Results tagged “oaklandas”

The Oakland A's just released 2000 AL MVP and five-time All-Star Jason Giambi today. A noted hitter (he slammed his 400th career home run in May against the Arizona Diamondbacks), Giambi was also named in the BALCO scandal, alleged to have received anabolic steroids from trainer Greg Anderson.

At last night's A's game against Texas, a belligerent fan gets zapped by Oakland police officers (1:05), another fan gets pushed down the stairs (1:25), a woman makes things worse by screaming, and then a foul ball lands (1:42).

During this weekend's interleague A's vs. Giants series, San Francisco won all three games, making it the first time in eight years the Giants cleaned Oakland's clock. On Sunday, the Giants took the Bay Bridge series with a 7-1 win. And now, what with the Giants being "the fourth-best team in the National League," they could land the wild-card slot again. That is, if they keep it up the good effort. But, according to Ray Ratto, "they might not be able to hold their spot, or someone might win 20 in a row, but they're still playing with the casino's money in the middle of June, which is about two months later in the season than anyone thought them capable." Sports types, feel free to chime in... to explain what Ray means. Anyway, go Giants.

Ladies, please sit down for this one. Hell, you guys should sit too. See, San Diego resident Alfred G. Rava sued the Oakland A's. Why? Well, on Mother's Day of 2004, the Oakland A's had a Mother's Day event. Said day celebrating certain vagina owners went like this: Before the game there was "a fight-breast-cancer 5K run before the game, free mammograms, and the first 7,500 women through the gate got floppy plaid sun hats from Macy's." Pretty cool, huh? Well, Rava, a San Diego attorney who happened to be in Oakland and at the ballpark that day, was so incensed at not receiving his own free floppy hat that he sued. What's more, a judge just gave "preliminary approval to a $510,000 settlement -- roughly half to lawyers and the rest to the victims."

A ballot proposition on relocating the Oakland A's to San Jose could be up for a vote as early as November, reports KCBS, following a meeting between A's owner Lew Wolff and San Jose Mayor Chuck Reed. The question remains whether the San Francisco Giants will hold on to their territorial rights on the South Bay, which would need to be decided by the Major Leagues' governing body. Also, have Oakland's residents just given up on fighting to keep the A's at this point?

In Sunday's LA vs SF series, the Giants won 2 out 3 games against number-one ranked Dodgers, winning Sunday night's game, 7-5. The Giants, unbeaten in the last of their eight series, as most of you know, are in at second-place in the NL West. Things can only get better (fingers crossed) after Manny Ramirez was put on temporary suspension for 50 games after testing positive for an illegal substance. After winning two out of three games in Los Angeles, the Giants remain unbeaten in their last eight series, with six series victories and two splits.They now trail the first-place Dodgers by 4.5 games in the NL West. Will the Giants continue their winning streak? Find out tonight when SF plays Washington at 7:15 p.m. IOn related news, the A's aren't doing so well.

When he came up with the A's, he grew into a genial homespun hero.

Then he left, and became a steroided diminishing-returns disgrace.

Now he's back in Oakland?

What-th'-hell for?

Couldn't he have signed with LAD or LAA?

Get you gone, prodigal douche.

The ever cost/value-parsing Oakland A's have traded for All-Star outfielder Matt Holliday, one of the finest young offensive players in baseball.

Wait, what?!

Uh... uhm... should lay down down... feelin' confused and distressed...

We just found out the answer to the question of whether the A's were going to go for it and make a run at the playoffs or fold their tents for awhile-- they're folding. Just this afternoon it was announced that the A's traded Rich Harden and Chad Gaudin to the Cubbies for right-handed pitcher Sean Gallagher, catcher Josh Donaldson, infielder Eric Patterson, outfielder Matt Murton, and a bag of beans. Citing injuries, Beane said it was a move he had to do-- the recent eight game losing streak probably forced his hand.

Here's todays sports news

-So with the passage of Prop. G., a Proposition designed to try and keep the Niners in San Francisco, the question now is what the hell does it mean? Maybe something, maybe nothing. The whole thing has to be built and the Niners haven't made a decision as to where they're going to move. Even worse for the Niners is that with the economy as it is, it's even harder to convince some place to build them a stadium as there's not a lot of money to throw the team's way. Why should a city give a team money to build a stadium when they have no money to throw around? And it's not just a problem the Niners' face, but the A's too.

Let's check in with our local teams while the rest of the world is searching for Ronaldo...

Here's a roundup of sports news

It appears that the Billy Beane Player Emporium is still open for business as Beane just traded traded Nick Swisher to the White Sox for a bunch of prospects. The house-cleaning continues.

Here's todays sports news

After all the hype and after all the expectations, we have to admit the steroid report was pretty much a yawner. We wanted names, damnit, lots and lots of names. Juicy names. Big names. Super Colossus Names. Instead we got Gregg Zaun. Bo-ring. The list was mainly a bunch of journeymen and never-were's from the 90's and who cares about them? Wasn't this whole thing about nailing the big boys?

Here's todays sports news

Here's todays sports news

You want wild cards? We’ve got wild cards. Just about every player in this category is a wild card; by that we mean you would have to be an awfully good seer to predict, with any certainty, their upcoming numbers for the season.

In a surprising move today, Oakland A’s brass fired manager Ken Macha with two years remaining on his contract. Many A's fans are scratching their heads this afternoon, wondering when the A's headquarters had become drama central. Despite leading the team to its first ALCS since 1992, Macha’s inability to communicate effectively with players was foremost on the list of complaints levied by key personnel. His time with the A's was always tenuous at best; his on-again, off-again merry go-round with Billy Beane subject to intense annual review, with Macha barely surviving the cut each year. His job would typically come down to key veteran players vouching for him, despite his obvious lack of social skills. This year, no such veteran dared throw him a life jacket. Not Kotsay, not Chavez and definitely not Milton Bradley.

Everyone loves a redemption story and the A's this year might have baseball's best redemption story as Frank Thomas put the Big Hurt on the Twins, leading the A's to a 3-2 victory. He started things off with a home run in the 1st and then added a crucial insurance run in the top of the ninth to give the A's a one run lead. That became crucial when the Twins lead off the bottom of the ninth with a triple that Milton Bradley lost in the Metrodome ceiling (everyone who plays there has done it-- it's one of the reasons playing in the Metrodome just flat-out sucks for visiting teams).

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times... A's 4 White Sox 2- Esteban Loaiza held the White Sox to just enough runs to allow a pretty week A's O to win the game. The A's were 0 for 16 with runners in scoring position but still scraped together four runs. How'd they do it-- aggressive base running, defense, situational hitting-- small ball. Now how about that? The game so pissed off Sox manager Ozzie Guillen that after the game he launched into a profanity filled tirade about the lack of booze in the visiting locker room. Anyways, the Angels won so the A's remain five up but the magic number is now 11.

Barry Zito outpitched Curt Schilling this afternoon to lead the Athletics to a 7-2 beat down of the Dead Sox. That's what they in the business call a "sweep." The A's have won 15 of 19 games and were 21-6 in August and the Chron notes that the A's are an amazing 124-45 in August since 2001. Crikey.

Remember during that hot streak the Giants were on when their pitching was pretty much airtight? Remember how they didn't give up many runs and pitched until late in the game? Those were good times. And not these times as the Giants started off a nine game road trip to Atlanta getting shellacked 13-8. The pitcher getting the shellacking? Staff ace Jason Schmidt. Of note, however, is the Barry sticking it to Hammerin' Hank's Hometown fans and hitting two home runs and robbing Jeff Francouer of a three run home run. Barry is getting hot of late and a hot Barry means good things for the Giants and we're just going to stop right there before we hurt ourselves.

We read an interesting story today on ESPN.com about how the A's are somehow winning despite being everything Moneyball is supposed to be against. You know, things like pitching and defense and situational hitting. Which basically means that somewhere out there, some Stat Head in Stat Head Land is desperately crunching numbers and running spread sheets to try and proof that God is Not Dead.

Last week's winner, the East Bay Express. More letters about Cody's? Okay, ew: there's cockroaches on AC Transits, and they had a lice infestation on BART. We are totally standing up on BART for the indefinite future. Also -- Ann Coulter is accused of plagiarizing from Jane Ganahl. Is Ann Coulter also feeling bad about being single? Spider bites. A new group encouraging more people to refuse to testify before grand juries. Will SFist Jackson throw them all a benefit party? Cover article: the expensive skew of wine journalism (we like the title "Wineau."). New website to use statistics to evaluate assage on the Oakland A's, called Moneybutt. Ha! The first Wineau column, for cheap wine. Shouldn't this column have been placed closer to the cover article? And Bay Area tribute bands.

Shards of what remain of Barry Zito and the rest of Oakland A's pitching staff are still being recovered after yesterday's 14-0 threshing at the hands of the Texas Rangers. We're certain the Arlington faithful are downright giddy about their latent power display, as well they should be. This beating reminded everyone that there is-indeed--a real pennant race fomenting in the AL West. However, the Rangers should take a very hard look at the all-encompassing big picture scoreboard-the Athletics won that series by dominating the small things. And they beat Texas by going toe-to-toe with one of the best offenses in the American League. Moreover, the real battle was won in the trenches-through superior bullpen action, sans Joe Kennedy, Scott Sauerbeck and the rest of the DL boys, a smothering defense and timely hitting from Jay Payton, not through caveman-like hacking at off-speed pitches that Ranger batters have mastered.

The Oakland A's will win the American League West. Yes, this year! We (SFist) are not accustomed to making barrel-chested predictions that eventually turn to fool's gold as it often does on ESPN's "Baseball Tonight" -- we're merely pointing out the obvious: the Oakland A's will win the AL West this year. Despite their anemic, Milton Bradley-less performance last night at the hands of the Los Angeles Angels and Joe Saunders-- who they made seem like a young Ron Guidry than the junk-ball throwing Tommy John clone that he is-- the A's will win more of those tightly-sewn games than the Angels, or god forbid, the perennial flame-out Texas Rangers. And they'll do it without resident genius Billy Beane making a nano-move during the trade deadline frenzy.

Frank Thomas has hit 448 home runs, and has hit .307/.427/.568, over his 16-year career. That's pretty impressive, but in the last 2 seasons, Frank Thomas has been mostly injured: he's appeared in a total of 108 major league baseball games. Whatever Frank Thomas does in the 2006 baseball season, he'll do in the uniform of the Oakland A's. Thursday, the A's signed Thomas to a $500,000 contract, which reportedly includes $2.6 million in health- and plate-appearance-based incentives. He'll be a DH, and bat in the middle of the lineup. If he stays healthy.

ESPN the Magazine (as opposed to ESPN the occasionally showing sports TV channel, ESPN the Web site, ESPN the restaurant chain, and ESPN the movie studio) recently decided to put together a poll that ranks every franchise of the Big Three sports (hockey isn't included as it wasn't playing last year). The ninety-two teams are ranked based on online survey questions and the magazines' own research and are based on things like
wins, management, fan relations, and cost. The top five franchises? The Spurs, Pistons, Steelers, Colts, and the Anahiem LA Angels. So much for sports life in the big cities. The worst five teams? The Knicks, Trail Blazers, Vikings, Bobcats (still too young of a franchise to decide) and coming in last, the poor homeless N'Awlins Saints. So how did our local teams do? In short, meh (we would link to the article in question, but for whatever reason, IT"S NOT ONLINE! This is the 21st Century-- everything should be online. We mean, we can find naked pictures of Natalee Holloway out there, but we can't find a damn ESPN article? What's up with that?) As befitting our no longer regal status in the sporting universe, most of the Bay Area teams came in somewhere in the middle with the Oakland A's deemed the best Bay Area franchise, at 42. Praise was given for it's inexpensive tickets, players (12), and value (17) but were given demerits for management (too cheap) and locale (the dumpy Coliseum, or the Stadium Al Ruined).