Our Benchwarmers, Thursday 7/10

So for our initial offerings for the Benchwarmer Fantasy League:

Thursday, 7/10:

Kurt Suzuki, Oakland Athletics / Rob Bowen, Oakland Athletics.



Suzuki, K. has been starting every day, and Rob Bowen started Thursday afternoon, as a day off for Kurt. So when Kurt Clutch hit a homer with 2 out in the 9th (pinch-hitting for Bowen), he not only re-earned his nickname, he came off the Bench to put the A's in extra innings. They eventually won on Emil Brown's sayonara homer in the 11th. The best parts about Brown's homer: the A's Mr. RBI from April has been struggling a little in the last month (6 rbis in June; down from 21 rbis in April), but his gamewinner was a revalation! The other best part is the team-wide jumping celebration, which takes place after each one of these, 7 so far this year in Oakland. Check the video!

some things on my mind, real quick-like, and w/o pics, so there

I haven't been keeping up with you, my friend (I think I'm talking to my blog here, but you're welcome to join).

I have just been witnessing the first half of the 2008 MLB season. Its been really exciting so far, with the usual mix of chills and thrills. Fantasy baseball on yahoo's been belly-belly good to me, as well as the A's (both above .500, which is the biggest surprise to me).

Although the pundits (that always makes 'em sound critical and negative, which I like) think the A's are ready to "even-out" and start losing a bunch to get to "where they're supposed to be" this year, with young-young pitching and no-no hitting, I like to think the little volkswagen-of-a-team-that-could will make strides to stay afloat. not playoff-afloat, but above .500-afloat, which is relatively okay.

That non-committal phrase (relatively okay?) is there because when you listen and watch everyday, .500 means just that, winning a day, losing a day, or maybe 2-in-a-row, then back again. Baseball is all about streaking. Well, not Will-Ferrell-in-Old-School, "Come-on-everybody!" kinda-streaking, but the win 2-out-of-3 in a series, 7-outta-10, 20-for-the-month kinda-streaking.

They say that every team wins a third of their games, playing 162, so 54 to be exact. Its the other third (the best teams rarely get above .667 - that would be 108 wins! crazy!) that everyone worries about. Its like presidential candidates wanting Iowa, or what they say that baseball managers say: "the problem is not getting guys to like you, because its not always possible. It's the keeping the 5 guys that don't like you away from the 5 guys that aren't decided." That may have been a Casey Stengel, but then it would have been said a lot better. That one was probably either Earl Weaver, or Tommy Lasorda...

So yea, I don't remember the A's winning a bunch in a row, but I do remember the times they beat up on some teams. Without totally cheating, and looking at the W-L schedule, I think they swept some interleague series. I don't like sounding uneducated, but I was never good at remembering specific games or times.

I remember they swept the Giants in San Fran. That was a good feeling, but I couldn't get into listening to the Giants broadcasters (who I work for/with) calling the A's games. It was so foreign-sounding, like they didn't know who my guys were.

I love the Giants radio guys, and how they sound, and what they say, and how they joke around all the time. I like 'em all a lot more than Ken Korach and Vince Controneo, but I guess that's because I like the entertainment of it. Ken, Vince, and Ray Fosse are all my Broadcasters, with a capital B. that's because they bring me the team, which I neither work for, nor have a constant radio-station or media-0utlet for.

KNBR does the Giants games, Giants news, Giants interviews, Giants commentary. They even have a gross slogan: "Everything Giants." When they stink it up, the slogan doesn't sound so good anymore. The A's don't have that kind of let down (well, they have 100% baseball, but that's as generic and warm/fuzzy sounding as it gets, so its not so bad). But they also don't have an all-sports, omnipotent god of a radio station and network. Witness a craigslist.org posting for one of their desk-jockey jobs:

"KNBR – The Bay Area's Sports Leader is looking for a Promotions Coordinator. KNBR is one of the top sports talk radio stations in the country, and has a format monopoly in the Northern California region. If you believe you're the right person for this job, please follow the resume submission instructions at the end of this posting."

A format monopoly?! That's gross! Who writes that in when trying to get people to apply for a job? In Gary Radnich's immortal words, "Who does that? Who has time?!"

So, clearly, my own station, KNBR, is not giving me the scoop on my favorite team. The A's guys are the ones that get me my information on MY team. well, yea, if you know anything about me, you know that I wear my Detroit Tigers warmup shirt & polo proudly, and half-my-living-days I wear a Japanese Hanshin Tigers cap, so what the hell-kinda-A's-fan am I?

I'd like to think that if Magnum PI could wear a Detroit cap everyday (every single fuckin' day he wore that cap, authentic wool, in HAWAII of all places, and he didn't get bald?! my hero!) and not say a word about being a Tigers fan (which the actor Tom Selleck is, but not necessarily the character, apologies to all those loyal Magnum fans that heard him utter Tigers knowledge in season 5, etc.), then I think I should be alright, rooting for:
#1. the Oakland A's (by choice, marriage/relationship, gut-feeling, logical conclusion, admiration),

#2. the SF Giants (by birth, guilt, employ, and proximity),

#3. the Dee-troit Tigers (in 2003 almost losing the most games in MLB history,
Ivan Pudge Rodriguez single-handedly mauling the Giants in the 2003 playoffs and then signing-on with Detroit, promising the fans a championship, and then doing it in 2006,
and Magnum PI inspiration. The Tigers are also the first team that I found that wins when I root for them. Sure that kind of reasoning is fickle at best, and subjective as hell, but when I was watching and rooting, they hit walk-off sayonara homers, which made me feel l might not be jinxed after all.

I love the Detroit Tigers. That's because in 2003 (if that sentence was a crap-ful for you), the team was one loss (119) away from tying the most losses for a team in the 162 game schedule to end the season (the 1962 Mets, who were an new expansion team that year). They had no where to go but up, and that's an old old proud team. They've won World Championships with Ty Cobb (1900's, I could try to remember, or even look it up, but that'd be cheating), Hank Greenberg, the first Jewish American star (1935), and Hal Newhouser (Announcer Hank Greenwald's childhood favorite, 1945). I read up on the team, looked at their players (especially when Pudge came over from Florida), and decided that they were worth rooting for, if only to get back to .500 after losing 119 games (43 wins, .265 winning percentage!). They failed in 2004 and 2005, even though in 2004 they had a streak of 3 or 4 straight games winning on a sayonara-walkoff homer (that was the best streak I've ever seen, and I was subscribed to MLB.com at the time, so I watched 2 or 3 of those 4 games). Then in 2006, they picked up a few new faces, and went all the way to the World Series. I was blown-away because I was just hoping that they would finally get to .500. That year they were the best in the league (okay, they Were, but got knocked-out of 1st place on the last day by they Twins. They had the best record in the MLB at some points, but settled for wild-card winner). Then they beatup on the Yankees, and then met up with the A's of Oakland (who I was rooting for daily).

It was a tense time for me, as a fan and an Oakland-dweller. We watched the A's of Swisher, Haren, Kotsay, Street, Thomas, Bradley, Kendall, and Scutaro play every day. Turned on the radio and left it on at home, for luck. Watched games at brew-pubs on the big-screen (we rushed over there the night they clinched their division, and then listening to the post-game on the way home, heard Swish yell "I'ma go get fucked up!" on the air, off mic, after his interview. That was the best, from a personal and professional standpoint. Haha.

So the Tiggs beatup on the Yanks, and the A's beat the Twins in 3 straight. I went to the clincher, and saw the Anthem military flyover, a big loud slow cargo plane instead of a jet, I think in the spirit of big loud slow Frank Thomas. I watched Scutaro drive in 2 with a shot to the rightfield corner, ending in his knees-bent "I'm safe at second, what just happened?" pose. I'd been a fan of Marco Scutaro's since I saw him win a few games on his own (game-winner double off the wall against the Yanks, opening night in the drizzle, Gamewinning single into centerfield against the crazy 5-infielder defense against the Angels in September, etc.). This series was the culmination of his contributions to the team and his fans. Clutch as always, and them some. The epitome of the little guy coming up big for the little A's.

So as the A's were set to play the Tigers, all of my fan-friends accused me of 1. wanting this matchup, and 2. not caring if the A's lost in this series. This was totally not fair. I would much rather see the A's go all the way to the World Series, but knowing the A's, the little volkswagens of the league, I wasn't sure they could do it. And the series went badly, the A's played burnt-out and tired-looking, couldn't hit, gave up big homers to little-known to everyone else sluggers (Marcus Thames, Craig Monroe had a crazy series-of-his-life series, and Alexis Gomez killed the A's in game 2 (Okay Okay, so I didn't even know who the hell Alexis Gomez was)). The end of the A's season came in sweep-city game 4, 10/14/2006.

I was late to the brew-pub, getting my car (my volkswagen bug, dammit, why won't you believe that I'm an A's fan for real?!) from the shop, and got there just in time to order some eats, watch the A's relievers struggle to keep the lead/tie (okay, so I do have to peek at the boxscore a little, but I do remember that Kiko Calero was the most lights-out he'd ever been in that year), and then Street, trying for a 3 (3!, that's just stupid!) inning save, give up the game-winning, walkoff, sayonara, 3-run homer to long-haired (that everyone hates but me- he says he does it because it makes his face look less round, and I agree), fist-raised, Magglio Ordonez. He who beat my boy Ichiro for the Batting title. He who went to Vienna to get his knee fixed because he wanted the best. He who brought the team into prominence, to this day even.

So how could I be sad to see that? And how could I be happy the A's lost? I thought and still think that it was the best way for it to end. A sweep (meaning no chance), ended by the Samurai-tradition beheading. It was beautiful, and graceful, and it ended the suffering, and I was and still am okay with it.

I don't hear A's fans talk about that too much, but that's probably because 1. A's fans are the best at looking forward to the new youngsters and the future, 2. most of those guys on that 2006 team are gone, and 3. Detroit got their whatevers kicked-in and handed to them, and turned-away, and all those, in the World Series against the Cardinals. The fuckin' Cardinals?! the Fuckin' Cardinals?! you're fuckin' kiddin' me.

The Cardinals?! Pujols, of course. But of Rolen, Suppan, Carpenter, stupid little shortstop Eckstein (well, I would love him if he ever played on my team), young catcher Molina, barely beat the Mets (the fuckin' Mets?!) come-on, man, the Cardinals?! that's fuckin' disgusting. Won a game with Kenny Rogers on the mound, and then the next day the news was that he had dirt/pinetar on his hand. That just killed any momentum the Tiggs had, because they had to apologize for the dirt/pinetar (I still don't know what that was all about).

To have my year end that way, I think that was all my fellow A's fans come-up-ins on me. The Cardinals?! (now that I think about that, I don't think I'm over that one, still) The worst is when you see the commercials for the Sports Illustrated Special Bound-edition Big Fat Book of the Cardinals World Championship. The ffuckin' Cardinals?! okay, I'm really not over that one...

So to gracefully end myself, the first-half of 2008 has been great! All the chills and Thrills. The A's make me proud, and now you know how I became a Tigers fan. So the next time you see me in my Detroit warmup jacket, you know where I'm coming from. From the Lake, in Oakland, baby. Yea, and the Hanshin Tigers cap to top it off, just to bust your chops for asking.
(oh yea, I wear the hat for luck - check the standings and believe!)

see ya -

JN

Spring is Upon Us!

I write to you today, Wednesday, February 13th, as a messenger from the "Life without MLB Baseball" times. February 14th, traditionally Valentine's Day in America, will be the day a lot of MLB teams declare their love for the game, and open their official Spring Training camps. The defending World Champion Boston Red Sox opened their pitchers-and-catchers sessions yesterday, to the fury of red shorts and long red socks. As absurd as this looks, in reality, it was 73 degrees and 59 % humidity in Fort Myers, Florida, and its okay, because at least they aren't as absurd looking as warming up for other sports (see example, right ->).
There is a meditative aura that surrounds a game of catch. I don't mean to put soccer down, because if I were born anywhere else in the world, I would probably be a big soccer fan, just as if I were born in LA, I would definitely be a Dodger fan, but I don't have a better calming sound in mind than "snap, swish, pow, swish, snap, swish." Multiply the snapping by a few dozen, and you have the first days of Spring, and a few dozen more temp-jobs for catchers Major League level and beyond.
More on the camps soon, especially because its now been a year since I escaped to Arizona, and had my own baseball mecca experience.
So for now, be prepared; the new year is here, and those who follow this calendar have something to celebrate once again.

Awakening Monday Morning for Anti-Commerce's sake

Is it just me to notice, or is Oakland a Parking-Violation-Funded city?

Is "the Town" full of renters who pay for parking by not moving on street-sweeping mornings?

Wherever I go to live in the area, I never see very many people moving their cars in the morning, panicked faces twisted at the thought of paying 40 to 50 clams for an oyster of a parking spot every other week.

I believe that these people either have:

A. furiously researched and would rather pay the $50-$100/a month to park where they wish, instead of the $80-$1000 it costs to park a month in the San Francisco-Oakland Metropolitan Area;

B. deals worked out with the "Frank H. Ogawa Plaza" crowd for refunds on their violation fees,

C. deals worked out with the same "Ogawa Plaza" parking czars for cash & prizes / rewards / services to park in purposely bad places, possibly for the purpose of enticing other upstanding citizens (myself included) to park in equally-costly spots, and therefore owe the city the $50 or more for the privilege;

D. are on the plan my buddy had, which was park anywhere the hell you want to, until one day a few years and a few towns later, your car gets a big yellow tire-slipper, with a note that says "do not remove - this means you" on it.

My buddy's left the country to live abroad permanently because he didn't like the rules, but otherwise, there must be reasons why I don't see people furiously running around at 9am on the morning of the second or fourth Monday of the month, circling the block repeatedly, looking for a non-temporarily-illegal parking spot.

I forcibly woke myself from my peaceful slumber, after working into the wee hours the night before, deftly dodging the drunken-smoking-wino from the half-and-half house across the street, to move my car a total of 50 feet, minus the hundred-fifty yards of U-turns, just to dodge a $50 privilege-to-park-there-today-for-three-hours-fee, and I have to double-check my calendar to make sure that I'm not the daffy one, and today really is the one-two-three-fourth Monday of this first month of 2008.

I guess some just have more than meet the eye. I wish I could leave my car in the same place as I wine-and-fly my way to my own Bahamas resort or Tuscan villa, where my winery, parking lot, and garbage-collection interests boost my financial portfolio's total value to the "strong-to-quite strong" income bracket.

But instead, I rent, it's the end of the month, my credit cards get up and walk around on their own, and oh yea, I rent.

I long for the day when I count the week in 3-day groupings called "series", and my only dread is the horrors of braving the post-visiting RedSox game-crowds on BART. Anyone know where they'll be 3am on March 25th? Thanks Bud Selig for once again finding a way to screw the loyal fans; the parking commissioner of my baseball-related world.

9:38 am. 4th Monday of the Month. This side of the street still full. Minus one.

JN / LT

NEWSFLASH - the A's are about team!

you're on the a's sigh-line,
lets take the next caller...

I know I know,
i felt sick when i found the article on sfgate.com -
it was a few minutes after it was announced (4p thursday),
and i had to eat after that, because my stomach dropped and i felt nauseous.
the same thing happened to me when haren was traded earlier this off-season,
but that time it was being rumored for a long time coming,
whereas this was out of nowhere,
the throw-up uppercut that is, the face of your team being traded.
i think i should stay away from the online sf chronicle -
this keeps happening to me,
and read more oakland trib. online-
i'm sure i'd feel better about my a's and my bowels...

so how do i feel about it now,
after a day to digest?

1. swisher is the face of the company, or was, so this hurts alot.

2. swisher himself was trying not to hurt,
saying he was happy and probably a little proud that another team wanted him so badly.

3. the inverse of that is that the a's didn't want him as much,
or enough to keep him, meaning

4. the a's are all about teamwork and team-results.
No one, even a great guy like the Swish,
is big enough to fight the league off himself,
and as sad as it is when a popular piece gets traded away,

5. it's gonna be great in 2-4 years,
when someone hits a homer, or strikes someone out,
we'll be saying "yup, we got that guy in the haren/swisher trade!
the way we were proud of haren, calero,
or daric barton just coming up now,
all traded for mark mulder back a thousand A's years ago, and

6. in the beane way,
the mulder trade will have resulted in
3+6=9 great players when the new guys pan out.

that's like saying you traded an old half-broken ferrari
for a new porsche and a new hybrid,
and then traded the porsche after 2 yrs
for a new hybrid suv, a wind-powered glider,
a new-school schoolbus,
a flying flame-throwing hybrid autogyro helicopter,
a wind-turbine for making your own electricity,
five shares in microsoft b-level stock options,
and the keys to your own isthmus/land-bridge/atoll, i think.
that's a hell of a deal, even if you're a mac user.

i guess what i'm trying to say is that,
no matter how bad it looks on the surface,
beane is looking out for the team.
one known quantity,
for tons and tons of potential,
the Giants do the opposite all the time,
and that's why Ray Durham still has a job
(which isn't a good thing
for anything but Mrs. Durham).

i should know,
being raised on the wrong side of the bay.

i got to see the best player of his era (w/ or w/o the 'roids),
some times playing alongside a worldseries contender team,
and some times playing alongside my 12-yr-old little league teammates,
and in both situations, he was promoted as a one-man-show.

in actuality, bonds was 'just one of the guys' when they were winning,
because he always bats 3rd, 4th, or 5th,
not all three at once.
the beauty of baseball is that no matter how good someone is,
there's still 8 other guys to hit the ball to,
8 other guys up to hit in any given situation,
that everyone gets a turn,
that you just can't give it to the hot hand (basketball),
or the hot receiver (football),
or keep the ball yourself (both sports),
but that you HAVE to share,
and that everyone has to put up for your team to get going,
which is the direction the A's are going.

They're trading one star to get 3-6 real potentials.
They did that with Mulder,
and Barton looks like he could be the real deal,
in addition to pretty good 2006 Calero,
and Ace Haren himself, from 2006-7
which is how it should be.
because,

we'll grow to love the new guys -
swisher was a new guy once.
so was mulder, hudson, giambi, tejada, mcgwire, all of 'em.
that's the beauty of baseball.
its older than all of us, and it will keep going,
because it's the best, it transcends time;
the game has no clock.
the game draws you in because it looks simple,
and then it gets more and more complex
until we're looking at the political and practical implications of trading off a long-haired laughing ball of energy from west virginia by way of ohio state.

so although the Oakland Athletics Baseball Club doesn't look like a worthwhile investment of your entertainment dollars,
they are!

i think it is going to be worth
going out to the ol' coleslaw-asee-um
!because!
its the repeat of the giants moving out of candlestick!

there were always tickets at the 'stick,
$10 bleacher, cheap eats, dumpy seats,
easy to sneak down to,
great players and great views,
always there the day of the game -
"wanna go see the cardinals?" you ask a friend
"yea! Mcgwire for BP!" they say,
and two to ten seats
just as easy as the drive down there,
3 hours of fun,
barry and kent and joe carter that one year,
and then they moved,
and they "arrived"
in the san francisco cosmopolitan hipster nightlife cool-to-be-there crowd...

now pacbell/att/overpriced park,
*no batting practice viewing,
because they don't open that early.
*tickets, ya got 'em?
only if they're below .500 in August or September.
*beer? $8.00 for Bud Light. 'dogs? open your bank account.
one time a buddy of mine bought us dogs and beers,
I think he had to work the next week to pay that one off.
and then the worst part!
*fans? not anyone you remember from the last park -
you think they'll keep a section of the bleachers open for the drummer boyz?
not if they're working on making a profit instead.
*cheering?
a friend of mine has funny stories of little-ol'-ladies shushing their friends for cheering too loudly.
another friend of mine has horror stories of being subject to ejection from the park for cheering too loudly.
at Candlestick or the Coliseum?
you get horror stories from wearing the other team's jersey!

we should go and enjoy easy seats and cheap eats while we can!
we should enjoy the days of sitting all together and
shoving each other when we make snide remarks
or throw things at redsox fans and then have to hide,
because one ticket for upper deck
and a separate one for your buddy to sit in the bleachers
and then your friend was late and got standing-room-only
all for the same high-high price?!
that's not a fun place to be.
sniff.
i've already been through it once.
it will never be as fun as it is right now.
the present.
the glory days of oakland bleacher-dom.
please, join me and bask in this sunlight while we still can...


Swisher gone is sad,
it hurts my stomach,
and makes me wish for the glory days we all had,
rooting for the Western-Division Champion Oakland Athletics.
but Mr. Beane was already looking past that,
that was the victory for him,
and he was already planning the victories to come.
we were basking, he was haggling.
i'm pretty damn proud to have him as our general manager,
who else slays the dragons that are other teams' farm systems?
who else can clean other teams' houses and laugh all the way home?
he's brought us so many greats that we were and still are proud of,
more than any giant fan or even yankee or redsox fan can claim.
just because he has to let them go,
who can say that they've been at the same job for five years lately?
who's been at the same job even ten years?
and all of us have a parent that has/had been at the same job for
ten, twenty, even thirty years?!
times are changing, and so are sports times.
players that play their whole careers with one team are so rare now,
and its definitely not because they're not good enough to.
alot of my buddies wonder why i like the a's, and then the tigers, and then the japanese tigers-
try to stick with just one team,
and i bet your stomach hurts alot more often than mine.

thanks for being such a good fan,
that you rub your tummy as you read
and wish for better baseball days ahead.

JN / LT