Archive for Athletics

Usually in extortion cases, the party doing the extorting doesn’t meet with the victim until after all of the damning information is assembled. They must do it differently in California: A committee formed by the commissioner of Major League Baseball to study the Oakland A’s stadium dilemma met for the first time with Oakland Mayor […]

The Merc’s Mark Purdy has a wish list for the Giants’ and Athletics’ seasons. Among the wishes: I want A’s catcher Kurt Suzuki to get an offer to endorse Suzuki motorcycles — and turn it down in favor of a Harley-Davidson endorsement. (And why hasn’t Harley-Davidson thought of this, anyway?) I want the Giants to […]

With the recent escalation in A’s relocation/ballpark news, it’s important to remember that generalists like me are dilettantes at best. Any time there’s an issue of any complexity, the blogosphere produces a focused star to really jam on it, and the star with respect to the A’s relocation drama is the New A’s Ballpark blog, […]

Back when I was in private practice, I represented a park district that wanted to turn some old railroad lines in the middle of nowhere into a bike trail. They built about 85% of the trail, but the last little stretch was held up by this group of Mennonite farmers who lived next to the […]

Death. Taxes. Bud Selig putting a committee together to solve a sticky problem he doesn’t want to deal with: After meeting with ownership and management of the Oakland Athletics in Phoenix, Arizona on Saturday, Commissioner Allan H. (Bud) Selig announced today that he has appointed a committee to thoroughly analyze all of the ballpark proposals […]

The Merc’s Ann Killion notes the bad timing of Lew Wolff’s anti-Oakland campaign, and reminds us what happened the last time a Bay Area owner trashed his hometown in the runup to the baseball season: Almost two decades ago, Giants owner Bob Lurie originated the “I hate my ballpark and you should too,” public relations […]

The nightmare that unfolded in Oakland over the weekend hit particularly close to home for the A’s organization: Two of the officers, Dunakin and Hege, often worked A’s games at the Oakland Coliseum, according to David Rinetti, the team’s vice president of stadium operations. “It hit me hard,” Rinetti said. Hege spent years providing security […]

The A’s are warming up to their new infield coach, Mike Gallego: Former infielder Mike Gallego played 624 games at second base, 137 at third base and 434 at shortstop and was proficient everywhere. If his managers hadn’t been biased against short people (no offense, Tony La Russa), he probably would have been adept at […]

Sal tells about his new favorite player this year.

Chip Johnson of the San Francisco Chronicle is miffed that Lew Wolff isn’t even considering Oakland in the effort to get a new stadium for the A’s. Fair enough, even though the economics probably aren’t on his side. But then Johnson trips the light moronic: In light of the team’s stated unwillingness to even consider […]