A's Beat By Linda Burnett
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February
14, 2012 I have to admit that some of the Oakland
A’s trades this winter have frightened me. However, I feel a little joy coming back to Mudville because
of recent developments. The Oakland A’s and Yoenis Cespedes
just agreed to a four-year, $36 million deal. Cespedes, if you’ll recall, is the Cuban defector.
He’s 26-years-old and an outfielder. Baseball Prospectus recently rated Cespedes as the 20th
best prospect in baseball. I, along with most of baseball, did not see this coming, but you have to think
this is an exciting move for the A’s. There is also a
rumor that the A’s are the primary suitor of Manny Ramirez. There are a lot of negatives to Ramirez,
and we’re not even talking about his attitude. He has to serve a 50-game suspension (due to a positive
PED test) before he can even play in the field. The positives? The A’s need a
Designated Hitter badly, and Ramirez could certainly fill that bill. And he can play in spring training
before the season begins. No matter what you say about Manny, you have to admit he’s got power.
And he probably still has it. Other trades are afoot.
The A’s are looking to add a reliever. Right now the A’s are looking at left-hander
Mike Gonzalez to fill that role. They were talking to the Rangers about trading for Koji Uehara for quite
awhile, but it looks like they’re more interested in Gonzalez. The left-handed reliever pitched 4.27
ERA last season for the Orioles and the Rangers, numbers that are not great, but his second half was much better at 2.85 ERA.
He’s notably a terror against left-handed batters with a .171 average. Hang in there, A’s fans. I’m definitely getting excited that Spring Training
is almost here! **************************************************************************************************************************
 January 24, 2012 Three years ago, when the Oakland A’s played the Boston Red Sox in
Japan, I was so excited. I set my alarm clock for 6am, got up and watched the DVR’s replay on T.V.
I believe the actual contest for the two games started at 3am. It felt like a playoff game to me,
although, granted, a faraway playoff game.
This
year the A’s open their season in Japan, playing the Seattle Mariners on March 28 and 29. However,
they play two preseason games against the Yomiuri Giants (on March 25) and the Hanshin Tigers (on March 26).
I don’t believe these preseason games will be broadcast locally, which is unfortunate.
Would I like to journey to Japan to watch all four games? You
betcha. However, that’s not happening, not only due to the money but also due to the timing.
And the deadline for purchasing tickets for the Japan Series has passed.
But I will be there at 3, 4 or 5 am, whatever it takes, to watch the games
unfold, the beginning of the 2012 season for the Oakland Athletics and the Seattle Mariners. We may not
know what kind of team we’ve got (and, frankly, we don’t quite know who’s on the team), but during these
games, we’ll be closer to finding out.
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January 18, 2012 The Oakland Athletics
are in a trading mood. Some good, some bad, depending on your perspective. The good (in my
opinion, of course): The acquisition of Bartolo Colon, the MVP of 2005, and former Angels darling.
The re-signing of Coco Crisp, who was an outstanding outfielder and speedster on the bases for the 2011 A’s,
to a two-year contract. However, you wouldn’t
recognize the rest of the squad. Just this week, Billy traded away pitchers Guillermo Moscoso and Josh
Outman, both slated as #5 pitchers, to the Colorado Rockies for outfielder Seth Smith. Smith has
batted .275 for his career, all at Colorado, and batted .275 in 2011. He is considered a very good fielder,
fielding .973 in 2011, and can play both corners. Smith may very well fit into the 3-or 4-spot on the A’s
roster. If you haven’t yet heard, Bill King did not win the 2012 Ford C. Frick Award for outstanding broadcasting.
The winner, Tim McCarver, was announced on December 6th and will be honored during the Hall of Fame weekend,
July 20-23, 2012. King was announced as one of the ten finalists.
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December
13, 2011
Well,
it's official. The A's traded Trevor Cahill and Craig Breslow to the Arizona Diamondbacks for Jarrod Parker, Collin
Cowgill, and Ryan Cook.
Parker missed all of 2010 after having undergone Tommy John surgery,
but was able to pitch last September. He is considered a top 50 prospect by MLB. Baseball America
ranked him #4 as a prospect, but that was before Parker's surgery.
Cowgill is an outfielder
who put up good numbers in the PCL last year. He has a career .299 average in 360 minor league games. He stands
a good chance of being the starting outfielder for the A's in 2012.
Cook, 24, is a pitcher
who became a full-time reliever last season. A right-hander, he has hit 97 mph with his fastball.
It
really looks like all three of these men could figure heavily into the A's plans for 2012. But don't blink: the
A's are shopping Andrew Bailey and Gio Gonzalez, and there is heavy interest out there.
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December
1, 2011 Chili Davis has just
been named the Oakland Athletics’ hitting coach, replacing Gerald Perry for 2012. Davis was the hitting coach for Triple-A Pawtucket
in 2011, and may be familiar to A’s fans for being a Giants player. He also played for the Angels,
Twins, Yankees and Royals.
The A’s have almost
completely replaced their coaching staff. Here’s how the staff stands right now: Bob Melvin:
Manager Chili Davis: Batting Coach Curt Young: Pitching
Coach Tye Waller: First Base Coach Mike Gallego: Third
Base Coach Chip Hale: Bench Coach Rick Rodriguez: Bullpen Coach A’s fans can’t help but be excited by the addition of Chili Davis,
as well as the return of Curt Young. Young knows the young
pitching staff – he was only absent a year – and working with young pitching talent is
his strong suit. We welcome Curt back. ************************************************************************************************************************
November 17, 2011
The F.B.I. You won't believe this. This latest medical problem I have isn't related to any of the nagging
issues that take me to my doctor every couple of months. Or even getting older, which is my latest "issue."
I call it the F.B.I. The Foul Ball Incident. In July 2011, I got hit with a foul ball, right in the chest. It took my breath away, as you can imagine.
I was varying shades of black and blue for 4 weeks. What made me mad about the whole thing was that
I didn't get the foul ball. It fell into the seat in front of me at the Oakland Coliseum (and there were
a lot of empty seats all around me). I was too stunned to reach for it. A 20-something
guy ran by and got it, and then ran away. I felt cheated. Fortunately, nothing was broken. I had reached up my hands to catch it, and the ball came right
through them as if they weren't there and hit my body with a loud thump. Probably a good thing.
Otherwise, I'd have broken fingers. Or a broken clavicle. Things could've been
far worse, and that was my upbeat attitude. But I was still simmering about the lost ball.
Out of all the games I had attended for so many years, I had never caught a foul ball. But in the waning days of the season, I got another chance. I was irritated with the guy sitting
next to me, so I was about to leave my aisle seat at the A's vs. the Tigers game, crouching down to get my bag under my seat,
when another foul ball came flying past me to the section next to me. It bounced and rolled over to me,
and I put my hand on it. But right then a guy jumped on me. He started wrestling me
for the ball. I was still seated, mind you,
and watching in disbelief as this 40-something man tried to wrest the ball out of my hand, attempting to pry my fingers loose.
After several agonizing seconds, I leaned into him, into his face, which was THIS far away from me, and yelled, "Let
go!" He did. I felt a strange sense of vindication as several gray-haired
women high-fived me in the section. Let's do the math. I've gone to an average
of, say, 45 games a year from about 1993 to the present. Before that, I probably went to maybe 15 games
a year, mostly at Dodger Stadium until I moved to Oakland in 1989. According to my calculator, that comes to about 1,000 major
league baseball games I've attended in my lifetime. And not ONCE did a foul ball ever come very close to
me at all. So, what are the odds that a foul ball would touch me twice within three months in one summer?
Astronomical? I broke a nail in the wrestling match. 24 hours later, I
discovered I had a muscle pull on my right side, no doubt caused by wrestling a grown man for a ball that I could easily have
bought at the A's store for $10. And yet, I feel like that ball holds all my strength, my ambition, my
will to survive. It's hard to explain, but it's a symbol. I think I'll hold onto it
for awhile. More famous FOUL BALL INCIDENTS: The
Steve Bartman incident occurred during a Major League Baseball playoff game between the Chicago Cubs and the Florida Marlins
on October 14, 2003 at Wrigley Field in Chicago. In the 8th inning of Game 6 of the National
League Championship Series, with Chicago ahead 3-1 and holding a 3 games to 2 game lead in the best of 7 series, Bartman reached
for a foul ball, disrupting a potential catch by Cubs outfielder Moises Alou. If Alou had caught the ball,
it would have been the second out of the inning, and the Cubs would have been just four outs away from winning the National
League pennant. Instead, the Cubs ended up surrendering eight runs in the inning, giving up the lead, and
went on to lose the game. Bartman, a lifelong Cubs fan, had to be escorted from the stadium by security
guards, and received police protection for a time when his life was threatened by angry fans. In 2010, at a Houston Astros game, girlfriend Sara and boyfriend Bo sat
down in seats that weren’t theirs. After
she exclaimed that, “We’re going to get hit” in that location, Bo assured her that he would catch any possible
foul ball that came their way. When the foul ball did, indeed, come their way, Bo is shown in a fan-made
video that he ducked out of the way while the ball struck Sara below her elbow. The
result was a big bruise. And a break-up.
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October 26, 2011 So, who are you rooting for in the World Series, Cardinals or Rangers?
I have only a passing interest in
the WS this year. The only real interest I have in either team is that an Athletics manager is trying to
win the ring. I first came to Oakland in 1989, when
Tony LaRussa helmed the Oakland A’s. He seemed stoic, a machine. He was famous
for using statistics before it was popular. He also was a great believer in the veteran player.
The A’s were champions under LaRussa for several years. We figured out later that he was just
as emotional as many of his players. He just hid it better. Ron
Washington is the kind of blue collar manager we all love. In his 12 years with the A’s, he was everybody’s
go-to guy. While technically the third base coach, you could see him out on the field every day, helping
the players defensively. My last memory of Wash,
before he went to the Texas Rangers as their manager, was during a before-game session on the field. I
had the honor, along with several other fans during Pepsi’s Play Like a Pro promotion, of being on the field.
After we had talked with the likes of Eric Chavez, Bobby Crosby, and Jason Kendall, I remember leaving the field.
As I did, Wash and an A’s player I didn’t recognize were working out. Wash would throw
him the ball on the ground, and the player would try to field it, usually with disastrous results. One
minute later, Wash would throw him the ball, and the player would try to field it. Over and over.
No one else was on the field at that moment. Just the two of them, ignoring us, completely focused
on what they were doing. These are coaches,
managers, I will always remember, part of my memory of the Oakland A’s. And one of them will carry
home a ring within the week. I’m excited for them.
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March 26, 2011 In
my last column, I mentioned that I follow several women media reporters through Twitter. You might be surprised
to know that several of our Oakland A’s players are also on Twitter. Many tweet regularly. Outfielder Coco Crisp is one of the most prolific Twitterers around. It’s
through Twitter that we found out that most of Coco’s medical problems in Spring Training were dental. Hopefully
that’s all behind him now, but we shared his pain as he went through several dentist's visits. He’s
@Coco_Crisp. Pitcher Brett Anderson is famous for wanting to know what there is
to do in whatever city he’s in. @BrettAnderson49 One
of the newest to Twitter is A’s pitcher Dallas Braden. Dallas’ tweets are chockfull of information
– in fact, he tends to take up every bit of the 140 characters each tweet allows. Some of it is in
209 shorthand. @DallasBraden209 And relief pitcher Craig Breslow is good about sharing events supporting
his charity, The Strike 3 Foundation. The Scottsdale party right before the team heads west will
feature a number of A’s and other team baseball players, all for a good cause. You can find Craig
at @CraigBreslow. Also, you can follow us, the A’s Booster Club, at @oaklandabooster
for info about our luncheons, meet-ups, more. Linda **************************************************************************************************************
March 15, 2011 Women
have yet to play major league baseball, although there are legitimate stories of hard-throwing fastball and softball women
pitchers. And a few years ago, we were treated to a few games by the Colorado Silver Bullets, an
all-female baseball team which played in the mid-‘90’s right here in our own Oakland Coliseum. And
in February, the first woman to pitch for Major League batting practice, Justine Siegal, pitched to two major league teams,
one of them the Oakland Athletics. If you want a woman’s point of view on our favorite sport,
however, you need only read the columns of female sportswriters in the Bay Area. One of my favorite
columnists covering the Oakland A’s is Susan Slusser, who writes a column for the San Francisco Chronicle.
A “column” these days usually means a print and online column for the newspaper as well as blog notes and
tweets. I follow Susan in all places, as she features a down-on-the-field reporting style.
You can find her reporting for the Chron’s Drumbeat at http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/athletics/index. MLB.com has reporter Jane Lee talking about A’s baseball as well. Her pregame notes
are quite specific as to game-ready players and the day’s lineup. You can find Jane’s MLB blog
at http://janelee.mlblogs.com. So, you can see that A’s baseball
has two professional women reporting on them! However, don’t forget about Kara (Kara Tsuboi). Kara
has a personal web page http://www.karatsuboi.com and also has a MLB blog at http://kara.mlblogs.com. You’ve probably seen Kara at the
Oakland Coliseum, always wearing the green-and-gold, with a microphone at hand, running baseball trivia contests and the like,
right there in the stands with the fans. Kara has an entertaining style and a friendly personality.
Linda ************************************************************************************************
March 4, 2011 Baseball isn’t a game of statistics, at least to me.
It’s a story, a million stories actually, about the players. We’re getting to know them
through the media and, yes, through their play throughout the year. This
year for the Oakland Athletics, the stories are shaping up as we watch our guys sweat through Spring Training, hoping for
a roster spot for the rookies, hoping to improve on last year’s performance for the veterans. Like Kurt Suzuki, who was constantly tinkering with his swing last year. He went from batting
.270+ in 2009 to almost 40 points less in 2010. This year he’s trying to keep his swing simple.
And he’s trying to improve on his throws to second. He had one of the lowest averages in the
league for throwing opposition runners out. Dallas Braden got a hefty salary boost as the only A’s pitcher to pitch a perfect game in 2010.
In order to show his appreciation to his catcher, Landon Powell, he treated Landon and his wife to an all-expenses
paid vacation in Maui. Dallas continues to grab headlines with his unique way of expressing himself.
He’s all about enthusiasm. There are so many more stories, like Yadel Marti, who came to the U.S. on a raft from Cuba a mere two years
ago. He’s 31, but as a right-hand pitcher, he’s not quite ready for prime time. Gio Gonzalez
has noted that Marti has “pin-point control.” As spring training continues, we’re looking to learn more about the
players who were with us last year as well as some of the new ones like Godzilla himself, Hideki Matsui. What
motivates a veteran like that? We’d love to learn. Linda
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February 22, 2011 I met Rickey Henderson in person the other day. Oh,
sure, I’ve seen Rickey at games when I starting attending in 1989. I’ve seen him at A’s-sponsored
events, including the great pre-game celebration when the A’s retired his number. But I had never
had a chance to exchange a few words with him.
I met a friend for lunch at a popular East Bay
restaurant one sunny day in early February. My friend, who is more of a Giants fan but a total
baseball fan, started looking over my shoulder. I turned to see what he was looking at, and it was Rickey,
who was sauntering over to the table next to ours. I
briefly said hello to him and then left him to his meal. I found myself wondering if he knew what a hero
he is to me, what a hero he is to all Athletics fans everywhere. The guy was just amazing, and you got
the feeling that, looking at his athletic body, he could play in the pros right here and right now. I’d love to see Rickey slide into second just one more time. At
least I’ve got some awesome memories of those moments of greatness from one of the best to have ever played the game.
Linda
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February 18, 2011 Spring Training is officially here! Such words never sounded so sweet.
Sure, I like
football and tolerate basketball and hockey, but there’s nothing like the beginning of the baseball season to raise
hopes. Even Cubs fans have hope that their team will rise to the top. If the Giants can do it, so can (fill in the blank), right? But I have special hopes for this Oakland Athletics team.
The acquisition of several key players means that players who were ill-suited for the three- or four-spot never have
to do that again. Kurt Suzuki, for example, will slip down the batting order a bit and not have to put
so much pressure on himself. I’m not going to spring training, but I will be glued to newspaper and online reports about the prowess
of Hideki Matsui, David DeJesus, and many more. And I’m eager to hear that our pitchers are just
as good if not better than last year. I’m ready for Baseball
2011 to begin! See you at the first luncheon in April! Linda
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