Went to the see our River Cats play the Iowa Cubs Wednesday night. Was a double-header due to Tuesday's game being rained out.  Each game was 7 innings instead of 9.

Warning: Lots of pics!

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I've lived in the midwest and had MLB EI for 3 seasons now.  For the most part I like it.  My big issue is with MLB and their dumb-ass over-extended media territories, but that's not DirecTV's fault, as is a subject for another thread.  For reasons that don't really involve MLB EI I am considering switching from DirecTV to cable.  Anyway...

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I guess somebody has to start a fanpost about this. It's going to come up eventually.

So, Jay McGwire... concerned brother? Sleazy opportunist? Something else?  Is he even telling the truth?

Personally, I've never heard of the guy until today. I was aware of Dan, but not this guy.

Anyway, there's not much for me to say on the subject at the moment, but this should make for interesting conversation if nothing else. Here ya go...

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=3851381

The book, "The McGwire Family Secret: The Truth about Steroids, a Slugger and Ultimate Redemption," is reportedly being sent by Jay McGwire to several publishing houses in New York. Deadspin.com said that it has been turned down by "many" publishers.

For several years we've been told that a large part of the A's continued success was going to have to come from the farm system. That impact players through free agency just wasn't going to be a regular viable option, due to cost, etc. So, if that's the case, why was the farm system allowed to become so dreadfully depleted to begin with?

We're told the team's financial model is frugality, not cheapness. Ok, fine. I actually buy that to some degree, but I do wonder if cheapness still didn't creep in somewhere. It stands to reason that if more had been invested in the farm system all along (read Grover's fanpost about the investment trends the past few years), as the team has always said was their goal and policy, and as they're doing now, then maybe the team wouldn't have felt the need to go into such a deep rebuild mode for Rebuild #2 so quickly after Rebuild #1. Possibly, instead of trading Haren or Swisher or some of the others, they just might have had their own home grown players coming up now to fill the voids.

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Everybody's frustrated right now. I get it. So am I. There's a very stark contrast to the excitement and enthusiasm that was prevalent here in the early part of the season, and the despair that is common right now. That early excitement and enthusiasm wasn't unwarranted, but I do feel that it is time to take a step back and try to objectively assess what is happening and where this team is going and when.

Rebuilding - some thoughts about various aspects of this rebuilding and observations I've made of the team and the fans...

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Not literally every year, of course, but as a general concept since 1968 it has seemed to me that the Giants and A's have always fed off each other.  When one team gets good and starts drawing attention and attendance, the other team suddenly starts doing things to get better.  Maybe to keep their market share, or media attention, or whatever.  Could be any number of reasons.  I've always wondered if maybe it's a subconscious thing, but is it mere coincidence that both teams are generally pretty good or pretty bad at around the same times?

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http://mlb.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?...

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How would you assess Bob Geren's performance as manager this year?  Now that the season is over (or will be over in a few hours).

First losing record in many years aside, I must say that I am pleasantly surprised that the team did as well as they did, and I give alot of the credit to Geren and his juggling of the line-ups, and in-game moves, and ability to work with what he had.  Was he perfect?  Hell no, of course not, and there is some room for growing.  But, he was working with a AAAA team most of the time, and also had a few players who couldn't get a clutch hit against a T-ball team.

It's a qualified endorsement, to be sure, but given what he had to work with, I think he did pretty damn good.  I still reserve judgement for next season, though.

Grade: B

Side question:  In your opinion, how would Ken Macha have done had he been retained?  Better?  Same?  Worse?

There are so many different things, but for me I think I'm more bummed by the losing record.  In spite of having a AAAA team most of the season, they showed some fight at times, and would have some good runs, but then would just as inexplicably fall apart for extended periods and blow everything they had gained.  I feel like they could have... should have... at least had a winning record.

Having said that, I do feel cautiously encouraged about the future.  Some dead weight was jettisoned and some good young players have gotten some experience and shown promise.

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Which player is most like Charlie Brown's hero Joe Shlabotnik from Peanuts?

This is meant in fun, but I gotta admit it's been a frustrating couple weeks watching these guys.

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