss Ziegler a lot. He really seemed like a great guy and I always had positive feelings about him as a reliever. His streak in his rookie year will always be remembered.
all about the 1989 A's
a blog just about memories from 1989.
Weeks to be called up
As posted in the roto world blurb on the left Weeks will get called up. I guess this means that Ellis is to go to the DL. Lets hope this is good.
Either Weeks plays well, or others play well, and we rebound for this season or Weeks gets a lot of playing time and we look towards the future. Either can be good.
Dallas Braden talks with Johnny Doskow
A nice little interview. I love his shirt!
Crisp's slam yesterday.
Godzilla arrives before Matsui via Braden.
I want pictures of godzilla!
zack greinke?
Zack Greinke is likely on the market. Should we?
DLD 9/3: Bigfoot is still not confirmed. World cup of baseball!
Bigfoot has not yet been confirmed, but, EL CHUPACABRA LIVES!!!!!!!!!!
Also, starting on September 9th is the baseball world cup.
22 countries are competing to win the world cup with first round games being held in Spain (Barcelona), Czech Republic (Prague), Germany (Regensburg), Croatia (Zagreb) and Sweden (Stockholm).
Of interest to me are team Canada, the US, team Cuba, and team Sweden.
Team Canada has a lot of AA and AAA guys with a few guys who have had cups of coffee in the majors. One of their pitchers is Jamie Richmond who came back with Joey Devine in the Kotsay trade. They play their first round games in Sweden.
Also, team USA and team Canada play a practice game today (and again on the 4th, 5th, and 6th) in North Carolina.
Team USA is made up of largely AA and AAA guys. The A's connection is a coaching staff that includes Jim Bowie, Ernie Young (That triple play might be my favorite memory of the lean 93 to 98 years), and Jamie Quirk. By the way, I remember one of Quirk's only games as an Athletic in 89. I think that he homered in his first A's at bat in Cleveland.
Team Cuba has many international play veterans including catcher Ariel Pestano and outfielder Frederich Cepeda who mashed like hell during the last WBC.
Team Sweden has a player who is from norcal and is a personal friend of mine. He is a duel citizen and I hope that he does well. I will pass on any appropriate reports from the games that he gives me.
The other participating countries are: the Netherlands Antilles (who at times will team up with the Netherlands and at times will play independently), Australia, China, Chinese Taipei, Croatia, Czech Repuplic, Germany, Great Britain, Italy, Japan, Korea, Mexico (there are several big leaguers on Mexico's roster including Ricardo Rincon), the Netherlands, Nicaragua, Puerto Rico (lots of former big league players), South Africa, and Spain.
It is nice to see Giambi contributing to the Rockies' success. I have a lot of Giants fans in the family but I think I want to the Rockies to go to the NLCS and face the Cards.
But seriously, a CHUPACABRA!!!
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March 10th Daily Link Dump: Denorfia!
In case you hadn't seen the news yet our very own Chris Denorfia was a hero last night for team Italy. I was very suprised to see this but happy. Then again, there are quite a few major leaguers on the Italy roster.
I love track bike racing. Where are the local tracks? And check out this guy's PE logo tattoo. That is coolness.
Knitters don't like springing ahead either.
112 Canadians have died in Afghanistan. I don't mean this as a poltical post but I have members of my in laws, my Canadian family, who are in Afghanistan. Every time that I hear a headline on the news about causalities I make sure that it is not somebody that I know. I am generally against war and I heart goes out to family members and soldiers world wide. I want everyone to come home safe.
I am actually going to run in shorts today. It is just above freezing. Yay. Seriously, I miss California, California winters, and running here.
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DLD 4-23:Jackhammer
More speculation about Frank Thomas. The head line of the article:
From a Blue Jay to a Jackhammer . Basically the article states that the Joliet Jackhammers of the Northern League are willing to offer Big Frank $3500 a month. I would play ball for that but I don't have the resume that Thomas does.
The headline makes me fondly remember the large piece of rebar that Big Frank would use in the on deck circle. Some more interesting information is later in the article:
On a more serious note, the Oakland A's are apparently considering going after Thomas and will make a call within 48 hours.
At this point I really want this to happen. The fan in me loves Frank and he was one of my favorite A's of the last run of success (Huddy, Ellis, and Tejada are among the others) and it would just make my fanbone really happy. And, given that he has really been a slow starter the last few years and comeback to do well I think that we would get a much better hitter than he has shown thus far (and certainly a better hitter than his DH replacement Rod Barajas). As has been stated many times his BABIP is in the .150 range, which indicates plain bad luck thus far. His walk rate and HR rate are fine. I say, SIGN BIG FRANK!
Then again, I am not Billy Beane.
OK, running content:
Robert Cheruiyot extremely well in winning Boston on Monday. A huge effort considering that he was basically solo for most of the race that makes he and Bill Rogers 4 time winners. I think that he would have set a course record had their been a stronger field. The Boston pro field has slipped in the last several years and I would love to see Ryan Hall run Boston, maybe he would have a shot at winning. I would have preferred to see Meb win, but I will take hall.
OK, /running content.
ummmm,
I went to the dump with my brother in law last Friday . That was fun.
Dump away.
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April 7, 2008. DLD. Everything Sucks.
I am not typically a negative guy and I am actually fairly optimistic about this year's team but for today, everything sucks. It is my birthday and I am pretty depressed about how things are going. Nobody has even wished me happy birthday yet and given that birthdays at this age are largely about taking stock this is not where I wanted to be at 31.
I have moved back to Canada and this winter has just broken. It has been rough and not only that, I have had major trouble finding a job in my field in a down economy. Given that, I have had to take an entry level job in my field and the prospect of not being able to see the A's at all this year, maybe ever again, is very real. I have not been able to race this year due to not being able to afford to pay for or travel to races. I was going to run this one.
We just had our A's host a three game set in which we did not draw more than 16,384 fans. This of course will ad to the tedious BS that is the wider Bay Area's media support of the Giants, even though we have always had a better product in terms of team success.
In fact, we have only drawn only over 22K once and that was against the Red Sox on opening night with a large number of their fans in the stands. Sigh.......
Its Monday, it is bleak, and this link dump sucks, just like everything else.
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Japan trip; in jeopardy? Red Sox players voted not to go!
It appears that there is a dispute about coaches and other non players getting paid to participate in the Japan Major League opening day festivities. The red sox have already held a one day strike boycotting their last spring training game today.
Here is the article.
Major league baseball is of course capable of retracting promises made to both the A's and BoSox to be a part of this trip. I wonder if the A's will follow suit or be MLB's lackey boys.
It will be interesting to see how this turns out.
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DLD 1/24/08: Chavy to the Angels?
So, I am checking my email and the various websites that I check daily and I decided to check the A's rumors on prosports daily.
AN running club? {OFF TOPIC}
With the little one asleep on my lap and the wife taking a much deserved nap I thought that I would take the time to write this up. Athletics Nation is a large and relatively diverse community so I imagine that there may be a critical mass that would fit the bill for this idea. How many runners are there on athletics nation? Do we have enough to form a running club?
Runsgood and I have exchanged emails about this very idea. He and I both have some college running experience and would love to be a part of forming a running club based in part on being A's fans.
-My basic idea would be to have a running club that would have several cells in various areas in norcal. I am going to be living in the Davis area as of late July / early August so I would be involved in that area. There would be as many cells wherever there would be interest.
-Ideally these cells would meet at least 2 or 3 times a week to conduct an interval training session, a tempo session, and a long run.
-The cells would come together to race periodically as a team. Ideally this race series would be a target for those who wanted to compete in it:
http://www.pausatf.org/data/2006/xcschedule2006.html
Hopefully we could enter a full team in all of the divisions, men's and women's open in addition to men's and women's masters (over 30, a barrier that I will breach within a year.. Sigh...) divisions.
-We could also target less competitive races more geared towards fun.
-This could be a potential schedule of races:
http://www.dipsea.org/index.html
http://www.ffsac.com/template.asp?id=137
http://www.pausatf.org/data/2006/xcschedule2006.html
http://www.runtofeedthehungry.com/home.html
And of course we would want to include the A's yearly fun run.
-The idea of the club would be to have it be open to anyone who wanted to join, be they beginners or established runners. Not everybody would have to race. Different cells could have different social functions and the like.
The main reasons why I would want to get athletics nation involved would be to combine two of my great passions in life (running and baseball, particularly A's baseball), help introduce more people to running, and get a team together to run the Pacific Association cross country race series.
I would hope that we could get some sort of racing shirt together with athletics nation via astropitch.com and get some interest.
We'll, be honest, am I barking up the wrong tree? Should I be content to join one of the many norcal running clubs instead of this? Or would you have interest? Would you know of one who may have interest?
New A's fan finally here
june 1st, 1:13 pm east cost time, 10:13 PST, ABLJG (his initials, he has a long name) came into this world in a heaving mass of 9 pounds and 1 OZ. He is big and hungry.....
YAY!!! He is finally here.
We went into labour the night before and it went well. The actual delivery only lasted 18 minutes. Baby and momma are asleep. I am catching up on several days worth of A's condesed games (KENDALL HIT ONE OUT?!?!?! WTF?!?! YEAH!!).

I wore a Kendall jersey in hopes that my son will like the idea of being a pitcher... Kendall seems to make pitchers happy.
Mom is tired.
Really tired...
Future ace closer (if he wants to be) is roaring and ready to go:
Good times...
need sleep...
Give me of A's fandom and games since (and including) the third game of the KC series and I will fill in AN on the wonders of meconium, functioning on 45 minutes of sleep for days at a time, and the utter joy of seeing your own child open their eyes and look back at you for the first time ever. Well, I don't think I can put that last one into words...
Rene Lachemann threw me a ball (tor series with some pics)
Ok, given that our A's are depleted by injury right now and are struggling I thought that I would post a diary about my time this week attending A's games at the Skydome (errr... Rogers Centre).
Tuesday night:
My wife and I attended taking advantage of the $2 ticket promotion sitting in the upper level.

The view was nice:
I wore the road grey jersey under the hunch that the A's would wear it and they did! Much more importantly my wife and I took our son to his first baseball game. He was very excited to go earlier in the day:
And then at the game he had a great time:
It was great to see the A's win and it was fun giving the drunks in the section that suggested that I sucked nothing to talk about. I also enjoyed seeing Brown step onto the field before the game for the first time as a major leaguer.
On Wednesday I spent the mid morning at the hockey hall of fame with my hockey player friend who has season passes:
He also had free first level tickets to the game that night and that came in handy. We watched BP. We paid particular attention to Thomas chatting it up with swish:
And not to leave the ass fans out I got a shot of J.Brown's jean selling ass before the game:

The poor guy was so nervous that he fell over while running one of his pre game sprints. I do not have a picture of that.
I had joked with Toronto A's fan that since he was missing the game that his favourite pitcher Mr. Cupcakes was going to threw a shutout and that the bug hurt was going to hit a dinger. Well, we got half of that. It was good to see the offence wake up for a game but it was a frustrating game to watch.
Thursday we toronto A's fan was there and we got to admire thomas' size up close:
The roof was closed and I find that the park seems very boring and unballpark like when the roof is closed. The game felt the same, unball game like. Only Swish's two dingers kept it somewhat palatable to watch. It was ugly. It got worse when Thomas pulled up lame halfway between second and third on Kielty's double to left. I had commented before to TAF that they should pinch run for him given that the game was out of hand. It was just ugly on all counts.
The highlight of the game had to be because of Rene Lachemann. All throughout the game he had been coming out every inning and giving a ball to a young person in the stands right behind first base. Normally he had given baseballs to kids under the age of 8 or so. Throughout the game I had been making eye contact with him and giving him a thumbs up sigh. I was wearing a home white A's jersey and I stood out among all of the jays fans in the section. Before the start of the 9th inning he pointed at me and threw me a ball!!!

That was the highlight of the game.
I had fun but I would have loved to see more wins.
Melhuse hit very well but I wonder how well he called games given that there was only one quality start in the three games that he caught in Toronto.
Athletics nation in toronto, May 9th, 10th, & 11th.
Ok, earlier we had this diary:
http://www.athleticsnation.com/story/2006/2/9/145459/1410#27
I have not heard from easy rich dude in awhile but I still think that he is going to be there.
I will be attending all three games. Tommorow night with my wife (who is 8 months pregnant). I will be sitting in the 500 level to take advantage of $2 tuesday. I look forward to it because if there is a cure for a sputtering offense it is John Towers. I will be wearing my grey Oakland Road jersey with the green hat tommorow night if you want to look for me.
Wednesday night I will be there with my friend mike, the hockey player, sitting first base side in the 100 level. Smoking Joe B., AKA, cupcakes is going to help me to teach my hockey loving friend a thing or two about baseball.
On thursday I will be very close to the A's dugout in the 100 level with Toronto A's fan and our friend whom we refer to as an Eddie Gaedel lookalike. Captain Saarloos is going to show the world that he is the best #7 starter in baseball.
Last year I met a few other members of Athletics nation at the games in Skydome. Giggleingone, her sister, and oakland mullosks (with mother in tow) were there and were all very nice to meet. Who is going to be there this year? If you would like to hang out drop me a message at ernestleifjohnson@gmail.com. Thanks and I hope to see fellow athletics nation members at the game.
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