Unfortunately there was no game thread for the Tigers vs. Rangers.

Fortunately, the Tigers won anyway.

Justin Verlander is a man made of iron, although he didn't have his best stuff.  As previously noted, C. J. Wilson is a whiny little douche.

Also, one of the ESPN radio announcers in the ninth inning said something like: "Texas does not want this to go to Game 7. Fister, not again.  Not after the movement he had on them last time."

We now take you to gamethreading for the Beer League match.  Matt Holliday (puke) has caused the score to become 1 to nothing.  

Do you have an idea for how the 6,000 who will be there should show the love to our friend from Texas? Here's a thread for that.

Continue reading this post »

Congratulations to Amanda McCartthy and the rest of the A's wives and girlfriends for raising $21K+ for ALS with the Mystery Ball sale yesterday!

Did you buy one or more of the Mystery Balls yesterday, but didn't get one of your favorite players?  Do you have other A's memorabilia sitting around that you don't particularly cherish?  Or do you have some additional testicle-related puns that you didn't get a chance to use in any of the previous threads referring to Mystery Balls? Well, here's your chance to share them with your AN brothers and sisters. 

Continue reading this post »

Berry Jo posted a great diary about the fine charitable efforts being organized by the A's wives and sweethearts, and particularly Amanda McCarthy, the Nora to Brandon McCarthy's Nick (at least on Twitter, and I would imagine they continue the witty repartee in their non-digital lives as well). But Berry Jo has been living it up out East and the diary has fallen off the Rec List.  So here's a reminder that tomorrow, Friday, the first game of the epic battle between good and evil, is also the day that the A's domestic partners will be conducting an auction of baskets containing things which represent the players in some way, including autographed items.  Follow me past the jump for details.

Continue reading this post »

Further evidence that Geren has to go: he doesn't know the proper usage of "hopefully":

"Anytime you lose a close game it's tough, but the guys had a lot of energy.  It's one you have to shake off and start over. Hopefully the offense the last half of this game takes that momentum down to Anaheim."

As any English major would tell you, that last sentence should be either "I hope the offense the last half of this game takes that momentum down to Anaheim" or "The offense from the last half of this game, being full of hope, will take that momentum down to Anaheim".

The world did not come to an end on Saturday, although many of us may wish it had.   Here's a video of Ed Holmes of the San Francisco Mime Troupe (in an A's shirt) and our beloved, or not, Banjo Man, doing some performance art outside the headquarters of the radio evangelist who predicted the apocalypse (which is a few blocks from the Coliseum).

I was very excited to read that Outman threw a no-hitter -- until I read the rest of this article and discovered it was Matt Outman of Grassfield High School in Chesapeake, VA.  We might want to sign this kid up.  

Continue reading this post »

Yes? 

Indulge me after the jump.    

Continue reading this post »

Baseball.  We haz it.

Continue reading this post »

Update Thursday 11:15 AM: The A's have announced that their new flagship station is 95.7 FM, KBWF "The Wolf".

“We are delighted to enter this partnership with Entercom. 95.7 The Wolf is one of the most powerful FM signals in Northern California,” said Ken Pries, the A’s Vice President of Broadcasting and Communications.  “The Wolf offers the A’s an established Bay Area station which will reach many areas that our previous station could not, particularly Berkeley and the Oakland hills.  It also has a repeater tower on Mt. Diablo that services the 680 corridor of Contra Costa County and Alameda County areas.”

---------we return you now to the old post from Monday:

The A's announced today that the Bay Bridge exhibition games will be on KFRC 1550 AM, not KTRB.  Chris "Uncle Townie" Townsend's pregame and postgame shows will also be on KFRC.  Speculation in the Joe Stiglich article linked above is that KFRC may be the broadcast home for Bay Area listeners all season if the KTRB receiver holds out for more money than the A's are willing to pay.

Continue reading this post »

It's true.  The man who gave us the magic of Buancasting and inspired AN to create the legend of Mark Ellis flying from base to base on his magical unicorn is no longer an employee of the Oakland Athletics.  

Susan Slusser has the news, although not much in the way of details.

Head trainer Stephen "Soup" Sayles was also not rehired.  Not a huge shocker there.

I know many of us have fond memories of Robert, on and off the air.  I wish him all the best in whatever he does next, and hope that Country Fastball continues. 

In addition to a place for exchanging recipes, restaurant tips, TV reviews, the occasional link, and other pleasant chatter, do you need a place to discuss The Thing that might be happening Over There to Them?  Here it is.

And speaking of links: Sausage Fest At AT&T Park, or as one commenter put it, "What? The Giants are yanking their meat?"

SBN Bay Area says the ratings for last night's Giants game were the highest ever - beating out the previous record set by a record being set by a man with a record-setting cranium.   Still, that high rating is 233,500 households, which seems really low to me.  For every one person in the stands, 8 are watching at home? 

Deadspin reports that several people who saw the Reds celebrating their playoff clinch with stogies in the clubhouse called to report a violation of indoor smoking ordinances.  I think we'd only be able to do the same if the Giants celebrate with foie gras. 

If, on the other hand, you are one of those who have reached acceptance and are at peace with the Giants' situation; if you are one who finds some shades of orange attractive even if Caltrans Cone is not one of them; if you are even one who has a soft spot in your heart for a San Francisco player or two; or if you can admire fine manga-style fan art regardless of the team, may I recommend Natto's diary at McCovey Chronicles?

Continue reading this post »

because there are no more home games.  Sob!  So let's drown our sorrows with some extraneous linkage, shall we? Some are sad and some are silly. 

Let's get the serious one out of the way:

Driver convicted of murder in Adenhart crash

Continue reading this post »

It was kind of a big deal when you turned ten years old, wasn't it?  Ten felt like many, many more than nine.  And so it is now, and so the less said about that the better.

Instead, let's turn our attention to a nearly extinct AN meme!

New Zealand lemur drowns in moat

Conker fanatic fearful of virus destroying his tree

Continue reading this post »

Back in the day, before the fall of the Berlin Wall, people informally known as Kremlinologists got paid a lot of money to suss out what was actually happening in the Soviet Union based on things like who was standing next to who at May Day parades.  Now you can just subscribe to the President of Russia's Twitter feed. 

what's everyone doing today?  held talks with italian prime minister silvio berlusconi; as with tarja halonen and angela merkel before her, we discussed visas. italy is cool, going for pizza now. about 1 hour ago via Echofon

But the practice of making lengthy suppositions based on very little information about what's going on inside an opaque organization that works by its own set of laws continues today, as newspaper columnists try to figure out what's going on with MLB and the A's new stadium or lack thereof.  

SJ Mercury News and SF Chronicle and Field of Schemes and of course, New A's Ballpark have their takes on it.  If you read only one, make it the last one because there's a very pretty chart.   And as the chart makes clear, whatever happens, we have many seasons in the Coliseum ahead of us.

In other news:

Continue reading this post »

Advice based on last night's experience....everyone else who was there, chime in. 

Arrive 30-60 minutes before the time the BeInAMovie people told you was when the doors open.  I arrived at 9:45 for the 10:30 shift which was supposedly as early as possible, and I was in line until 11:30 PM.

Arrive with a full stomach and all the food and drink you wish to consume and share while you are there.  There is horrible airline coffee with powdered creamer, water, trail mix, and hard candy.  That's it.  No vendors (although a couple of Coliseum vendors are playing themselves walking around the stands, they have no food.)

Continue reading this post »

As mentioned elsewhere, the onetime fan favorite and amateur security guard, having been released by the Mariners, is now playing for the Dutch Goose of the Menlo Park Community Recreation League.  Some coverage of his first game with them last night is here and here and video of one of his two home runs is here.   For those who have an interest, the league plays on Wednesday nights at the Frank Sequiera Jr. Field at Nealon Park, 800 Middle Avenue in Menlo Park.   Schedule is here; the season runs through June 30 and the playoffs are July 7.  I overheard some of the left field bleacher stalwarts planning an expedition, although the precise location of the slightly grubby bedsheet that read ERIC BYRNES FAN CLUB is unknown.

And I can't stop talking about it!

And neither can a variety of other people including John Donaldson who was the A's second baseman during the Catfish perfecto and who says "I liked to fell out when I saw that on ESPN,"  and many residents of Stockton who have a very personal connection with the game, such as the Braden protege who says "Someone who just made major-league history was there, kickin' it in my living room," and even our own trusty and well-beloved Billy Beane who says "He's got a lot of Wolverine in him."  -- I'm not entirely sure that's a good thing, but whatever.

Continue reading this post »

 Some news in the press today and over the weekend you might have missed if you're not into tree-killing or spent too much time at the ballpark:

Realistic Eric Chavez is realistic: "Games like this are good, yeah. But does it mean I'm going to go on a hot streak for the next month? I don't know about that."

Continue reading this post »

If you haven't filed your taxes yet, get cracking and/or file the extension!  And don't count on stopping in to your local public library to grab an extra 1040 because many of them no longer stock dead-tree forms....but the library staff will print one out for you if you ask nicely.

Meanwhile, as those of us who endured last night's game know, Milton Bradley made the winning move and was showered with cold beer in the clubhouse (which doesn't sound all that nice at the end of a night game in Seattle in April, but whatever).   Milton was unusually perky in an earlier interview with a Seattle journalist:

We have fun every day.  Guys are great. Top-to-bottom, that's a part of this organization. And that's something that I really can't say I've had my entire career. I just feel like I'm in such a better place.

Continue reading this post »

Because Daily may be setting expectations too high in the final flickering days of the postseason.   Be grateful for whatever Dumps may come your way. 

29 of the 60 newspapers that covered at least some games in the regular season do not have a reporter at the World Series, including of course the San Francisco Chronicle, the San Jose Mercury News, the Oakland Tribune, and the Contra Costa Times (the latter three functioning as one paper for this purpose).   I don't think this is the end of the world....I'm sure SuSlu would have given us an interesting Swisher anecdote or two if she were there, but if your team isn't in the playoffs, I don't think your beat reporter has to be there either.   Selig disagrees:

“It’s a manifestation of what’s happening in America,” Bud Selig, the baseball commissioner, said Sunday before Game 4 of the World Series. “I’m saddened by it. I think newspaper coverage over the years has enabled us to succeed much more than a lot of people understand so for me this is a very, very unhappy development.”

You might think with all that extra space in the press box, there would be extra tickets for Yankee fans who spent days camping out before the first two games, but no.  I was drawn to this AP video by the guy in the furry trooper hat who really looks like something out of the Onion News Network, but then when I watched it I was struck by the guy at :19 in wearing a camo jacket and.... an A's cap.  Who wears an A's cap to camp out for Yankees tickets?  Is he a mole?  A ticket scalper?  Was he planning to leap from his seat onto the field and strip down to his green-and-gold underpants and taunt Bud Selig?  Sadly, we'll never know since he did not get tickets. 

And I'm sorry, but centaurs are way lamer than unicorns and Mark Ellis would never in a million billion years do that. Plus if the ladies' principal impression is the art on your wall, you're doing something wrong. 

The lede to this story will bring a tear to your eye: 

Sitting in rocking chairs on the back porch, sipping beers, the three friends would talk about it: What if we could all play in the World Series someday?

Here is a shocking story of possible cheating at a high-profile tournament.....a high-profile Sudoku tournament that may have been scammed by a mysterious guy in a hoodie. 

And the latest speculation (no new facts that I can see) on the territorial rights to San Jose. 

And thus a new Daily Link Dump.....however, I commend yesterday's DLD to your attention because of the many excellent links and comments including Poppy's highly-recommended suggestion. 

Speaking of the new A's ballpark, some interesting recent posts from the always-interesting Marine Layer include the news of potential Sharks-A's conflicts on Comcast Sports Net California -- not this year, but in the spring. 

Speaking of where the new A's ballpark isn't but should be, the Oakland Tribune has an upbeat assessment of downtown Oakland including the un-shrinkwrapping of City Walk. 

Continue reading this post »

Yes, we have BART service today, and more importantly, tonight for those who can make it to the Coliseum to watch Brett Tomko take on the Yankees.  Tomko tonight, Mazzarro tomorrow, Duchscherer....sometime maybe....he has a non-baseball issue.  But let's not dwell on the future when we have the past to gloat about!

Continue reading this post »

Or the one that isn't in production right now.  The New York Times has a story headlined In Skittish Hollywood, Stars Can't Save "Moneyball"  and the LA Times counters with its more insiderish Sony's Amy Pascal speaks out about "Moneyball".   Both identify the problem with the original script: people who are still alive being portrayed by actors, saying and doing things that did not actually happen exactly the way the script depicts them.   This is a problem that many other filmmakers have conquered successfully, but it does help to have the cooperation of the people who are going to be portrayed as characters....and the NYTimes indicates that it was at least in part Major League Baseball that objected to the historical liberties.  The second draft -- the one we haven't seen, the one that caused Sony to put the movie on ice -- was apparently much more of a documentary/reenactment.   The LAT story says one of the bits in the first script that director Steven Soderbergh wanted cut was the part where the 4-year-old daughter of Scott and Bitsy Hatteberg fields a ball that her dad missed and the "Ron Washington" character suggests signing her up. 

Continue reading this post »

It's the 42nd anniversary of the first major-league game I ever attended, Minnesota Twins vs. Washington Senators.  Unfortunately, the game was called on account of a tremendous thunderstorm before it became official; here's the box score for the next day.  Look at that lineup.....Tovar, Versailles, Killebrew, Oliva, Allison, Rollins, Zimmermann, Quilici, and the promising rookie Rod Carew was brought in to pinch-hit for Kitty Kaat. 

Continue reading this post »

Shooting was supposed to start today on Moneyball: The Movie, but it isn't gonna.   It may be a temporary snag, or the film may be dead....it's day-to-day.

The advisory vote on whether to encourage an A's stadium was supposed to be on the ballot in San Jose in November, but it isn't gonna either.  Maybe in 2010.   It's day-to-day.

Continue reading this post »

I hope I'm not stepping on anyone who intended a special DLD for today, but when I saw this story I knew I had to post it.

Four lemurs of endangered species born at San Jose's Happy Hollow zoo

via extras.mnginteractive.com

Continue reading this post »

Bruce Jenkins: on the Yankees' new ballpark:

The real Yankee fans, the ones who perfected the art of sophisticated (or downright rude) heckling, have been priced out of the yard.

The Wall Street Journal: rocks the high socks....with stirrups; taking us to Twin City, South Carolina, home of "the last mass-production baseball-stirrup mill in America".

Futsal? In Hayward?

And the most awesome news after the jump.

Continue reading this post »