"Greenwald's reduced schedule: In December, we reported that Hank Greenwald was looking to trim his A's telecast schedule significantly, and he has gotten that reduction."

Well that made my day...

because Hank has been in baseball a LONG time and really knows a lot...just too bad it is not translating to A's TV coverage.
What about Dave Stewart..has he done any announcing?

I almost posted a few days ago when everyone was knocking Macha, and now I notice people are giving him kudos for his little rip on Giants fans, so rather than use a diary to open the same can of worms as the other day, I'll just have my say here.

I believe Ken Macha is a pretty good fit for the A's.  He's not a guy with a huge rep (and salary), he's just a (very) professional coach, who knows exactly what he is.  He had a modest major league career, retired and became a coach.  I believe he is a superb motivational coach who fosters a very positive team attitude.  The players and inside baseball people obviously love him (remember the universal respect he got when he was bench coach?), and I have a feeling that he really is good at creating and maintaining a low key, have fun, play good baseball, and be good off the field attitude.  How many attitude problems have there been with the A's since Macha has been either bench, or head coach?  I'm grateful that there haven't been any (although I would hope that if Macha had any idea that Hudson and Zito wanted to go out to a Bahston bah, he would've checked their poor judgement and tucked them into their little beds himself that night).  

I think that it's just incredibly hard to live up to the fans and media expectations (to make all the right on field moves) as a major league manager. If all the pieces of the puzzle are there (and they're ready to go every day) that would might make it simpler. Believe me, I've done my share of upper deck howling at some of his moves (most awful, I think was pinch hitting Melhuse for Dye), but I could say that about any manager I've ever watched.

Major league managers are often compared to ship captains, and I think Macha fits the description better than most. I believe that his patience in the consideration of his contract is a great indicator of what a team player, and good employee, Ken Macha is.  He knows the spotlight being on him is not a good thing for the team, so he plays it cool on the contract extension talk, focuses on the season ahead. Steady as she goes...

With Ken Macha you get a real pro at a bargain price.  His positivity isn't as effusive as a Chuck Tanner (or Ron Washington who I think is cut from the same mold), but it's there.  You can't read it in the stats, or in all the results, but I feel it's a very real, and valuable, thing.