Hi, this post is aimed at Las Vegans and anybody else out there blacked out of watching A's games because of illogical market boundaries.  Though MLB promised to look into the matter last year, and the word I read was a proposal that required teams to either broadcast in a market, or lose exclusivity rights to a market if a year passed without broadcast was in the pipelines, nothing seemed to have come of it-- So it seems one more year of being blacked out!

I also have an additional question, and I'll feel really silly if I've been missing A's games because of this:  If I get DirecTV, which offers Comcast Sports BayArea, will I be able to watch A's games?  Or do they have some insane reason for blacking those out?

UPDATE: Upon further review I have found out that that because the A's have moved over to Comcast Sports California (and this must be old news to all you guys, of course), even though the package I get includes Comcast Sports Bay Area, I'll only get the Giants.  Does anybody have any clue why Comcast Sports Bay Area is included in the Las Vegas market, but not Comcast California?  Seriously, wtf.

UPDATE 2: Apparently I now love the policy, since DirecTV carries all those regional sports networks (though I do have to pay for Comcast California and FSN Arizona or whatever they have, sadly), I will get A's, Dodgers, Padres, D'Backs, Giants, and Angels without having to pay for Extra Innings.  God Bless DirecTV.  Unless it turns out those games are blacked out.  Then I'll have to cry and wait to fork over a zillion dollars to get the Raiders in the fall.

I just received the following in my weekly Mechanics Institute Chess Club e-mail newsletter:

"1) Mechanics' Institute Chess Club News
 
Oleg Shakhnazorov has won the Fall Tuesday Night Marathon with a round to go by defeating Expert Evan Sandberg last night. Shakhnazorov has 8 from 9 with Expert Larry Snyder second at 6.5 followed by a large group on 6.
 
IM Ricardo DeGuman won the 38th Carroll Capps Memorial held November 8-9 with a score of 5.5 from 6 to take home the $400 first prize. George Sanguinetti was second at 5 in the 59 player field followed by Keith Vickers, Gary Huang, Evan Sandberg, Michael Lin and Nikunj Oja on 4.5.
 
Rapidly improving Michael As****** (name slighlty changed to protect the innocent) won the 27-player Jim Hurt Memorial Under 1800 this past weekend scoring 5 from 6 to  pick up 150 rating points and $200."

Way to go!

With Hannahan actually being pretty reasonable at 3B, and Chavez coming off serious back injury, and Daric Barton missing the signs of promise, it seems sort of natural to me to option Barton when Chavez is healthy and to just play Chavez at 1B for the time being.  I've been out of town for a week, but checked the roster shakeup thread and didn't really see any discussion of that.  It seems like a convenient solution to several problems.  Any thoughts?

Miguel Tejada promises HR for sick kid, delivers

It's very nice to see more news like this instead of the drivel they produced recently that they tried to pass off as hard journalism.  Steroids and age scandals might have led to a dirty era of the game, but baseball is still baseball-- And even some of the players with shadows of cheating (on both counts) play with an extreme love of the game and extreme goodwill for people around them.

Turnbow Released

To me this signals the end of a saga that was the closer's inverse of Huston Street's current criticism.  In Street's case, he is being vilified as a result of a small sample of fly balls going yard.  Relievers can have both "lucky" seasons and "unlucky" seasons due to the small sample of innings you see out of them in any given season.  Turnbow's magical 2005 and half-magical 2006 were clearly "lucky"(which I sort of remember a lot of people expecting at the time, it just took him a bit of extra time to regress to the mean).  Street's mean to regress to is a very good mean, and when he gets whacked around for a few innings, the first assumption should be "he's probably unlucky".

If only Tejada was showing signs of aging and Chavez was playing up to his youthful potential, this would make Billy Beane look like even more of a genius!  What I don't understand is that it seems like a lot of DR players end up costing themselves money by lying about their age and being brought around a lot slower than they might otherwise have been brought up.  This means Tejada will be hitting free agency again at 35(!) instead of one or two years earlier, which could make a huge impact on the length and size of his next contract.

Tejada Two Years Older Than Astros Thought-Houston Chronicle

I don't want to jump to any conclusions about the A's competitiveness, but I had them pegged as an 80-85 win team with a chance of catching some lucky breaks and finishing better (as opposed to last year's catching all the bad breaks and finishing worse).  They are off to a good start, but I fear our offensive production is a mirage--They aren't going to consistently pile up 9th inning runs, or allowing 7 and 8 runs and winning.  Fortunately Chavez will be an upgrade over Hannahan, and Gonzalez might be ready soon.

Unfortunately, Jack Cust has been a complete sieve as pitchers have figured out how to sap his power and strike him out even more than before, and he's probably the only LF in the league who Barry Bonds is a clear defensive upgrade over.  Signing Bonds to play 50 games in LF and to DH 50 games would be a huge upgrade in the middle of the lineup, shouldn't cost too much given current market demand and an assumption that Bonds would rather continue to play in front of friendly Bay Area fans as much as possible, and shouldn't block OF prospects too much, particularly if he plays mostly DH (sitting vs Lefties to allow Sweeney to play).  Should we be out of the race in July, he could also prove to be a valuable trading chip to pick up nice prospect.

I'll pledge to avoid buying A's tickets until they show some interest in signing Bonds, and I pledge to buy a 6-pack or 20-pack of season tickets should they show interest.  Anybody else with me?