Salty words on a rock which tell A’s story

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It’s a large rock, a boulder really, near the base of a steep hill in Oakland’s Montclair District, layered with dozens of painted messages, for a birthday or maybe a graduation — feel good stuff.

Feel good stuff, congratulatory. Now the congratulatory has become accusatory.

Or worse, downright vicious.

Oakland is about to have its last major league sporting franchise hijacked off to Las Vegas, and some of the people who are incensed feel helpless and have resorted to angry words in green and yellow on the boulder.

“Liar. Cheater. Fraud,” the list reads. “Manfred. Kaval. Fisher. The 3 stooges.”

The references, as if anyone in sports or the East Bay isn’t aware, are to MLB commissioner Rob Manfred, A’s president Dave Kaval and A’s owner John Fisher.  

Unless one of those three or their operatives stop by the boulder with buckets of enamel from Kelly-Moore in the wee small hours — the rock usually is painted after midnight — the unpleasant descriptions may last longer in Oakland than the Athletics.

Maybe the only problem with the naming of people responsible for the seemingly inevitable departure of the A’s is that not all the guilty were included.  

The former and current mayors of Oakland, while giving lip service to the Hey-our-little-town-can’t-compete-against-the-casinos, didn’t show many initiatives.

And as we warned the reason Fisher reportedly is worth a couple billion dollars is because he has no interest in using any of that fortune to finance a new baseball stadium.

Not that the majority of those wealthy enough to list a sports team among their assets are any different. 

We keep hearing from those in charge that the teams belong to the fans, and those in charge are merely caretakers. The rest of us should take care not to fall for so much nonsense.

For the owners, sports are constructed on finance, which is acceptable if, as in the case of Los Angels Rams owner Stan Kroenke, you are willing to bankroll a stadium.  

Often all a fan can offer is loyalty, without which our games wouldn’t exist. There was no more loyal a fan base than that of the Oakland Raiders who stuck out their tongues and took off for Las Vegas.

Just as the A’s are in the process of doing.

The entire Athletics situation appears conspiratorial, a plot borrowed from the 1989 film “Major League,” in which a former showgirl out of — where else? — Las Vegas inherits the Cleveland Indians, purposely allows them to lose games and fans then move to another city.

Well, the A’s started reducing their roster by trading or failing to re-sign the stars who brought the spectators and won games. They are en route to the worst record in a century. The only item, or person, they lack is the inimitable Bob Uecker, whose portrayal — “Just a little bit outside” — was worthy of an Oscar if not the Hall of Fame.

All this doesn’t keep the Athletics in Oakland, however. Neither do the salty words about the three individuals painted on the boulder in the Montclair district. 

Unfortunately.

No way the A’s will get stadium in Oakland

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There’s this baseball team in Oakland that used to be in Kansas City, and before that in Philadelphia, and seemingly next will move to Las Vegas.

Used to win a lot of games before management traded away the guys who were responsible.

But what happens on the field for the Athletics forever remains secondary to occurrences off the field, meaning the inability to construct a new stadium/ballpark or whatever you wish to call it.

Basically, after years of discussions, debate and frustration, you can’t call it anything except a failure.

Or didn’t you see the headline in the San Francisco Chronicle, “It’s crunch time for the A’s”? You’re thinking, if only Mark McGwire and Jose Canseco could step to the plate, but they couldn’t solve the problem.

With the city’s budget and with the city’s administrators, the problem is unsolvable.

The Bay Area for a long time had a spotty record when it comes to retaining its sporting franchises. The Giants lost four ballot measures in two different counties to fund a stadium, before individuals such as Peter McGowan and Larry Baer got involved.

Didn’t the people then running the A’s arrange for billboards near the Bay Bridge that read something like, “While they were building a ballpark, we were building a winner”?

History has been unkind to the location the Spaniards arriving in San Francisco long ago named “Contra Costa,” which translates as “the other shore.”

The Raiders left Oakland and went to Vegas. The Warriors left Oakland and went to San Francisco.

And now? The A’s-to-Vegas shift has been rumored so many times, it seems inevitable, especially now that negotiations between franchise and city must be completed in a week to get a vote on the proposed $12 billion waterfront stadium.

They’ve had weeks to settle this thing, so how can it be settled in days?

Who’s at fault? Charles O. Finley, who moved the A’s to Oakland in 1968? The Coliseum people who agreed to modify a football stadium for baseball?

The Haas family turned the A’s into champions, but nobody has been able to turn the Coliseum — now a  half-century old and all but disintegrating — into a fan-friendly baseball park.

Indeed two games against the Giants a few weeks ago brought more than 70,000 to Oakland, but that was as much part of the situation as the games with 5,000 fans. Why did all those people show up?

Why hadn’t they been showing up?

The only certain thing is the uncertainty. It’s like remodeling a kitchen. No matter the estimates, the project will cost you more.

Which may be the reason some people in the East Bay are not so much wary of a ballpark as they are opposed to one. Troubled by everything from financing to, say, the stadium lights shining into the eyes of tugboat pilots. Yeah, we need to keep the A’s, but what about the fate of the ships? And what about the homeless?

Sure, I’m pessimistic. If Oakland couldn’t keep the Raiders, the team that was formed there, the team that made Oakland a major factor in the nation’s sporting landscape, how is it ever going to retain the Athletics?

According to the Chronicle, Oakland is studying the issue of a limited obligation bond, “which would raise money for infrastructure upgrades, then use money from hotel, sales and parking taxes generated by the project to pay off the debt.”

Sounds plausible, but plausibility isn’t the issue, money is. Las Vegas has it. Oakland doesn’t.

For the A’s, the story always is the ballpark they lack

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So, how’s that new A’s ballpark coming along? You know, at Howard Terminal. Or is Howard Cosell?  It’s supposed to be ready by 2029. In Las Vegas, if not in Oakland.

They used to call San Francisco “the city that knows how,” but that was long ago before the homeless were camping out in the parks. Oakland might be described as the city that knows how to lose sports franchises. No, that’s not quite accurate.

The Warriors left because the team owner wanted the prestige of a San Francisco location — yes, even with dirty streets it has charm. The Raiders left because they wanted a town with money. And the A’s will be leaving because, as you’ve noted, from the bickering and pettiness, there’s no way a new stadium ever will be constructed in Oakland.

I feel sorry for the A’s. The baseball they play, and through the season it has ranked among the game’s best, invariably becomes less important than the other factors — from the time of Charles Finley to this very moment.

Instead of dwelling on Matt Olson, who will be in the All-Star Game home run contest, or Sean Manaea or Chris Bassitt, we’re always writing about the small payroll and the large financial problems. About the disappointing attendance and the generally clueless way the city treats the A’s and their fans.

We know the reality. As in the rest of the Bay Area, citizens who adhere to the NIMBY philosophy — as re-emphasized when, goodness gracious, the A’s suggested a stadium on the property of Merritt College, you’d have thought the team wanted to dam up the Oakland Estuary.

So, then the move was the harbor, the docks, Howard Terminal, functional stadium that seemed to fit in perfectly. Sorry, ship owners contend that stadium lights will affect the fish — just joking, I think.

Of late, an ad posted on the web page of the Oakland Times says the ballpark will cost Oakland taxpayers millions.

As you know, it all comes down to money. The A’s have paddled forward through the years with rosters of players who kept winning until those players became unaffordable — at least for the A‘s, if not other teams.

Billy Beane, the A’s GM for years, never whined about the payroll differential, although after one playoff loss some 20 years ago he was heard to sigh, “Another $50,000, we win that game.”

It’s a business, baseball, and players deserve what they are able to earn. As the A’s were outbid by other teams, Oakland management would tell us as soon as the new ballpark was built it could compete for its stars.

But the beat — and beatings — will go on. That ballpark is more myth than possibility. A’s president Dave Kaval tweeted, offhandedly we’re told, about the team shifting to Vegas. Hey, the Raiders did it.

The A’s were beaten 9-6 on Tuesday night by the Houston Astros, the team with the big bats and big bucks. A club can get by only so long on new kids and overachievers. Eventually, class and star power take control, as the Dodgers did in the World Series against Tampa Bay last year.

It is hardly surprising that the A’s current home, their home since they came to Oakland from Kansas City in 1968, is a negative.

The holiday series this past weekend against the Red Sox, the so-called “Reopening” without Covid-19 restrictions for the first time in a season and a half, drew only 61,000 for three games.

As we’ve been told repetitively, and correctly, the A’s need another ballpark. That it might be located far away from Oakland is the hard truth.

A’s baseball: Fans and nostalgia

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OAKLAND — So much joy, the return of baseball. “Baseball reminds us what was good,” James Earl Jones said in “Field of Dreams.”   

A grandiose contention, although not an unacceptable one.

So much nostalgia, those A’s Hall of Famers, whose names — Reggie Jackson, Rickey Henderson, Dennis Eckersley, Rollie Fingers, Catfish Hunter — are painted in yellow on the green tarp that covers so many bleacher seats.

So much sadness, reminders of onetime A’s players or staff personnel, from public address announcer Dick Callahan to Don Sutton to Joe Morgan to Lew Krause to Angel Mangual, all of whom died in the past few months.

Baseball, a constant in a changing America. So said Jones’ character, using poetic license, as written by W.P. Kinsella.

Sure, it’s still 90 feet between bases — the nearest man has come to perfection, or so said Red Smith. It’s still three strikes you’re out.

But as this baseball season of 2021 began with a game Thursday at Yankee Stadium and continued until Thursday night at Oakland Coliseum, so much was different — on the diamond, where too often it’s a home run or strikeout, or off, where we’re governed by measures of health.

At Oakland, impatient fans who couldn’t wait to see a baseball game in person for the first time in a year and a half were crowded outside the south end of the old stadium, while impatient people waiting for a Covid-19 vaccination were crowded at the north end.

Nobody seemed unhappy. You might say they were hoping for the best shot. Shot attendance was not announced.

The ballplayers wanted spectators. “The more the better,” said A’s manager Bob Melvin. “The fans make baseball.”

Or make a show of it, as opposed to a mere game. The passion is real and vocal. The drums pounded at the Coliseum.

We knew we were at a genuine, cover-your-ears ballgame when the crowd, small as it might have been, 10,436, booed the Astros during pre-game introductions. Yes, I forgot another constant: Disliking a team accused of cheating.

Another change is behind a microphone. The A’s have added Amelia Schimmel, who becomes the third female public address announcer in the majors. Melvin said Schimmel is terrific. If she could throw the sinker, he might be more enthralled.

Nobody knows what’s on the horizon, but the A’s, who made it again to the playoffs in the truncated 2020 season, only to fall to the Astros, should be as terrific as their public address announcer.

Matt Chapman has escaped his injuries and his woes — ”The mental is tougher,” he said — and although exhibition isn’t the real thing, Chapman had a great Cactus League.

“They predict us to win like 81 games, which is absurd,” said Chapman shortly before the first pitch. “But that’s their opinion.

“I am not constantly checking those things (the various forecasts), but I pay attention. I see those things. I don’t value them too much because I don’t agree with their opinions.”

The A’s, with Chapman struggling, last year won their first American League West title since 2013, and they've reached the postseason in each of the previous three years.

However, Baseball Prospectus' PECOTA projections have Oakland finishing with 82.6 wins on average in simulations, which would put the club third in the division standings behind the Angels and Astros. 

Then again nothing is certain, which is part of the fun. Along with booing the Astros.

“We like our depth,” said Melvin. “Losing Chapman last year hurt us, but he’s back.”

So is baseball with fans.

Low-cost A’s pound high-cost Angels; raise a glass

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TEMPE, Ariz. — The advertising on the outfield fences at Cactus League games seems divided between gambling and alcohol.

At Tempe Diablo Stadium, where the A’s played the Angels on Saturday, the boards offered Bulleit Bourbon, Bud Light and Corona Premier. In the other category was Casino Arizona and Pechanga Resort.

Did someone say, take a chance and then take a drink?

The contrast between the franchises on display this beautiful afternoon, the first two American League clubs west of the Mississippi, was fascinating. And maybe instructional.

One spends huge amounts of money. The other spends huge amounts of time explaining why it doesn’t have money to spend — and still has been competitive.

The Angels started in 1961, from scratch, baseball’s original post-World War II expansion club. The A’s moved to Oakland from Kansas City in 1968, succeeding on the field but never at the gate — or, so far, in attempts to flee the Oakland Coliseum and build a new stadium.

It is an undeniable fact, not to mention a sad one, that many of the spring training locales down here, including the A’s facility, Hohokam Stadium in Mesa, are better than the Coliseum. Still is. The Angels have the highest paid player in the game, Mike Trout with a $426 million contract.

He was 0-for-2 on Saturday in the A’s 11-2 win, not that his plate appearances or the final score mean much. Still, if a game is going to be one-sided, even in exhibition play, a team and its manager would be much more satisfied with a victory. A’s manager Bob Melvin was.

The contrast between the teams is remarkable and maybe instructional. The Angels, in their bright red jerseys, have gone to the bank, not only for Trout, arguably baseball’s best player, but for others such as Albert Pujols.

It’s 230 miles or so from Tempe to Anaheim, where the Angels, trying to con the geographers, play under the label “Los Angeles.” In the spring of 2012, right after the acquisition of Pujols, there were billboards announcing as much along I-10, the main route through the desert.

The A’s either wouldn’t or couldn’t keep their great shortstop, Marcus Semien, who joined Toronto for deserved money. So the A’s traded for Elvis Andrus, who Melvin said not only can hit and field but is a presence in the clubhouse with his personality and experience.

No billboards along the freeway in his honor, however. If anyone on the A’s deserves one after Saturday, it is Matt Olson. Yes, his ball soars in Arizona, and yes, the pitching isn’t what it will be.

But Olson hit a ball that almost took out a palm tree, his fifth home run and ninth extra base hit of the Cactus League. The only way out could have been more impressive is if it took apart a saguaro, the cactus that’s protected by Arizona law.

“I’ve gotten to a couple of pitches early that I wasn’t handling well last year,” Olson said. “It’s good to get out here and see those results in live action and get the barrel on some pitches.”

Teammates are encouraged, particularly those who benefit, the pitching staff.

“A healthy Matt Olson is frightening for the league,” said Chris Bassitt, who started and pitched 3 2/3 scoreless innings. Home runs are awesome, and the A’s did hit a great many in 2020, but it all comes down to pitching.

If you can hold a team scoreless in the Cactus League, especially with people named Trout and Pujols in the other lineup, you’d be owed the products that are on the billboards.

Sunshine and thrills return to Arizona spring training

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MESA, Ariz. — This was more like it. Sunshine, a great leaping catch, excellent pitching, and nearly 2,000 extremely partisan and extremely noisy fans.

True, there was only one run scored — and it wasn’t by the A’s — but let’s not get too picky.

Maybe the change had something to do with the arrival of Daylight Savings Time, not that here in Arizona the idea would ever have a chance of going into effect. Or maybe it’s the undeniable fact that the baseball regular season is only two weeks away.

Whatever, on Sunday in a Chicago White Sox 1-0 win over the A’s (Matt Reynolds led off the eighth with a home run) there was a complete difference in atmosphere, attendance and weather compared with 24 hours earlier and 10 miles away at Saturday’s Giants-Indians game in Scottsdale.

Suddenly it felt like spring training. Suddenly it felt like we should care once more.

Every city in the desert, Phoenix, Tempe, Goodyear, Scottsdale, has different policies regarding the response to Covid-19. And yes, Hohokam Stadium is marginally larger than Scottsdale Stadium.

And yes, A’s fans are more vocal than Giants fans, who the late Robin Williams — seen occasionally at what now is Oracle Park — said paid more attention to what was on their cell phones than what was on the ball field.

An announcement from A’s headquarters in Oakland on Sunday morning said the franchise would accept payment for season-ticket suites in Bitcoin. By late afternoon, the only thing A’s fans were willing to buy was a run.

Oakland was limited to two hits, a single in the second by Stephen Piscotty and then finally another single in the eighth by Tyler Soderstrom, the No. 1 draft pick last year.

Hard to win a game when you don’t score, but Oakland manager Bob Melvin was more excited by the positive — the performance of starter Frankie Montas — than the negative.

He and everyone else were thrilled by the way the A’s Buddy Reed soared above the center field fence in the fourth to steal an apparent home run from the American League MVP, Jose Abreu.

There’s an advertising sign at Hohokam just to the right of center, white on blue, that reads,”Baseballism, bet you can’t say it five times fast.”  Especially wearing the mask that is mandatory. You can’t even get on the elevator to the press box without a face covering.

What the A’s haven’t been able to do is get deep into the postseason. A full complement of healthy pitchers may be the step needed to get them there. So what Frankie Montas did Sunday on the mound arguably was more significant than what Oakland batters couldn’t do at the plate.

Montas had a late beginning to spring training because he had been stricken with Covid-19. Although not ready for camp until a week ago, he pitched well Sunday in his first start, shutting out the White Sox for three innings — that’s quite a distance when you haven’t pitched. He struck out two, including Abreu, and reached 99 mph with his sinker.

What sunk the A’s in the exhibition on Sunday, of course, is that their batters were even less effective against Chicago than Chicago batters were against Montas.

Still, you win or lose on pitching, say the experts — hey, didn’t the Yankees pay $324 million to Gerrit Cole? — so the pennant race in effect is an arms race. The more the better.

Said Melvin, “Velo was there,” alluding to Montas’ velocity, “breaking stuff was there. After a slow start getting here, it was nice to see.”

So was a game in the sunshine and with just enough boisterous A’s fans to remind us of spring training as we once knew it.

For the A’s, smoke in the outfield and a loss to the Angels

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By Art Spander
For Maven Sports

OAKLAND — These are unnerving times. One minute you’re worried about virus droplets, the next about everything going up in flames. If the Oakland Athletics on Saturday seemed to have more on their minds than picking up a ground ball, well, even good teams have their bad games.

Read the full story here.

Copyright 2020, The Maven

The A’s: Don’t try to listen up

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By Art Spander

MESA, Ariz. — My first memories of baseball came from what I heard — on the radio.

Nights I would listen to Bob Kelly doing the Angels — the L.A. Angels of the Pacific Coast League. Lucky Lager beer was the sponsor, and Kelly’s home run call, borrowing the product’s advertising, was, “It’s mild and mellow.”

Baseball always has been a game of voices.

Vin Scully arguably became the most important member of the Dodgers when the majors moved West in 1958.

Maybe it was because of the fans’ ignorance (who’s that Wally Moon guy anyway?). Whatever the reason, the Dodgers felt compelled to set up small loudspeakers in an area of the Los Angeles Coliseum — where the team played from 1958 through ’61 — so people could listen as they watched.

Baseball and radio, radio and baseball, inseparable, Red Barber (“Back, back, back…”) and Mel Allen (“How about that?”).

By the Bay, Russ Hodges (who while in New York in 1951 shouted into our souls, “The Giants win the pennant, the Giants win the pennant”) and Lon Simmons; Bill King; Hank Greenwald; Al Michaels; now for the Giants, Jon Miller and Dave Fleming; for the A’s, Ken Korach and Vince Cotroneo.

Except we never again may hear Korach and Cotroneo. The A’s will not be on the radio. At least the way they and other teams always have been, via on-air broadcasts, clicking the on-off switch.

Which is unfortunate. And idiotic. As the headline in the Washington Post a few days ago declared, referencing the Astros cheating, “Scandals won’t kill baseball. Kicking the games off radio just might.”

Since they arrived in Oakland in 1968, the A’s have had a torturous connection to radio. They didn’t like the station. The station didn’t like them. Sometimes the signal was so weak it wouldn’t get out of the Coliseum parking lot. In 1978 they were broadcast on the Cal university station by a 20-year-old student — who is now president of the Giants, Larry Baer.

But beginning this season of 2020, the Athletics, who begin their exhibition schedule on Friday against the Chicago Cubs, will be available online. Meaning, for most of us, they won’t be available.

It’s the future, says Dave Kaval, the A’s president. Of what, a city without baseball?

The game, like every other product, must be sold constantly. Every mention on radio is the advertising, paid or unpaid, that keeps everyone attuned.

Back in the 1980s, NBC-TV televised an NFL game that had no announcers. That lasted one game.

This isn’t a secret society. It’s tough enough finding games when we know they’re being broadcast. It will be impossible if they are only being streamed.

Take out the ”r” and that will be the reaction, steamed, of the guy who takes his family to an A’s game, leaves in the eighth of a 5-5 tie because the kids have to go to bed and then is unable to find out what happened until he gets home and turns on the TV news.

“The primary motivation for this endeavor is around fan development, marketing, and really understanding how that can acquire new fans,” said Kaval, according to the San Jose Mercury News.

The odds are they’ll drive away old fans.

In an essay last summer in the National Review, Rich Lowery wrote, “Baseball on the radio remains an iconic American sound.”

Except for the Oakland A’s.

You can get the games on your phone, probably if you have an understanding of quantum physics. Baseball is simple. All you need is a bat and a ball. The ability to hear a game should not be complex.

The Raiders have moved. The Warriors have moved. Now the only team left in Oakland, the A’s, has moved its broadcasts to a place where most of us can’t listen to them.

A’s Bailey: ‘If we get there, we can do something’

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By Art Spander

OAKLAND — There’s something different about September baseball, something special. If you’re in the pennant race, and the Athletics very much are.

They won another one Wednesday, not easily, even against a team with the second worst record in the American League, Kansas City.

The A’s scored a run in the 11th, the only run of a 1-0 game, another walkoff win, another confidence builder.

There are bad teams in the majors, but in truth there are no underdogs. It’s all in the pitching, and the Royals had that. So did the A’s, which is why Oakland stayed ahead in the wild card scramble.

At the right time they also had the hitting, Mark Canha doubling home Jurickson Profar. That it was also Canha T-shirt giveaway day seemed appropriate.

Tuesday evening the score was 2-1. That was followed by the Wednesday shutout. Two games and only one run allowed.

You’ve heard the axiom that if the other team doesn’t score it’s impossible to lose. And if it scores only one run, your chances of losing are reduced enormously.

Pitching wins, and from starter Homer Bailey, who was replaced in a 0-0 game after 7 innings, through the three relievers who followed him — J.B. Wendelken earning the victory — the A’s had tremendous pitching.

Now they have a sense of what might be accomplished.

“We played really well against New York and Houston,” said Bailey. “We know if we can kind of get to the dance, we can do something.”

Yes, getting to the dance is a phrase normally used in connection with college basketball, the NCAA tournament, but Bailey is excused. After recording a season high 13 strikeouts, he can say almost anything he wishes.

Bailey came to the A’s from the Royals in a July trade. His best pitch is the split-finger fastball that has batters swinging at what they can’t hit.

“Homer’s much more consistent with his split now,” Royals manager Ned Yost told MLB.com. “He doesn’t miss much to lefties. Curveball was good. He spotted his fastball extremely well. I didn’t see him miss a location all day.”

There was morning rain Wednesday at the Coliseum. Batting practice was called off, and because the field was wet the start was delayed for 28 minutes.

When play finally did begin, however, it virtually flew, eight innings requiring only two hours. Of course, with no runs and few runners, a game should move along.

Whether the 16,714 fans cared doesn’t matter, but most still were around at the final out and waving those Canha T-shirts in celebration.

“They played us tough,” A’s manager Bob Melvin said of the Royals. “You could see they were attacking our weak points, but in the end we got the big hit.”

The big hit and the big win. The focus has changed now, for Melvin, for the Athletics.

“The finish line’s in sight,” he said. “You can talk about winning a series early in the season, but now each game is important. Guys step up. It’s a different animal now. Ten games to go. We know our work is cut out for us. We have to try to win every game, not just win a series.”

The A’s won this series from K.C. after a stumble. They came home with six straight wins, a great road trip, very much in control of the wildcard berth. Six straight wins. Then a return to Oakland and a blown ninth-inning lead. Yikes.

But this is a solid Oakland team, one that has beaten the Yankees and Astros. No panic, and lately almost no runs allowed.

The A’s have three games on this last home stand of the regular season, all against the Rangers. Then one more week on the road.

“This is fun,” said Melvin. “I’m even watching scoreboards.”

The rest of us are watching the A’s.

For A’s, was it a Bronx bummer or baseball inevitability?

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By Art Spander

NEW YORK — So what do we call DJ LeMahieu? The Bronx Bummer? One swing and the Oakland Athletics fell victim to the law of inevitability, Yankee Stadium variety.

The A’s had played the Yankees four times over the last couple of weeks and won every game. Meaning they were overdue to lose. And in the most agonizing of methods, which is appropriate in baseball.

If you banged your head against the wall for every defeat in major league ball, where at the minimum you’ll drop 60 games a season, you wouldn’t have a wall. And maybe not much of a head either.

Yes, A’s manager Bob Melvin did a bit of what should have been or could have been Saturday after the leadoff and walkoff home run in the 11th by DJ LeMahieu gave the Yankees a 4-3 victory.

Didn’t the A’s leave the bases loaded in the seventh, eighth and ninth? When that happens, even if you scored a run in the seventh, there’s trouble.

Didn’t Aaron Judge soar above the fence in right field in the 10th to steal a probable home from Oakland’s Matt Chapman — "All Rise” is Judge's slogan in New York — after he homered in the eighth to the game?

And didn’t Melvin ruminate about all that? “Chapman has a homer unless you’ve got a 10-foot outfielder in right field,” he mused. (To be accurate, Judge is only 6-7, but a little exaggeration is acceptable.)

This game was a disappointment for the A’s. And a joy for the Yankees, especially since it was played before 44,412 fans in one of the landmark venues in sports. 

Sure the ballpark isn’t the exact one — the House That Ruth Built, erected in 1923, where the Babe and Lou Gehrig, and Joe DiMaggio and Mickey played. But this one, finished in 2009, is across the street. And still the only proper way to get there is on the No. 4 subway, with dozens of fans in pinstriped Yankee attire. One was a shrine, the other is a monument.

Everybody knows Yankees history, including ballplayers. New York hasn’t won a World Series for a while, but they are one of the best clubs in the game, a standard by which other teams rate themselves.

“We played really well,” said Homer Bailey, the A’s starting pitcher. He has a sense of perspective. But after going 5.2 innings, allowing two home runs to Gary Sanchez, only two other hits and striking out nine, what Bailey didn’t have was a win or a loss.

“You got two good teams going at each other,” said Bailey. “You can’t win every game. You’re going to lose some tight ones. Sometimes that’s just how it goes.”

Melvin, as a manager who’s trying to keep young players believing, did find the upbeat side of a game that from the Oakland viewpoint would have been at the least a semi-downer. No, you’re not going to sweep the Yankees, so move on was Melvin's idea.

Leaving the bases loaded in three consecutive innings and a total of 15 for the game? “You’re always looking for a silver lining,” said Melvin. “We loaded the bases, which means we're grinding out walks and putting runners in scoring position, not going out one, two three.”  

He also liked the relief performances of Blake Treinen and Lou Trivino, even though Trivino, after keeping the Yankees scoreless in the 10th, gave up LeMahieu’s game-winner in the 11th.

“He was good,” Melvin said of Trivino, “other than that one pitch.” 

Let’s let it stand right there.

Handshakes and headshakes: Champion A’s meet 30 years later

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By Art Spander
For Maven Sports

OAKLAND — There were handshakes and, thinking about how quickly 30 years had gone, headshakes. There were joyful words about those who returned, guys you know like Eck, Carney, and Rickey, and mournful talk about those who had passed on, guys you knew like Hendu, Bob Welch and Tony Phillips.

Read the full story here.

Copyright 2019 The Maven