This weekend has been fun because I love when the A'S play the Giants.  A majority of my friends are Giants fans and we love to throw insults at each other and bet five dollars on the games.  I know it is still exhibition games but it is great to have baseball back at the coliseum.  Today the A'S won and I was happy to see Duchscherer pitch a solid six innings.  It seemed a shaky idea to move him from the bullpen to the rotation but fingers crossed all things look good.  Brown hit a home run and looks ready for  the season to start.  He only has a one year contract and in true A'S fashion he will most likely have an amazing year and then go somewhere else where they can actually pay him what he will ask for.  Today the final score was 6-2 and while it doesn't count it means bragging rights for everyone in Oakland.  

This particular blog is about baseball (duh) and music. I wonder why musicians and baseball players can be the best at what they do and receive so little recognition. I wonder why the best do not always receive recognition while mediocrity is applauded and rewarded at every turn. Last night I went to see a band perform whom I have loved for seven years. I have seen them move up the ranks of their first album opening for other bands to selling out homecoming shows at The Fillmore. They write brilliant poetic lyrics chronicling the modern life of mid to late twenty year olds and have a fervent local following. They average in their late twenties and have recently released an album on Epitaph records. Nationally however they are merely an opening band and last night they were playing on a national tour opening for other bands in their home town. The headlining band consisted of members averaging around the age of 19 and it was a bizarre evening. This evening reminded me all to clearly of a favorite baseball player of mine and the woes he shares with my favorite band.
Mark Ellis is an amazing player that gets far to little recognition outside of Oakland. He plays second base the way it should be played. His mechanics are flawless making turning double plays look like cutting butter. Flashy is not a word in his vocabulary and he is all about the team and the fans. 2006 was his year and yet he received no national accolades. "Ellis set a Major League record for fielding percentage by a second baseman with a mark of .997, committing just two errors in 123 games and 632 chances. He made his first error of the season on May 18, which snapped a career high 41-game errorless streak." (A'S website) These numbers are unbelievable and even more so considering he received no gold glove. Players like Eric Chavez get on the gold glove fast track continuing to receive them every year regardless of if they deserve them or not. (Chavy completely deserved every one in my book except for 2006) Players who have flash, pizzaz and love the spotlight tend to get noticed for awards or headlining tours. My idols, the unsung heroes of their craft go without the accolades they are so deserving of.

Mark Ellis and The Matches are playing by the rules and paying for it, by not reaching the heights of their peers. I prefer the unsung heroes who play for the right reasons. Simply for the love of the game or song. So to all who may read this I implore you to support the unsung heroes of life. Wouldn't you love a life where juiced up corporately sponsored men didn't rule? I sure would.

I cannot be the only one that is annoyed by the scroll on the bottom of the ESPN screen. I realize that it can be useful but I spend five minutes straining my eyes looking for what I want and .5 seconds actually seeing it. Today takes the cake in reasons the scroll annoys me. I was watching a rebroadcast of the A'S game today where they were playing in Japan and the scroll was in full action. The game had already happened and the scroll showed the final score of the game I was watching. I was so MAD to find out the score before I had finished the game. It seems to me that they should not broadcast the score while the game is on! This was short and more of a rant than a real blog.

Today was "officially" Opening Day! (I happen to consider when they open in Oakland opening day but the games this week still count.) It was exciting to see Ellis open the game with a home run which makes him the official first home run hitter of the 2008 season. The A'S jumped out on top with a 2-0 lead which looked promising I must say. But one should never get their hopes up to early where the 2008 A'S are concerned. Blanton looked good early on in the game while Matsuzaka did not. "The A's took advantage of Boston starter Daisuke Matsuzaka's early command issues, taking a 2-0 lead in the bottom of the first inning. After Mark Ellis lined a one-out solo homer into the bleachers in left-center, Matsuzaka walked Daric Barton, hit Jack Cust with a pitch, uncorked a wild pitch and loaded the bases by walking Brown before Barton scored on a groundout by Crosby" (Athletics website) Blanton on the other hand was very economical posting only 69 pitches through five innings. The sixth inning is where things got rough for Blanton and the bullpen came in to "rescue" the game.
Boston went to their bullpen in the bottom of the sixth and the A'S went ahead again 4-3. The next 2 1/3 innings went swimmingly for the bullpen but things went sour when Huston Street entered the game. Huston happens to be one of my favorite players on the A'S and not just because he is one of the few regulars remaining. When he won Rookie of the Year he also won Oakland hearts and has been an amazing closer for only being in his early twenties. (Warning this blog is not objective. I am a fan with favorites and dislikes so if you want objectivity read the daily paper not this blog). Last year was a little tough with his injured Ulnar nerve but I hope he can maintain his save level previous to last year. He is fifth in the book of closers with the most number of saves for his age but also acquired 20 blown saves last year. Today can be added to the blown saves list. Moss hit a home run off Street n the ninth to make the game go into extra innings and the tenth inning was no prettier. The A'S ended up loosing the game 6-5 and the season is beginning to look a tad bleak. They did have a double and two singles in the tenth showing they won't give up easily however there are some players that I worry about.

There were players today that did not perform up to standards and that worries me. Cust in particular is a worry for me because he is either hitting home runs or striking out. He did the latter today and I wonder about his amazing performance last year and if he can sustain it over an entire season. I am most excited to see how Harden does in his first outing back as a starter. Last year I thought he should be moved to the bullpen thinking his starting days were over but I would love for him to prove me wrong.

Today I happened to stumble upon several funny Athletics articles. One was posted in the local paper and the other a friend sent to me. The first is titled: Revisiting Billy Beane's Perfect Draft and it is all about Moneyball being flawed system. The person writing the article went through very thoroughly using stats to prove his points. Since I am not the biggest Beane fan in the world it was nice to read someone who doesn't worship him. The link to said article is: http://www.baseballevolution.com/richard/2008beane
The second article I read today was written by my favorite sports writer Ray Ratto and was titled: Now here's how the Next 40 will Look. This had to be the funniest thing I have read in ages and was literally rolling with laughter. It is a ficticous look at what the next 40 years for the A'S and Giants will be. It ranged from well this could happen to the insane. The link is: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/03/23/SPQLVLN3C.DTL&hw=Ray+Ratto&sn=002&sc=809

Some highlights from this gem are as follows:

2010: Billy Beane trades Daric Barton, Travis Buck and Mark Ellis for 37 prospects, 11 of them neonatal.

2016: Lew Wolff decides to sell his 10 percent stake back to John Fisher, who immediately announces plans to move the team back to Oakland as soon as he can break his lease in Fremont. Bud Selig is blow-darted out of a nap to say that the Bay Area isn't big enough to support two teams.

2020: Oakland's stadium plan, which is to pave over Lake Merritt, fails in a county-wide vote 28-23. In other news, Michael Lewis writes "Moneyball II: The Reckoning," in which he chronicles Beane's new method of building a team, by signing players and then refusing to pay them.

2024: The A's make the playoffs after completing their third restructuring and announce their intention of building a new "ballpark bodega" in Gilroy. Capacity will be 19,792, for "intimacy." Also, for charging $340 for a bleacher seat.

These are hilarious but some cut a little to close to home. Oh how I love the baseball humor!

The Baseball Gods must be with the A'S thus far in the early season. They have had a Spring Training I would have never imagined and now have won the first two exhibition games in Japan. Say what you will about playing against scrabeanies (A word my father created to mean players that aren't really that good or from the minors. I thought everyone used this word but upon usage have found my father simply created it.) but the Triple A A's are looking good. I prefer to call the 2008 A'S a a Triple A team because they are made of and built on the foundation of the farm system and the hopes for the future. I hate waiting and especially for a promise from Billy Beane. Everyone worships Moneyball but I guess I was the last one to get on that train. (Really people worship this book.) I started the book and halfway through just stopped. But I have digressed from what was to be the main point of this blog.

The A'S looked good in their first outing Saturday or so it seems because it being in Japan I didn't actually see it. The article on the A'S website said: "Shortstop Bobby Crosby and third baseman Jack Hannahan hit back-to-back homers to erase an early deficit, and reserve catcher Rob Bowen banged an RBI double with two outs in the ninth to help the A's to a 4-3 victory over the host Yomiuri Giants on Saturday in an exhibition game at Tokyo Dome." They also got a game winning run off a single from Emil Brown and it is so nice to see different players producing.

The A'S looked good in the second game on Sunday as well winning 10-2 overt the Hanshin Tigers. It is exciting that Justin Duchscherer is now a starter having loved him tin the bullpen for years. I hope that with the loss of Haren this year the pitching will still be strong. The game was 14 hours after the Saturday game so I was happy the jet lagged A'S were able to pull out a win. Cust hit a two run home run which was nice to see and Buck also hit a great home run. I love that they scored 5 funs in the 8th which gives me hope for the season.

While this is all very exciting I overall am not so happy with the Japan trip. I think cutting Spring Training short is never a good idea. It is time needed to look at players and see who will fill out the major league roster. Players need to get their work in and pitchers especially need time to work up number of innings pitched. The Japan trip while fun will in my opinion jet lag the players and take away valuable time needed to evaluate the Triple A prospects. Japan is a country that loves baseball but I tend to think that this trip is just a publicity stunt to make MLB money. These however are just my opinions and this is just a blog.

My worship of baseball began early in life around the age of 4 or 5. That is the age when my father took me to my first game. Then to be quite honest it was all abut the chocolate malts, the pretzels and the fun. Back in the day the Oakland Athletics had a play place called Lego Land that my best friend and I would beg our fathers to take us to. They would begrudgingly finish their beers and leave the game so we could color and ride plastic elephants. Then I didn't even fit in the seats of the stadium and a hot dog was longer than my hand. The seats of the coliseum were blue not green, and tickets and beer were actually affordable. I loved going to games even if for all the wrong reasons. My father continued to take me to games and as I got older I began to appreciate the game for what it truly was.
I will never forget when my father gave me my first score book for one of my birthdays. I was immediately in love with my score book and every year since have received one on my birthday. Even more clearly I remember the first game I ever scored on my own and the fact that the A'S lost to Roy Halladay. In the past 6 years I have not missed a single Fanfest, been to most Oakland playoff games feigning illness or funerals(a lot of people I know die during the playoffs ok),met many of my favorite players and been to spring training once.

Throughout the years the game has become a part of me. Baseball is in my blood for better or for worse. (I say for the better) Not a day goes by without checking up on my team even if it's the dead of winter. (Beane is a busy guy and I am a worried girl when it relates to him.) When my team looses I say "We lost the game today" because I do consider myself a part of the team. My father's father took him to games in Seal stadium and my father has taken me to games at the coliseum since I was a child. This blog will chronicle my love for my father, the game, and most importantly The Oakland Athletics!!!!!! I hope you enjoy this MLBlog written by an Oakland baseball gal! I know it's a long season and I hope you stay with me.

"It's a long season and you gotta trust. I've tried 'em all, I really have, and the only church that truly feeds the soul, day in, day out, is the Church of Baseball."- Annie Savoy, Bull Durham

My Father and I

A'S sign!

Buck and I! (Not really but I wish)

Brown, Buck, Murphy

Ahhhhhh bird pop! Also the third deck that usually is covered in tarps.

Attack of the birds!

Brown, Buck, Johnson, Murphy

Suzuki, Barton, Cust

Suzuki, Barton, Cust, Ellis

Finger, Embree, Street, Young

Finger, Embree, Street, Young

Forst, The Most Hated Man in Oakland, Geren