Your 2008 Oakland Athletics - A Visual History

by mrfox on Sep 10, 2008 1:38 PM PDT Comment 38 comments

This is my attempt to keep track of the revolving door franchise that is the 2008 Oakland A's and provide a visual guide to who's who and how they came to play for the A's...

June 1984 - Drafting Mark McGwire eventually led to Jack Hannahan...

July 1986 - Signing Mike Bordick introduced Keith Foulke who returned in 2008...

June 1987 - Drafting Scott Brosius produced Joey Devine...

June 1992 - Drafting Jason Giambi gave us Joe Blanton who brought in Josh Outman...

June 1994 - Drafting Ben Grieve produced Mark Ellis, Ryan Sweeney, Travis Buck and Gio Gonzalez...

...whilst we also drafted Emil Brown who later returned to the fold in 2008...

December 1994 - Signing Luis Vizcaino gave us Justin Duchscherer...

June 1996 - We drafted Eric Chavez...

June 1997 - Drafting Tim Hudson brought in Dan Meyer...

...and drafting Chad Harville introduced Kirk Saarloos who came back this year...

July 1997 - Signing Miguel Tejada gave us Huston Street...

June 1998 - Drafting Mark Mulder led us to Kiko Calero, Daric Barton, Dana Eveland, Greg Smith, Carlos Gonzalez and Aaron Cunningham...

January 2000 - We signed Jairo Garcia a.k.a. Santiago Casilla...

June 2000 - We drafted Rich Harden, who along with Chad Gaudin, became Sean Gallagher, Matt Murton and Eric Patterson...

June 2001 - We drafted Bobby Crosby,...

Dan Johnson,...

and Marcus McBeth who gave us Chris Denorfia,...

July 2001 - We signed Gregorio Petit...

June 2002 - Drafting Bill Murphy gave us Rob Bowen and Jerry Blevins...

June 2003 - We drafted Andre Ethier who "became" Andrew Brown...

June 2004 - Saw us draft Kurt Suzuki...

and Dallas Braden...

and Jeff Gray...

and pick up Brad Ziegler...

November 2004 - We sign Jack Cust who returned in 2007...

June 2005 - Oakland draft Cliff Pennington...

and Jeff Baisley...

January 2006 - We sign Frank Thomas for the first time, and do it again for 2008...

November 2006 - We purchase Donnie Murphy...

December 2006 - Alan Embree joins us...

February 2007 - We grab Lenny DiNardo....

November 2007 - We acquired Wes Bankston off waivers from the Royals...

December 2007 - We take Fernando Hernandez (briefly) from the White Sox...

...and sign free agent Brooks Conrad...

January 2008 - We grab Jeff Fiorentino...

February 2008 - We sign Mike Sweeney...

and in April 2008 - We take Rajai Davis from across the Bay...

21 recs | Comment 38 comments

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Comments

gotta love frank thomas

signing him for next to nothing, getting corey brown (8 hr and playing cf) when he left, and then getting him back for even less money..

A's v Giants "is kind of like the difference between going to see the Ramones and going to see the Bee Gees. A's fans will go see the Ramones." -BB 07/27/05

by xbhaskarx on May 28, 2008 2:54 PM PDT reply actions 0 recs

Wow! Great job Mr. Fox

Also gives the world one reason to like Ben Grieve.

by Mark H on May 28, 2008 4:44 PM PDT reply actions 0 recs

Totally awesome.

stat-addled alien overlord

by salb918 on May 28, 2008 5:09 PM PDT reply actions 0 recs

Seconded

Your 2008 Athletics: It's Nothing Personal.

by PaulThomas on May 28, 2008 5:35 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

This is insane. I will pore over these charts over several beverages.

"wither fair monkeyball?" ~fsu

by LAXile on May 28, 2008 5:21 PM PDT reply actions 0 recs

Daquiris baby!

My religion is A'slamic.

by WhoNeedsReligionWhenYaGotBaseball on Jun 27, 2008 10:14 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

you must be a delight

in business meetings.

owner of a lonely tarp

by oakath on May 28, 2008 6:05 PM PDT reply actions 0 recs

only 1 request

can you make the images larger so that the text is easier to read?

by Zonis on May 28, 2008 6:41 PM PDT reply actions 0 recs

pesky image resolutions...

I’ve updated the first image – is this any better?

by mrfox on May 28, 2008 11:58 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

still too small

maybe 150% or 200% bigger would be better.

by Zonis on May 31, 2008 9:43 AM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

I've had another go at increasing the size...

...but I think that there now at the largest size I can upload them and be accepted by the board’s software?

by mrfox on May 31, 2008 10:41 AM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

still looks the same size to me

by Zonis on May 31, 2008 1:20 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

ah I was looking at the first one

the others look better.

by Zonis on May 31, 2008 1:21 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

Great stuff!

The A's colors are green and gold.

by mikeA on May 28, 2008 6:47 PM PDT reply actions 0 recs

Very, very cool!

AN 3.0's Search Function is *hawt*!

by Poppy on May 28, 2008 11:37 PM PDT reply actions 0 recs

Two thumbs way up

Amazing work. If I may ask, what program/software did you use to make all the text and put the images together?

by atthehive on May 29, 2008 1:49 AM PDT reply actions 0 recs

Microsoft Visio...

IMO their best office product aside from Excel.

by mrfox on May 29, 2008 2:09 AM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

Thank you :)

by atthehive on May 29, 2008 10:41 AM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

one complaint

no photos for a lot of well-known players, including many who are still active (ted lilly, jeremy bonderman, carlos pena).
i think using current, non-a’s photos would be better than nothing at all.

A's v Giants "is kind of like the difference between going to see the Ramones and going to see the Bee Gees. A's fans will go see the Ramones." -BB 07/27/05

by xbhaskarx on May 29, 2008 11:19 AM PDT reply actions 0 recs

I'll happily update accordingly...

..unless anyone has a stash of A’s uniformed photos from the past?

by mrfox on May 29, 2008 11:29 AM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

thanks

hopefully it will help differentiate unimportant guys from mlb players / prospects to some extent.

A's v Giants "is kind of like the difference between going to see the Ramones and going to see the Bee Gees. A's fans will go see the Ramones." -BB 07/27/05

by xbhaskarx on May 29, 2008 11:59 AM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

Looks like a choice...

...between a clean but sparse “A’s or nothing” approach and a more colourful (yes I’m a UK NRAF!) “any photo will do” approach.

Are you still keen on this update?

by mrfox on May 29, 2008 12:15 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

i always prefer more info over less info.

A's v Giants "is kind of like the difference between going to see the Ramones and going to see the Bee Gees. A's fans will go see the Ramones." -BB 07/27/05

by xbhaskarx on May 29, 2008 12:46 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

Fair enough...

...updates to the main post will follow shortly. :)

by mrfox on May 29, 2008 12:48 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

awesome

you’re still missing a few guys:

corey brown

craig italiano

fautino de los santos:

i can’t find a decent photo of chris carter or brett anderson…

A's v Giants "is kind of like the difference between going to see the Ramones and going to see the Bee Gees. A's fans will go see the Ramones." -BB 07/27/05

by xbhaskarx on May 30, 2008 8:25 AM PDT up reply actions 0 recs