Fooch's Note: I've added some comments Joe Nedney made about this fundraiser.  I just finished transcribing that and posted it at the end of this.

Hello everyone!  For starters, I’d like to say thank you to Fooch for allowing me to post this information here on Niners Nation.

I am a volunteer puppy raiser for a non-profit organization called Canine Companions for Independence. CCI provides highly trained assistance dogs for children and adults with disabilities, free of charge.  To make a long story short, CCI has partnered with the San Francisco 49ers to create an amazing fundraising calendar featuring Niners players and some really cute pups. 

via i616.photobucket.com

Fooch's Note: I've moved the rest of this after the jump to save front page space.  I really do hope people join in on this very worthy cause.  Everybody could use a calendar, and who doesn't love the 49ers and puppies???  Thanks to Jenny for contacting me about this...

Continue reading this post »

Now that we're a few weeks into spring training, I'm sure many of you have been able to listen to a few broadcasts on the A's new radio home, KTRB AM 860.   The A's have a one-year contract with AM 860, and as far as I understand, there is no FM affiliate as there was last year. 

When I read about the first details of the new station in the Contra Costa Times, I was thrilled to hear that it was a 50,000 watt signal.  I had always heard that KNBR 680 (also 50,000 watts) could be heard clearly from insane distances outside the Bay Area.  I assumed that this new A's station would have an excellent signal.  Evidently the A's shared my optimism:

"We are delighted to join KTRB in this broadcast partnership," said Ken Pries, A's vice president of broadcasting & communications. "Their powerful 50,000-watt signal will provide our fans with a clear and consistent broadcast throughout the Bay Area."

Sadly now that the broadcasts have begun, I have been very disappointed with the clarity of the broadcast.  FreeSeatUpgrade was kind enough to explain why:

It’s the concept of a clear channel, a radio station which enjoys protection from interference on its wavelength which far exceeds the protection a run-of-the-mill station gets.

In general terms, a clear channel station like KNBR is protected from having anyone else broadcast on AM 680 within over 1,000 miles or more. By comparison, there are a number of other AM 860 stations on the West Coast alone.

Since Friday I've done testing in most all the situations I'll be listening to A's games this season.  The results have been very mixed.

At work in Emeryville:  Zero reception in my office (loud buzzing static that completely drowns out the broadcast.)   Very poor reception in our warehouse, and even that awful quality could only be achieved by balancing my radio at a 45 degree angle using a couple of phone books.

In my office van (which has a bad radio):  Terrible reception when coasting that becomes completely unlistenable if I step on the accelerator.

In my normal car driving from Berkeley to Oakland:  decent reception, only slight static

On my portable walkman-type radio, walking my dog in Berkeley:  Rather static-y, but could be listenable if you're a die-hard fan. 

At home in Berkeley:  moderate reception in my kitchen, bad reception in the rest of the house.

I would like to hear how the rest of you are finding the signal quality of the broadcasts so far.  Perhaps you can check in with where you've been listening and what you've heard.  One of my great pleasures of the baseball season is working the radio broadcast into my daily life.  It makes me walk the dog a little longer,  my commute a little faster, and my household chores a bit more tolerable.  The thought that I will be fighting static for 162 games (plus the playoffs!) really bums me out.  I'm not sure if anything can be done to improve things, but if the majority of you are having the problems I am, I think it should be looked into by the A's. 

{sigh}  At least it's only a one-year deal?

via i35.photobucket.com

Remember that one time….when we crushed Brandon Webb…um…uh…that was awesome!

It’s hard to decide who was awesomest, however.  Was it the insanely awesome Justin Duchscherer, who threw eight innings of one run ball?  <cough, how ‘bout a complete game, skip? cough>  Was it the magically awesome Mark Ellis, with his two home runs?  Or could it have been Carlos Gonzalez, with his superbly awesome catch in the 8th? The catch prompted Bob Geren to say:

"I'd love to see it over again," Geren said. "I look forward to seeing that. That will definitely be on TV. I can't imagine 10 better plays there on 'Baseball Tonight' than that. If there are a better 10 plays, I really want to see the other 10."

SuSlu reports  that the D-Backs might be eyeing our Unicorn for a possible future vacancy at 2nd base.  Says Ellis: 

"Honestly, it's way too early to think about it," Ellis said of his future. "Orlando is an unbelievable second baseman and I don't know what their plans are, and I have no idea what's going to happen with the A's. But obviously, I live here (Phoenix) and there are a lot of attractive things about it."

Says batgirl: Ellis is ours and you can't have him.

As it turns out, Patrol Craft’s catch was a #1 web gem, and it was #3 on ESPN’s top plays.  It would have been  #1 except for the fact that (and I’m probably breaking news to many of you here, because there has been almost no broadcast time used to cover it,) The Boston Celtics  won the NBA Championship!

I’m very torn about this because I don’t like the Lakers, yet I really don’t like the fans of New England having one more reason to get their knickers in a twist about how great they are.

Today is International Panic Day , which, if you think about it, should really be an Athletics Nation national holiday.  Feel free to take the day off work, host your own home tailgate in advance of tonight’s game, and scream from the rafters "WE’RE ALL GONNA DIE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" 

I just found this gem on the Direct TV and though you all might be in the mood to send in some complaint emails:

We experienced temporary technical difficulties early this morning which resulted in some channels not being available to customers (the majority of our channels were not affected). We have since corrected the problem.

In the case of the Red Sox game, any customers who have NESN or ESPN2 in HD were able to see the entire game. For customers who watch NESN in Standard Definition (SD), we were able to bring the channel back at the top of the seventh inning. For customers who watch ESPN2 in SD the channel came back on later, after the game was over.

We deeply apologize, particularly to Red Sox fans, for any inconvenience this may have caused.

(emphasis mine)

Excuse me, "particularly to Red Sox fans"?!?  What are we, invisible here?!  Like I wasn't already completely steamed about this whole broadcasting fiasco, and now they put out this insulting apology?

If you've got a minute, give them a call, or send them an email:

888-777-2454

http://www.directv.com/DTVAPP/customer/howToReachUs.jsp

I'm now eating my lunch, and there's still no DLD.  I've waited and waited for better, more linktastic people to put up a DLD.  I need one, we need one.  And it's time I stopped relying on others to entertain me, dammit!  So without further ado...here are the only two topics I could muster:

 1.  Apricot, are you ready for "The Dialogues of Dulce Chavez?"  Yes, the newest Chavette is a girl  and her name will be Dulce.  Not sure if I spelled that correctly.

 Pretend there's a link here, except the only link is in my mind because I heard it on the radio. 

2.  EAMB is back, but I can't figure out how to link that either.

So pretend. 

Editing to try a fancy link:  Mini has a new car coming out this year.  Apparently it's called the CLUBMAN which seems like a really stupid name.

Aaaagh, so much angst over Mr. Milton Bradley.  (There, I mentioned him just so I can push my posts higher!)  

I only have a few links, but I think this one is good enough to justify my first DLD.

Roscoe and Lehi's original goal was to keep children off the streets, so when there's no baseball, they take the Royals bowling, golfing, to movies and for pizza. They attend some A's games with help from that team's youth programs.

Lehi says her goal now is to shepherd these children into college. Roscoe said, "I'm in it just to see these kids live another day."

Perhaps next year our AN community ticket fund can help them get to a few more A's games.  

It was a good run, Miggy!

Milton or no Milton, Naomi and Bronte still love the A's

Dump on, bitches

Following the Bill King memorial at Rickey's I mailed a letter to the King family including our two condolence cards, mrod's poem, and a brief description of the event and the "HOLY TOLEDO" banners we made.  Yesterday in the mail I received a very nice note from Kathleen Lowenthal, Bill King's stepdaughter.  Since it is meant to be for the whole group of us, I thought I'd transcribe it here.  

The front of the card says:  "The family of Bill King acknowledges with grateful appreciation your kind expression of sympathy"

The interior reads:  

12-29-05
Dear Jenny,
Thank you so very much for your lovely condolence note and please extend our appreciation to all the others who included cards and kind words with your letter - and especially to Martin Vincent Rodriguez for his wonderful poetic tribute to Bill.  Bill always knew he had the world's greatest and smartest audience.  His fans meant a lot to him.  And your kind words mean a lot to me and my family.

Best Wishes to all of you,

Kathleen Lowenthal

I don't want to clog up the diaries as we close in on the trading deadline, so I thought I'd take this off day to extend one last invite to the folks of AN to come to a TV viewing party at my house.  Here are the details:

WHEN:  Saturday, August 6th, 2 pm (for BBQ)
WHERE:  batgirl's house in North Berkeley
WHAT:  A's vs Royals (game is at 4 pm)

Come over at 2 pm and bring something to BBQ for lunch. I'll provide some sides and Nico is bringing all of the leftover beer from Chez Nico #1 & 2.  

I already have 13 people who are either confirmed or are trying to make it.  I should have room for a few more in Mount Batgirl if your schedule has become more clear and you think you can attend. (Please keep your dirty "mount batgirl" jokes to yourselves--that means you, Nico.) If you are interested, email me at batgirlAN@hotmail.com.  Please include your username--you'll receive a follow up email with all of the details.

Don't miss this opportunity to meet some fellow AN'ers and turn AN Day II into your own personal "Cheers."  Imagine the joy of showing up and having a number of people greet you by name: "Hey (insert username) how's it going?!"  

WHO:  You, silly!
WHAT:  Casa de batgirl
WHEN:  Saturday, August 6th, 2 pm
WHERE:  batgirl's house, silly!
WHY:  To gather with other ANers to watch the A's kick some Royals tail

Nico has been so nice to host us twice, and I think it's time we gave him a break.  So, come one, come as many as will fit, to Casa de batgirl for an afternoon of food and A's watching.  I live up on the hill in Berkeley.  Although the BART station is a bit of a walk, there should be no problem sending a car down to pick up any  BART riders to shuttle up to my house.

I thought Chez Nico II was particularly fun as we had time to hang out and chat prior to the game, so I'll propose a similar set up:  food from 2-4, first pitch 4:10.  I'm undecided yet what to do about food, but the BBQ was great and I imagine we'll go that route.  More to follow.

If you are interested in attending, email me at batgirlAN@hotmail.com and be sure to include your user name.  I'll follow up with you to give directions and additional information.  All are welcome, but I may need to limit it if we seem to be getting too many people to fit in my living room.  

Hope to see you there!  We'll get that elusive photo of Melody yet!

We've got 3 long days to go, and I've got 3 more hours to kill before I can leave work.  To whit, I am passing the time by composing some A's Haikus.  I realize this doesn't really qualify as something of substance, but I hope some of you have fun with it.  There are always some really clever contributors to AN, so I'm sure you all can come up with some better ones than I've written to get the ball rolling...

Macha, please protest!
Nah, the dugout is comfy.
Got to be Nations.

Whither goes Byrnsie
to the Mets or maybe Mars
Make it stop Billy

What is with those clothes?
seen those orange pants before
Zito's walk of shame

Looking on in fear
Can he possibly make it?
Ruby, First to Third