Moneyball is playing at the Capitol Drive In in San Jose, we are planning on going on Saturday October 1st, All movies at the Drive-In are double features, Moneyball plays at 7:30 PM and it is playing with Columbiana at 10:05 PM. The drive in only accepts cash, so keep that in mind if you do not normally carry cash with you.

The admission is $6.95 per person, Kids 5-11 are $1.00 and Kids under 5 are free. We are going to bring the Ice Chests and food and have a Mini-Tailgate. I believe that the gates open at 6:00 PM. As with any tailgate bring something to share, your own main dish and bring your own drinks, I will have my ice chests and the tables that we use for tailgating.

I think that we are going to keep the tailgate simple. I will bring the tables and all the tailgate stuff, but I am thinking about not bringing the grill (The drive in rules say no BBQ'ing, but we have seen people doing it before). Ralph and I may go and pick up sandwiches, pizza or something that is already prepared. I have a boombox radio so that we can bring chairs and watch the movie outside. Of course, you can also watch the movie in your car if you would like. If you are going to watch outside from a chair you may want to bring a blanket as it may get cool.

Please use this post or the Facebook event, Facebook Moneyball Drive-In, to RSVP and give us an idea what you are bringing for food. This is going to be a really great time!

It was the summer of 1980, I was a young boy, 7 years old, and about to attend my first A's Game. I remember being very excited about going and I knew it was a big deal to go to a "real" baseball game. My Mom had me all set up with a new A's cap and T-shirt and I was ready to go. This day was going to be great, me, my Mom and my Grandpa enjoying a baseball game together. I don't remember much about the game, who the A's were playing or what the final score was. I do remember seeing Crazy George standing on the dug out encouraging the fans to cheer on the A's. I was hooked and this is what set me up to be an A's fan for the rest of my life.

I would attend several more games through my preteen years, many times going with my parents and many times going with my Grandpa. My Grandpa was a ticket taker at the Coliseum for many years and he really loved that job, he got to watch the games of his beloved A's for free once he was done taking tickets. You see, my Grandpa wasn't rich, he worked as a clerk at Safeway all his career and he really valued being able to work at the games and as he would say, get paid to watch the A's.

When I was in High School I would attend as many games as possible, my Grandpa would go with me when he could. He sure loved to see the A's win and man was he a fan of the Home Run. Most of these games we would just sit out in the left field bleachers and enjoy the sun, the game, and chatting about sports. When I graduated from High School I was given the greatest gift ever, season tickets for the A's. That was in 1991, so these were good times to be an A's fan, they were at the end of their of World Series appearances but they were still a darn good team. I renewed those season tickets that were given to me, every year for ten years.

My Grandpa lived alone in Hayward and as I grew older, him and I grew closer. We would still attend A's games and I would go visit him at home. Sometimes, I would pop in and we would go to his favorite restaurant, Banchero's, in Hayward. Every time that I would go over we would talk about sports, usually the A's and the Raider's his two favorite teams. He would get so upset about some of the "dumb" moves that he thought these teams were making. He didn't understand much about the stats of the game, just what he read in the paper and saw with his own two eyes,this is how he evaluated his teams.

My Grandpa also loved to go to the casino and through my 20's and 30's I would often pick him up and take him to Reno or Cache Creek. Sometimes we would just head over to Golden Gate Fields and spend a day watching the ponies run. In December we took an overnight trip up to Reno and he had so much fun, he loved to play those machines and shoot some craps every now and then. As we were walking through Circus Circus, he said, what do you think about them A's this year. I said, I don't know I think we are about a year away from being serious. He looked up at the futures board and saw that the A's were 125 to 1 to win the World Series and 60 to 1 to win the AL Pennant. He said, well I think that is worth $20 and he placed $20 on each wager.

Why, you say, do I write about this? Well my Grandpa passed away yesterday at Kaiser in Hayward, at the age of 90. My Grandpa worked his entire life, he was still working a small job at a local carwash up until January of this year when he became ill. My Grandpa was someone that I really admired and looked up to. My Grandpa is the reason that I am a huge fan of the Oakland Athletics and a huge part of who I am today. I want to thank him for turning me into an A's Fan and for all of the great times that we had together, I will miss him tremendously. I would love to be heading up to Reno in November to cash those tickets my Grandpa bought last year! Go A's!!

 This is My Grandpa, taken about two weeks ago. Some of you may know him or recognize him from the many years that he worked at the Coliseum.   

So I was talking to a friend in Philadelphia today and he was telling me about an awards banquet that was held last night in Philly by the Philadelphia Sports Writers. Andrew Bailey was awarded with the Native Son Award at the 106th annual Philadelphia Sports Writers Association Awards Dinner. Andrew Bailey is from south Jersey and according to my friend, this award is a big deal in Philly. The local newspaper had the story on the front page of their website today, which I am including a link to in this post. The article is a good read with a lot of good quotes that I think everyone will enjoy. Here is the link: Bailey earns Special Honor

I'm the first person to admit that I am not a "stats guy." I love baseball and I love the A's, but I cannot quote off the top of my head random stats or normally not even common stats about players or records. I am a fan of many sports but baseball is by far my favorite! I love going out to the 'ole Coliseum for the games, and I am fortunate to live here in the Bay Area, so I can attend the games in person. There are so many stats and information available about so many different things related to the game, sometimes it seems like stat overload, but it's what makes the game so great. Everyone is able to look at the numbers and make assumptions or sometimes realize facts about people or things that have happened. In baseball stat sheets are like school history books, we can look back to games played 80 years ago and have some idea how things went down.

I have begun to recently pick up and read the Oakland Athletics Game Information sheet that is available inside the Coliseum at A's home games. For those of you who are not familiar with it, the sheet basically has all kinds of miscellaneous facts and stats about the A's and the particular game that you are attending. While reading the sheet yesterday before the game started I thought that since some of you have not seen it I would share some of the information from the sheet. Much of the information from yesterday's game is negative because the team is not very good, but I still find it intersting and I hope that you all do to. I apologize to those of you who already know most of this but I hope that you find something something interesting that you didn't know.

The A's have not won or lost more than 3 games in a row since June 29th, maybe this is commom amongst teams, but I am guessing that this is most commom amongst teams that are not very good. I am assuming that the good teams go on winning streaks for more than 3 games pretty frequently. But it also would appear that we are not the worst becuase it seems like if we were the worst then we would have lost more than 3 in a row at sometime during this span. So I give this stat a grade of Mediocre for the A's.

The A's have spent the last 126 days and 132 days total this year in sole possession of last place in the AL West. The only seasons in Oakland history where we spent more days alone in last place are 1997 (153) and 1979 (147). The A's have finished the season in last place in the AL West only six times in Oakland History (1977, 1979, 1993, 1995, 1997, 1998). I am really hoping that this current team is more like the 1998 team and not so much like the 1997 team, as that would mean that good things maybe even great things are on the horizon.

In the homestand that concluded yesterday, the A's number three hitters were 4 for 26 (.154). The number three hitters are batting .215 (115 for 536) for the season, which is the lowest mark in the majors, since 1974! The four players with the  most starts in the three spot are Jack Cust (33 starts, .156 AVG), Jason Giambi (29, .210), Scott Hairston (26, .252) and Kurt Suzuki (21, .198).

The A's have started a rookie pitcher 98 times this year, which is an Oakland record, beating the 1983 mark of 93. According to Elias, the last team to have more starts by a rookie pitcher is the 1998 Florida Marlins (128). The A'sstarters are 39-55 with a 4.81 ERA for the season and have the second fewest innings pitched (759.2) along with the second fewest wins and the fourthhighest ERA in the AL. We are the only AL team with just one complete game, the Oakland record for fewest complete games in a season is two in 1997 and the record for fewest innings pitched in a non strike season is 858.2 also in 1997.

The A's are fourth in the AL and tied for fourthin the majors with 107 stolen bases this season, this is just the second time in the last 14 years that we have had more than 100 steals in a season (1998 they had 131). This is a big change from our early 2000's strategy where we put guys in and then waited for the 3 run homer. I guess that with the way the team is currently assembled our only hope of scoring is to manufacture runs. 

The A's are batting .273 since the All Star break after hitting .246 before the break. I am glad to see that our batting average is up almost 30 points since the all star break, and it shows in the games. Many of the post all star games have been much more competitive. Our .256 average for the season is the second lowest in the AL. We rank last in the AL in Home Runs (118), Extra base Hits (373) and Slugging Percentage (.388). We have 441 walks and are on pace for 525 walks for the season, the last time the A's walked fewer than 537 times in an on strike season was 1985 when they had 508. So basically our batting average sucks and we don't walk, not a good combination IMO.

The defense seems to be a strong point as we have committed 82 errors for the season and are on pace to commit just 98 errors. This would give us fewer than 100 errors in each of the previous five seasons, which equals the longest streak in MLB History (Phillies 2001-2005).

Our beloved A'shave finished with a losing record in each of the first five months this year, the first time we have done that since 1993. Not even the 1997 A's managed that one, yikes! The only time in Oakland A's history that we have had a losing record in all six months was 1979. I am too young to remember the 1979 season but man that team must have really stunk as they are on the worst record list for the A's several times!  In the majors this season only Baltimore and Washington, along with the A's have finished with a losing record in all five months. Our last month with a winning record was last June (16-10) and the eight consecutive months since then without a winning record is he second longest streak in Oakland history (also had eight straight from August 1978 to September 1979), there's that 79 team again, LOL! The longest streak we have ever had was 10 months in a row from August 1996 to May 1998, can you say Tom Candiotti and Ernie Young anyone.

I think that I have found the key to winning for this team, the A's are 54-24 when they score 4 runs or more. We are 7-52 when we score less than 4 runs. So, I think that we just need to ask for a grand slam a game and we will be good to go!  

I hope that everyone has a great Labor Day Holiday and I hope that I did not bore you with these stats. I was somewhat intrigued when I read them and I hope that you get something out of them as well, other than the fact that we are not too good right now.  

Today was a great day to be an A's fan. After attending a great game in which the A's won 10-4 over the Royals (and I was able to visit with DFA for a little bit at the end of the game, always great to see fellow ANers at the game live and in person), the A's did the postgame show, "Extra Innings," live from the Holiday Inn and all of the fans were invited to be a part of the show. This event was a lot of fun and everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves quite a bit. The guests for the show today were Kurt Suzuki and Gio Gonzalez.

There were approx 200 people who came for the live broadcast and when the players entered everyone cheered loudly. Both players were awesome on the show and with the crowd. Both of them have a great sense of humor and they appeared to be good people, at least from what I could tell in the hour and a half that the event lasted. Neither one of the players appeared as if they were forced to be there or that they were not interested. Both of them were engaging and played along with all the games and gags that they had on the show.

I was somewhat unprepared in going to this event even though I knew that I would be going several days in advance, so I did not bring my camera. However, after some egging on from Zigfan, and her reminding me of the great photo she took of me from AN day, I decided to use my cell phone to take some pictures. I am not professional photographer as you will see from these pictures, many of them came out a bit dark but I hope that you all enjoy them anyways. I think that my best picture of the day is the picture I got of "imaseasonticketholder" after having a great visit with her after the event. So here is my attempt at capturing the moment:

Here is Kurt signing my friend Ralph's hat:

Here is me and Kurt:

 Here is Ralph and Gio:

Here is Me and Gio:

Here is the host Robert Buan:

And here is someone we all know and love, look its "Imaseasonticketholder"

Here is Ralph, some of you met him at AN day, you may know him as the dude that made the awesome Potato and Macaroni salad to share:

And hey Zigfan this is for you, this is a picture of my other side, its debatable but I think that you may have got the best side of me, LOL:

Again sorry for the poor quality of the pics, but if the A's do this again, I would reccomend that if you are able to, you should definately attend. I have additional pictures but they are even worse quality so I picked the "best."

The A's attendance problems this season have me extremely concerned as I am sure it does to the A's management as well. I know that winning would translate into higher attendance numbers, but I would have thought that the signing of Giambi and Holliday would have increased ticket sales prior to the season beginning, before we knew that they would not produce.

The Bobblehead giveaway on Saturday is a perfect example of reason to be concerned. It was about 70 degrees and a georgous day at the stadium, coming off of a win on Friday, and a free bobblehead which has typically been a big draw. The bobbleheads were slated to be given to the first 15,000 fans, well that turned out to be just about every fan, as the attendance for the game was only 15,812. I knew we were in trouble when we only had 11,484 for the Giants ST game in April on another Beautiful day in the bay area. Even though they A's are not playing well, it is still enjoyable to go out on a nice day and spend it at the ballpark. Its not like it is even the most expensive thing to do with tickets starting at $9, that is chaeper than a movie! The Friday night $50 pack and Wednesdays $2 Tickets and $1 Hot Dogs, are you kidding me, these promos are almost cheaper than staying home!

I will say that the few fans who do attend the games are great baseball fans, but man I would sure like to see more people out there for our games. It is embarrasssing seeing highlights from our games and just seeing empty seats everywhere. And not that it makes much of a difference, if it makes a difference at all, wouldn't it make the players feel better about playing in front of a crowd?

I did a little research on the other Oakland teams and attendance numbers. The Golden State Warriors for 2008-2009 averaged 18,942 for their home games, this number ranked them 9th in the NBA. The Oakland Raiders averaged 57,850 for their eight home games in 2008 which ranked them 31st in the NFL.

I know that a year or two ago the Raiders advertised in the coliseum during A's games with big banners hanging above the stairways in the outfield. I also have Raider Season tickets and there is never even a mention of the A's at a Raiders game, no ads- no nothing. I have not been to a Warriors game but I am assuming it is the same. It seems to me that we should be advertising to these fans in our market who are already spending money in the Bay Area on sports.

I am also amazed at how many Raider fans and Warrior fans are fans of baseball but not of the A's. Why are we not able to capture all of the fans in the East Bay? It seems to me that we should be able to convert many of these fans to our teams, they already live here and they prove that they spend money on sports. I know that the problem is not financial as Raider and Warrior tickets are not nearly as affordable as A's Tickets. If we could just get a fraction of the Raider and Warrior fans at A's Games that would give us a big boost to our base attendance.  

ESPN is reporting that the Arizona Diamondbacks have fired manager Bob Melvin. The Diamondbacks will replace Melvin with 34 year old former Oakland A's catcher A.J. Hinch. Hinch was the V.P. of player development for the Diamondbacks prior to his promotion which is due to be announced by the team in Friday.

At least the former friend, and maybe current friend, of former AL Rookie of the year Ben Grieve is doing well for himself in baseball, unlike Ben Grieve. I am glad to see that A.J. is doing well for himself. I was just looking through the story and man, it sure seems like Arizona is having some offensive problems that would rival ours. Eric Byrnes is hitting .139.

 Onto the A's, I keep hearing the famous tag line, maybe this will be the day that gets us going. How many games do we play where we hear this and it never materializes, but hey here's to hoping that today is the one that gets us going. Let's Go A's!!