SB Nation User Blog: Ozzz

Denis Kang on Machida/Rua, knees to the head, Crocop, Hendo, Kimbo and more

Ozzz — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 23:44:05 -0000

At a Vancouver Sun live chat tonight, UFC fighter Denis Kang answered a ton of questions candidly and honestly, including one about what he thought of the Rua/Machida decision that brought about an interesting answer.

I think Rua CLEARLY won that fight. THat was a huge mistake on the judge's part. I dont know if it was corruption or human error but it was wrong nonetheless .... I think Machida was off from the get-go. IMO he seemed a little intimidated and stressed by the pressure. Winning a title and defending one are two different things.

Kang went on to discuss his thoughts on a range of issues.

On his home town of Vancouver, which still hasn't gotten around to regulating MMA, causing him to leave for Montreal to get decent training in:

I dont know why there aren't more young athletes getting involved in MMA in Vancouver. I really wish that I could be based there but the circumstances call for otherwise. I thinkt hat if the municipality could regulate MMA in the city it would definitely help. To be honest its a bit of a slap in the face to me, because I have put so much into this sport and for them to be so unfair is not right... schedule permitting I will definitely be there [when the UFC holds a Vancouver show]! Anything to help the sport in my city.

On Crocop:

Crocop is a bit burnt out IMO. Remember he came from a succesful career in K1, to Pride, THEN to UFC. He needs time off... For Crocop, it's not his training, it's his mind, his heart etc. He needs to find his MMA mojo again.

On what he misses about fighting in Japan:

I would love knees to the head in UFC.

On Hendo's contract holdout:

I think Hendo is being a smart business man. He did the same thing with Pride a few years ago.

On Fedor vs Rogers:

Fedor with one hand tied behind his back !

On the top five light heavyweights in his opinion:

Machida, Rua, Thiago Silva, Rashad, Luis Arthur Kane.

On fighting his teammate, Nate Marquardt, if it came to it:

I would prefer not to fight Nate as he and I are friends, but if it's for a title or a 1# contender spot then we would have to.

On Kimbo Slice, who he's been training with at American Top Team:

I was just with Kimbo tonight. I havent really trained with him except for drilling techniques. He's too big for me to spar... kimbo is the nicest guy you could imagine. Remember he came into MMA very green without any athletic background except for street fights. He never made any claims about being the best. The dude just wants to fight.

On women's MMA:

Womens MMA is growing, and in my opinion the best female fighter in the world is our neighbour in Victoria. None other than Sarah Kaufmann.

On fightwear:

I will soon have a signature Tapout shirt. Look for it at www.deniskang.com very shortly

On gameplans:

I work on everything but for me it's all about staying on gameplan, sometimes I just try and brawl too much.

On Lesnar:

I could take lesnar....with a shotgun.....

On 'that fight' against Alan Belcher:

With that fight i was not prepared. I had a bad ankle injury which prevented me from training properly. My cardio was shit which let me to make a mistake and he caught me.

On 'that fight' in which he KTFO of Ninja Rua:

I just hit him again once and saw him dazed, right then the words of my boxing coach echoed in my head "you gotta keep yo'man drunk" so thats what I did lol.

The chat window archive can be found at http://www.tinyurl.com/kangchat, and for more Vancouver Sun coverage hit http://www.vancouversun.com/mma

Poll

Bisping or Kang?

Kang

184 votes

Bisping

18 votes

Rua

87 votes

289 votes | Poll has closed

UPDATE: Vancouver city council punts MMA decision, leaves sport unregulated

Ozzz — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 15:43:37 -0000

UPDATE 2: The Vision Vancouver-led council heard a ton of arguments in support of MMA regulation, including from their own athletic commission, then ducked the issue entirely.

Dr Rajindar Sandhu, a member of the Vancouver Athletic Commission was visibly angry at the decison.

"I am literally pissed at this," he said. "This council does not want to make a decision. I think if we come back with the information they want, they are going to just table it again."

Council asked for a bunch more 'studies' to be done and asked for the provincial govt to take the issue over. One wonders why they're happy to let someone else tell them whether MMA can happen in their own buildings, rather than control the issue themselves. The only possible reason could be they don't want to be the ones to approve 'ultimate fighting'..

---

Update 1 on the Vancouver MMA regulation vote - Jeff Lee at the Vancouver Sun has got Suzanne Anton, one of the councilors who will make the ultimate call on MMA, to confirm she's in the pro-regulation camp.

“The sport has come a long way in self regulation,” Anton said in a press release. “And with additional regulation by the Vancouver Athletic Commission (VAC), I am confident these events can be relatively safe.”

Anton said mixed martial arts events draw huge crowds and could be a good economic driver for Vancouver. “A lot of people love this sport,” she said. “You could fill GM Place with one of the events.”

Anton is a member of the NPA, which ran council when they de-regulated MMA in '07, so this is a positive shift. I know at least two other councilors are also leaning pro-regulation, so we're in good shape. Should know more in the coming hours.

Word from the meeting says council is giving the sport the jaundiced eye at the moment, but their own athletic commission, the owners of the local Vancouver Canucks NHL stadium, city staff and local MMA trainers are putting up a strong fight.

Jeff Lee's article above has been updated with details.

Promoted to the front page from the FanPosts by Luke Thomas.

The media in Vancouver has been buzzing for the past week as the local council prepares to decide whether to move towards MMA regulation or spin off into some hand-wringing NIMBY wonderland.

I'd be lying if I said I wasn't worried the latter might win out, but if it does, it won't be because of the media in this town. It's pretty clear that there's a lean towards welcoming MMA and the money, etc that follows.

Anyhoo, today the UFC's Marc Ratner, VP of regulatory affairs, gets the op-ed page in the Vancouver Sun - the paper of record in Van city.

He makes a good pitch:

In these tough economic times, I would be remiss if I didn’t touch on the economic impact a UFC event brings to a city. As an example, on April 18 we will be holding an event in Montreal’s Bell Centre, our second show in that venue. 18,000 tickets were sold two months in advance of the show - our second sell-out there in twelve months - which generated $4.6 million in ticket revenue. We’ve been told by the Bell Centre that over half of that crowd comes from outside Montreal, so the economic benefit for local businesses can be anywhere from $6 to $8 million alone for a single three-hour event.

And this isn’t a situation where the UFC comes in for one night, makes some money and leaves, never to be heard from again. We’re looking to build a sport in Vancouver, and anywhere else we go. In the last couple of years, as well as the province of Quebec, we’ve added London, Dublin, Belfast, Manchester, Birmingham, and Newcastle to the list of international cities that have welcomed the UFC locally. We will be visiting Germany in June, and close to 40 states in the United States have sanctioned the sport in the last decade, including the two states considered to be the capitals for professional combat sports, Nevada and New Jersey.

MMA is a great international sport that I am privileged to be associated with, and we would love to bring it to Vancouver so fight fans here can experience it for themselves.MMA is a great international sport that I am privileged to be associated with, and we would love to bring it to Vancouver so fight fans here can experience it for themselves.

Will the Pacific Northwest open up to the UFC? We should know more Thursday afternoon.

Feel free to visit the link above and post your thoughts.

Vancouver BC Considering Regulating MMA

Ozzz — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 14:25:33 -0000

Promoted to the front page from the FanPosts by Luke Thomas.

Hey all. So I write for a newspaper up here in Vancouver Canada, and over the past year I've managed to convince my editors that MMA is worth supporting.

At first it was tough. I was told it was 'too tacky' and that newspaper readers aren't interested in such pursuits. So I kind of... uh... broke the rules.

I came in one Saturday night and put an article about a UFC event on the paper's website, then snuck out..

Well, it's been a big success since. Last year, 4 of the top 10 most visted articles across the entire chain of newspapers were our MMA pieces. Now I get calls from corporate asking if I'll be covering an event because, and I quote "we're relying on this stuff.."

Much success, high five.

But all was not well in Van land, as the local council (and it's municipalities that have to regulate combat sports up here) was a little scared that MMA events might be a liability nightmare, so they de-regulated the sport here in Sept. 2007.

Today, this is finally looking like it might change.

Behold, the culmination of a year of pushing: I called every Mayor and a ton of local councilors and asked them, "Okay, what's your problem with MMA?", then I called every local fighter, trainer, promoter - and Marc Ratner at the UFC (who is the nicest guy in the world) and John Prisco at the XFC (also a great guy) - to answer those questions.

And my bosses, who run a legacy 'paper of record' in this town, gave me a full page to work with.

A selection follows:

[Richmond councilor] Bill McNulty: "I would want to see a proposal. I personally have seen it on TV and turned it off, but that's me personally. I'd want to see a proposal of what the whole program would entail."

Marc Ratner: "I would fly to Vancouver immediately with some of our other people if any commission needed our help to sort through the process. We'd be there in a second. In fact, I'd be there Thursday but unfortunately I'll be in Toronto that day talking to their commission. ... Today I talked to Philadelphia, Phoenix, they're all saying, 'When are you coming?' The answer is, invite us out and we'll be there -- no question."

John Prisco: "When Tennessee was thinking about approving MMA, they had no idea how to do it. They didn't know insurance, rules, equipment, so we flew up and spent a week with them, working through the details. Once they had a handle on it, they regulated and we not only ran a show weeks later that drew 5000 people, but we also set up a permanent gymnasium there to help the locals learn about the sport, train in it, and make it part of their daily lives. We don't just want to hold an event and make a bit of money, when we come to town, we're looking to stay and build an industry around it. You spend a lot of money marketing to a city population, it doesn't make sense to spend all that and never come back. So whatever a local commission needs as far as advice and help, we'll make the time.

Sun reader EastVanDude: "I shudder to think what sort of impact this sort of activity will have on kids. Fighting in a cage - it's like Thunderdome."

Adam Ryan, trainer/fighter at Vancouver's Dynamic MMA: "A lot of our clientele now is high schoolers, a huge amount of them. I've worked with some people who might, as teenagers have had troubled pasts who are now living really clean lives, stopped getting in trouble. Had parents telling me, 'Thank you so much, my kid isn't getting in trouble any more with all the time and energy he's putting in at the club.' The Vancouver Canucks have sent their prospects to train with us for the last two years. It instils discipline and people are surprised to hear it teaches you restraint."

Bill Mahood: "People get obsessed by the cage, but it really isn't a 'two men enter, one man leaves' thing at all. If you've ever seen MMA in a boxing ring, you're constantly having fighters get tangled in ropes, even spill out of the ring. You have to keep restarting the fight, it really becomes a hurdle to having a good fight. The cage gives you something you can lean against, roll up against, and not worry about it. It keeps the action in the middle. It's a little harder to watch live, unfortunately, but it's there for a good reason that pertains to the sport, not to keep people from escaping."

This morning, Joe Rogan will walk into the Richmond town hall, just across the water from Vancouver, and make the case for MMA. With him will be a host of local MMA kids and trainers. Hopefully the Mayor and council will have a copy of today's paper in front of them.

And next Thursday, Vancouver council receives a report from city staff that asks them to either ban MMA for good, or approve it, with a clear indication from staff that the latter would be the better option (including police recommendations and details of the sort of financial potential involved).

I can't say that we'll have UFC shows in Vancouver in a year, but I can say that the entire industry up here, and at least my corner of the press, is doing everything possible to make it happen.

You can help. Go visit the article linked above and leave a comment, answering anything that we missed and telling folks why you love MMA. The more people hit it, the more of those my bosses will ask for, and the more likely we'll conquer another holdout territory of the sport.

Thanks. Oh, and try not to beat on me for including Kalib Starnes. That cat was the first local MMA guy to talk to me about why I should be covering the sport, and he's been a great source since.

Sacramento Manager named: Say hello to Todd Steverson

Ozzz — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 19:09:42 -0000

From the comments a few weeks back:

I'm guessing Todd Steverson goes to Sac-Town

He's marched through the system like a prospect player, and he's had good success along the way.

And if the A's keep Robnett around, all the more reason, since Steverson has managed him at every level and should be due a shift to AAA by now.

Nailed it.

River Cats Introduce Todd Steverson as New Manager; Announce '08 Coaching Staff - 11/08/07

West Sacramento, Calif. - The Sacramento River Cats and Oakland Athletics named Todd Steverson as the third manager in River Cats' history, Oakland Athletics officials announced today. Steverson replaces Tony DeFrancesco, who was named the Athletics' third base coach in October. Pitching Coach Rick Rodriguez and Hitting Coach Brian McArn will return for their 8th and 4th seasons respectively with the team to round out the coaching staff. Steverson, Rodriguez and McArn will be joined by Athletic Trainer Brad LaRosa in his first season both with the A's organization and at the Triple-A level.

Steverson, who spent 2007 as manager of the Athletics' Double-A affiliate Midland RockHounds and the previous two seasons (2005-06) at the helm of the Single-A affiliate Stockton Ports, has a lifetime managerial record of 214-203. The 36-year-old Los Angeles, Calif. native joined the A's organization in 2004 as the hitting coach for the short-season Single-A Vancouver Canadians. He spent the previous five seasons in the St. Louis Cardinals farm system at Single-A Palm Beach (2003), Single-A Potomac (1999; 2001-02) and Single-A Peoria (2000).

Steverson had a seven-year playing career that included major-league appearances with Detroit (1995) and San Diego (1996). He finished his minor league career in 1998 with Triple-A Memphis of the Pacific Coast League. Steverson was originally drafted out of Culver City (Calif.) High School by the Cardinals in the sixth round of the June 1989 amateur draft but elected to attend Arizona State University. Three years later, in 1992, he was a first-round draft pick (25th overall) by the Toronto Blue Jays.

I love this. I talked to Steverson back in 2004 when he was with the Vancouver Canadians, and asked him if he was bothered about getting promoted through the system, or if, like pitching coach Lefty Lefferts, whether he just enjoyed coming out every summer and being down with a little ball with the kids.

He replied, "Yeah, I wanna go to the Majors again, sure. But it's not like when you're playing, where you're trying to make it up a level every season or your career is over. It might take a while, so I'm going to just have fun with it, make sure I get better at it every year, and what happens happens. Either way, whether it's short season or AAA, it's still the best job in the world to be with a ballclub."

Regardless of his patience, Steverson has been jumping up levels as fast as most of those he's coached, and it's been clear the A's like what he brings.

And as someone who sat behind him all season in 2004 and listened to what he was telling players, and laughed as he'd sneakily slide ten bucks through the fence to buy tickets for the 50-50 draw between innings, and saw kids climbing all over him after games, and host families counting him and his family as friends, I can say the A's know what they're doing by taking guys like this into the Family o'Muppets.

As for the rest of the Sac-town coaching staff:

Rick Rodriguez
Rodriguez, 47, will serve his eighth season as Sacramento's pitching coach in 2008. After three years with the River Cats from 2000-02, he managed the Modesto A's in 2003 before returning to the Cats in 2004. Prior to his first stint with the River Cats, he was pitching coach for Modesto in 1999. Last year, Rodriguez's pitching staff had an ERA of 4.19, 3rd best in the PCL and 3rd lowest in team history.

Rodriguez played parts of four seasons in the major leagues as a right-handed pitcher. In his major league career, he compiled a 3-4 record and a 5.72 ERA in 31 games. He played in the majors with Oakland (1986-87), Cleveland (1988) and San Francisco (1990).

Brian McArn
McArn, 38, is the third hitting coach in the club's history. Last season, his third with the Cats, Sacramento hitters batted .277 and led the PCL in walks (613). He replaced Joe Sparks in 2005, who serves the Oakland A's as their major league advance scout. Roy White was the River Cats' hitting coach for their first four seasons, from 2000-03.

This season will mark McArn's eleventh as a hitting coach in the A's organization, his twelfth as a coach in professional baseball. Prior to joining the Cats, he served as Hitting Coach for Midland, after six seasons with Modesto (Single-A). McArn began his professional coaching career with the Vermont Expos (Single-A) of the New York-Penn League in 1996.

McArn was selected by the A's in the 26th round of the 1991 Amateur Draft out of the University of Nebraska and spent two years as a player in the Oakland organization before injuries ended his career. After retiring, McArn coached at American River Junior College in Sacramento for five seasons.

Brad LaRosa
LaRosa, 31, joins the River Cats in his first season in the A's organization. For the past 3 seasons, he served as a Minor League Athletic Trainer in the St Louis Cardinals organization. LaRosa replaces Walt Horn who was named Assistant Athletic Trainer for the A's in October after spending 30 years as a trainer in the A's minor league system.

In addition to his athletic training duties, LaRosa, a 2000 graduate of Southern Illinois University who earned a graduate degree in 2003, assists with the team's travel and equipment responsibilities.

Cross posted from Notes From the Nat

Moneyball III: Bad health as an undervalued asset?

Ozzz — Thu, 24 May 2007 17:55:30 -0000

In the Moneyball era, the A's were considered big on OBP and college players, because they were undervalued by other teams.

Eventually other teams caught on and they changed tack. So then came the big defense and high school pitchers era, because they were things considered undervalued by other teams.

Eventually other teams caught on and again the A's changed tack - but where can one find value in a market already aware of what you're trying to pull off?

Injuries, that's where.

Last year and this, the A's went after players with sketchy injury histories (Thomas, Snelling, Bradley, Stewart) to go along with the injury prone guys they already had (Crosby, Kotsay, Harden), and even drafted a bunch of guys coming off Tommy John surgery, because other teams were avoiding talented (but injury prone) players.

Now, with 11 people currently on the DL, is it perhaps time to say that the latest Billy Beane attempt at Moneyballing a sector of the market has been a failure?

Are we discovering with nigh-permanently injured guys like Harden, Kotsay, Bradley, Piazza, Crosby, Snelling, etc etc, and oft-day-to-day guys like Chavez, Duchscherer and Swisher, that there actually is such a thing as an 'injury prone' stat?

Are we just unlucky, or is this a problem of our own making, and one that we should start trying to reverse by making trades?

UPDATE: Lots of great points made below, but one that isn't talked of much is the drafting of injury prone players - we grabbed a TON of players in the last draft that other teams shied away from because of injuries - big injuries - TJ and the like - and a lot of those guys have had trouble getting back onto the field (or staying there).

There seems to be pretty much agreement that Beane is finding value in the recently injured market, but the big question is, can that tactic stick? Will having lots of injured good players, and relying on the few healthy (and injury prone, and thus cheap) guys currently in between DL stints end up being a strategy that we can maintain?

Do we want to? Does the current crop serve as a warning that when the Cahill's and Lee's and Italiano's and Lansford's get to the majors, that the situation will continue?

Poll

What say you?

Injury prone players are avoided for a reason

53 votes

There's no such thing as 'injury prone', just unlucky

14 votes

67 votes | Poll has closed

The Oakland Athletics All-Injured All-Stars

Ozzz — Wed, 23 May 2007 17:52:21 -0000

I was looking over the massive DL list just now, and it struck me that as bad as the following is:

Chris Denorfia - 60-day DL
Justin Duchscherer - 15-day DL
Rich Harden - 15-day DL
Bobby Kielty - 60-day DL
Mark Kotsay - 60-day DL
Esteban Loaiza - 60-day DL
Mike Piazza - 15-day DL
Chris Snelling - 15-day DL
Huston Street - 15-day DL

...when you add in the players that are injured but still playing (or not injured enough to be DLed), the situation gets insane.

Nick Swisher
Milton Bradley (still!)
Travis Buck (two injuries!)
Eric Chavez (a two-year old injury!)
Connor Robertson (after just two MLB innings!)

I mean, it's almost an entire Major League starting lineup, injured.

In fact, it IS an entire Major League starting lineup. Using the players listed above as a base, I have put together the following team. I call them the Oakland Athletics All-Injured All-Stars:

LF: Chris Denorfia
CF: Mark Kotsay
RF: Milton Bradley
SS: Travis Buck
3B: Eric Chavez
2B: Bobby Kielty
1B: Nick Swisher
C: Mike Piazza
DH: Chris Snelling

SP: Rich Harden
RP: Esteban Loaiza
RP: Connor Robertson
RP: Justin Duchscherer
CL: Huston Street

Admittedly, the middle infield defense is horrible, but the rest of the team is abundantly solid! In fact, if we put out this team TODAY, I'd be a lot happier than I am currently.

How can any baseball team lose an entire starting lineup to injury and still be buzzing aorund .500 ball? That's huge!

Which leaves me with two questions for you all:

What would YOUR starting lineup for the All-Injured All-Stars be?

How insane will this team be when those injured players get healthy AND we still have plug-in guys like DJ and Cust ripping it up?

Poll

Which team is better?

Washington Nationals

3 votes

The current Oakland Athletics

14 votes

The Oakland Athletics All-Injured All-Stars

36 votes

Kansas City Royals

21 votes

74 votes | Poll has closed

[UPDATE] Garret Anderson: Douchebag

Ozzz — Thu, 12 Apr 2007 06:37:15 -0000

So by now you'd have to be an Anaheim fan not to have heard that certain players plan to wear Jackie Robinson's long-retired #42 to celebrate the 60th anniversary of his breaking the color barrier.

Ken Griffey Jr thought it up, and now other players (such as Oakland's Milton Bradley) plan to do likewise. The Dodgers are even tossing around having their whole team wear the #42.

So what did Anaheim Angel Garret Anderson have to say about wearing #42 when it was offered to him a week ago?

'Not gonna happen.'

From the LA Times:

MILWAUKEE — To honor the 60th anniversary of Jackie Robinson breaking the color barrier, all 25 Dodgers players will wear the former Brooklyn Dodgers infielder's No. 42 on April 15.
The first Angels player asked by the team to wear the number declined.

Outfielder Garret Anderson said that although he has a great appreciation for Robinson, he won't do it because Ken Griffey Jr., among others, thought of it first.

"It wasn't my idea, and I'm not the type of person to jump on the bandwagon because someone else is doing something," Anderson said. "If I did it just because someone else was doing it, it would seem kind of empty to me."

Right, Garret. Because it's all about you.

Even assholes of the caliber of Gary Sheffield and Barroid Bonds are joining this celebration, so too will Willie Randolph and Derek Lee... but they're all apparently far too sheep-like for Garret. Unoriginal. Non-unique. Not Andersonian.

Coco Crisp, Dmitri Young, Mike Cameron, Josh Barfield, Orlando Hudson - they'll all wear #42. But they're just being trendy. The real man of independent thought is G. Anderson of The Angels Angels of Anaheim.

So I've decided I'm going to be like Garret Anderson from now on. No, I won't be intentionally lowering my OBP - rather, since I didn't think up Christmas, I won't be celebrating it from here on.

And I certainly didn't choose my wife's birthday, so I'm calling off the party planned for next week. If she wants me to celebrate her birth, she'll have to be a little more original about it. Maybe she could have it on February 31st or something.

Also, it wasn't my idea to end World War II, so I won't be honoring the fallen on Armistice Day. I mean... it'd just be kind of empty to me to do it just because every thinking human being on the planet does it.

4th of July? I'm having it on the 6th of September, because that's what I thought up just now. That way it'll mean something, because I thought of it, and it's all about me.

Me and Garret Anderson.

The LAist blog says it best:

In our opinion Anderson is a punk who doesn't deserve to wear Robinson's number. Anderson is everything that Jackie wasn't, he's the modern day selfish athlete who doesn't care about baseball traditions, history, the African American struggle, or common fucking sense.
Garret Anderson is Barry Bonds minus 500 homers but fully equipped with the You-Owe-Me attitude that nearly ruined baseball. Now in his 14th season, you'd think that GA would have gotten it by now, that the $50 million that he's earned over the years in baseball would have made him feel somewhat grateful. But no, he chose to take this moment to spit on the memory of a fellow Black man who paved the way for him.

Heck of a job, brotha.

On a sad, sad side note, the Angels have asked Gary Matthews Jr, who is still under a drug investigation, if he'll wear the #42 in Anderson's place.

Thanks Garret. Way to honor the memory.

Cross-posted on Notes From The Nat

UPDATE!
It was to be expected, I guess, but the knuckledragger king over at Halos Heaven has truly outdone himself in discussing this diary. Seems we're all just white Berkley liberals who want to keep the black man down by forcing him to honor a black man against his will. We're racists, if you will.

RevNutbar: He won't paly (sic) Steepin Fetchit and sing the Po' Me Blues for the Berkeley Politically Correct Tribunal
RevNutbar again: not playing the sympathetic darkie upsets Bay Area white liberals. Ima gine (sic) if guilt were your sole identity, you'd be furious at an independent voice among African Americans too.

jjackflash says: I've said it before and I'll say it again. I respect GA, and believe he does a lot more to honor Robinson by not simply doing whatever massa says he should do.

Caseys kiss of death: Garret Anderson is just another nappy-headed ho. Who cares what he does?

Let me make it abundantly clear for the trogladytes over at Hick Heaven - the issue here isn't that GA won't do what thwe white man says he should, it's that he refuses to honor THE MOST IMPORTANT BLACK MAN IN BASEBALL.

Now, if you wanted to say 'who cares', that's one thing. If you wanted to say 'he's a free spirit', that's another. But to call people racists for wanting someone to honor a leader in civil rights?

A new low, even for the single most embarassing blog on SB Nation. In fact, I've said it before and I'll say it again - when is SBN going to come down on Halos Heaven and kick it out of the organization?

When one SBN blog calls the other racists, that, to me, is time for action.

Imus was fired for less.

It's time we got some minor league blogs going.

Ozzz — Sat, 30 Dec 2006 09:44:58 -0000

I posted this on Notes From the Nat tonight, and it seems to me that the natural place to cross-post it is here:

It's time that A's fans started getting together some blog coverage for our minor league teams.

I've been running the Notes From The Nat blog for nearly three years now, covering the heck out of the Vancouver Canadians, Oakland's short-season rookie ball affiliate, and it's been a heckuva time. Press box access, interviewing players, they even had me on the radio call a few times in the last couple of seasons. And on top of the fun side of things, it makes money through advertising, which is a nice bonus, and has led me to freelance gigs writing for other media outlets, both locally and nationally.

But, to my surprise, nobody else is doing anything similar.

Oh sure, there are minor league blogs out there, but they cover ALL the leagues, not specific clubs.

Where are the Sacramento blogs? Does nobody who can write attend Stockton Ports games? Or Midland games? Or Kane County games? Maybe even the Arizona A's?

Of course, plenty of you guys hit minor league games each year, and you're all fine writers (for the most part), so what's stopping others from setting up a minor league blog?

I figure it's the hurdle of setting it up. So I've come up with an offer:

If you want to blog about it, I'll build it for you.

No matter what the team, no matter what your standard of prose. If you're prepared to write even just a capsule game review and a little roster news for one of the teams in the A's minor league system, I'll buy you a domain name, I'll host the blog, I'll install the blog software, I'll hook you up with advertising and security, and we'll all be the better for it.

Is there a catch, I hear you ask? Sure there is. If I do this, go to the expense and the effort to set your blog up and keep it running, it's technically going to be my blog. That means, if you disappear after three weeks, I'm taking it off your hands and will find someone else to run it.

All I ask is that you keep the thing alive, but if you don't... fair being fair and all, you lose it.

On the other hand, if you keep it going, post every few days, and maintain a resource that helps all A's fans track their minor league prospects, then you can run the site how you like, earn advertising revenue, get yourself a press pass, and do your part to help the little A's-to-be move through the system.

And before anyone bitches me out for doing this on an SB Nation blog, I've asked Blez if they'd take on minor league team blogs and he's told me that they have no plans to do anything of the sort for a loooong time.

So why wait? Let's build the network now!

Anyone? Anyone? Scutaro?

Hear ye, hear ye: WE'RE IN FIRST PLACE.

Ozzz — Sat, 22 Jul 2006 19:13:27 -0000

A quick look down the recent diaries thread right now will make you ask yourself a very odd question: Is this an A's FAN SITE?

Even odder, the answer to that question at the moment is 'no'. And that, good people, is abso-fricking-lutely insane.

I see goofballs posting diaries suggesting Billy Beane should have sent Swisher to the DL instead of Johnson. I see diaries talking about how there's nothing to like in the current A's team, and it was all so much better when we had Stairs and Berroa. I see people bitching that they're "losing patience" with this team.

Well I have just one thing to say - we, the Oakland Athletics, with injuries galore, no money, precious few fans showing up to games, a depleted AAA team, and slumps aplenty, is still in...

FIRST PLACE!

So can we quit with the second guessing of Beane like he's some chump that every other team in the game WOULDN'T snap up in a flash?

Can we stop it already with the "Dan Johnson is mashing in AAA, so he shouldn't have been dropped" rubbish?

Can we give it a rest on the "I hate watching this team" routine just long enough for half the players in the starting lineup to get over their injuries?

Can we end the "We can't win without Rich Harden" junk?

Can we give it a freaking rest with the "Milton Bradley was a terrible deal" talk, at least while he's going 4-4 every other day?

Can we puh-lease maybe observe the fact that the Mariners stink, and the Rangers are being talked down even by their own management, and that the Angels are getting smoked by the freaking Royals, and maybe... just maybe, once in a while, point out that:

WE. ARE. IN. FIRST. PLACE.

Imagine, just for one second, that the players come here once in a while, just to see what the fans are saying about them. Now think to yourself - do my five most recent posts seem more likely to inspire them to greatness, or make them say "screw you and your four-figure crowds, you f'ing ingrates."

I'm an Oakland fan, and thus I will find the silver lining on the clouds every single time - but right now I don't NEED to find any GD lining, because my team, my INJURED team, my SLUMPING team, my INEXPENSIVE team, my YOUNG team, my PROSPECT-FREE team, is in first frickin' place.

And they're not falling from a higher first, they're CHASING to get into first. With all the crap we've had to endure this year, they're MOVING UP.

So the next time you see an attention-seeker talk about how we're not first enough, call them what they are:

Crisis? What crisis?

Ozzz — Sat, 27 May 2006 06:19:06 -0000

There's been much gnashing of teeth in Athletic Town over the past week, and we may well be getting to the point where some require a trip to the dentist as a result.

Woe is us, we lost another.

Woe is us, we have injuries.

Woe is us, the playoffs are all but an impossibility.

Well, good people of Oakville, I've had enough. I'm about to unload a can of whup-de-doop on your asses, and you're about to shut up, sit down, and soak it all in. Here's the crib notes version: We're doing just groovy. Here's why.

Let's pretend, if you will, that the world had gone through a magical time warp wormhole break in the time space continuum, and Oakland's roster had been switched on April 1st with that of the New York Yankees.

Oakland fans rejoice as A-Rod, Sheffield, Jeter, and Matsui wear Oakland green, and Juicin' Giambi makes a slightly uncomfortable return to his old stomping grounds. After we get past the whole "will you guys quit using steroids please" unpleasantries, the season begins.

Straight out of the box, Randy Johnson pitches a shocker and we lose 15-1 to the Yankees, with Johnson going barely 1.1 innings pitched as Barry Zito throws a gem for the other team. Okay, that sucks for opening day, but it's early and nothing much can be read into it. The pinstripe A's have a full season to come.

But then it happens: The injury bug.

The first one to go down is Jeter, who goes down for a week after getting spiked by Bobby Crosby and getting a deep gash in his hand.

Bernie Williams is sent down to AAA so that we can keep an extra pitcher around, just in case of rain (and let's face it, he can't hit righties right now).

Our brand new pitching acquisition, Kyle Farnsworth, somehow can't get his fastball above 83mph, and is eventually sent to the DL to figure things out.

Giambi, suffering from sore legs, is rested every few days and always seems close to the DL.

Matsui gets a sore back and sits out a game or so per week.

Gary Sheffield does his knee in, and hits the DL for at least a month.

Ron Villone goes down with an injury, hurting his ankle during a play at first base. Out for several weeks.

Bernie Williams is called up from AAA for a few days, despite terrible stats down there. He proceeds to hit nothing, and is sent back, only to return a few days later when yet more players get injured.

Then, just as it couldn't get worse, Mariano Rivera gets an injury and is out for several weeks. Then Ocatavio Dotel. Then Mike Myers.

Kelly Stinnett becomes the regular starting catcher when Jorge Posada charges an opposing pitcher and gets a 4-game suspension.

Jeter comes back into the lineup for a few weeks, but then does his tricep in and sits out another week.

And then, when it couldn't get any worse SURELY, down goes Mike Mussina for six weeks with back spasms.

And that's before we even get into MAY, PEOPLE!

Now, imagine if you will what the Yankees would be playing like if they'd lost Posada, Giambi, Matsui, Sheffield, Jeter, Mussina, Farnsworth, Rivera, Dotel, Myers, and Bernie Williams.

Here's your answer: they'd be playing like schisse. And they would be running a distant third in their division.

Now, let's reset BizarroWorld and bring the Oakland boys back into the Oakland squad (good, I was getting really nauseous thinking of Giambi in green).

We have lost almost everyone of worth at one point or other. We have a bullpen consisting of AAA pitchers. We have a starting rotation consisting of long relievers. We have an offense that is continually covering for the fact that we can't hold a lead, and is struggling to remain healthy because every game is high pressure.

And we're only 3 games out of first place!!

I put it to you, good people, that any team in this modern professional game, should they have been hit with the injury barrage we've withstood, would be splayed out on the concrete, bleeding from the head, wondering if they could beat Kansas City for the title of 'second worst team in the game'.

Take the Yankees' star-studded lineup and run our injuries through them, and they would be decimated, destroyed, and panic buying Jeff Reboulet-standard replacements for $10m a piece.

Take the Chi-Sox and throw some Oakland injury juju at them, and you'd see a team consisting of the AJ Pierzysnki zombie, and a bunch of 35-year-old softball players who had the misfortune of showing up at the ballpark wearing a Chicago jersey.

Take Kansas City and give them an Oakland injury enema, and they'd play so poorly they'd still be trying to wrap up their game from May 12th.

We are the fucking Oakland Athletics. We have been to the mountain top and fallen down the other side, broken six hips, torn eighteen obliques, cracked a couple of ankles, lost our velocity, relied on Marco god damned Scutaro to win games, and we STILL trail first place by only three games!!!

In the coming days and weeks, we will be adding the following players to our roster:

Joe Kennedy
Jay Witasick
Rich Harden
Esteban Loaiza (maybe)
Milton Bradley
[insert next five names here, because I'm too lazy]

This team is AWESOME, damn you all. It has taken the worst beating and abuse that the baseball gods can dish out, and it's still coming at ya. It has been kicked and ripped at and punched in the junk, and it's still keeping the world champions to one-run results.

Get off my team's back, you pessimistic harpies. All they need is a couple of days to catch a breath, a couple of wins to bring Texas back, and a couple of returns from injury so they can send some AAA players bacck to their rightful home.

Do ya think that maybe some of you could help them do that by showing a little patience, faith, and non-Anaheim fan intelligence?

Thank you. That is all. You may now go back to building your Billy Beane voodoo dolls.

Poll

Oakland:

Shocking the world, considering

17 votes

Just plain shocking

7 votes

24 votes | Poll has closed