Tell us about your first memory of the Oakland A's or perhaps what got you hooked.

in October of 1973, and that was the first season I ever got to go to a bunch of games cuz my neighbor’s dad had season tix to the Mets and the kid was my best friend.

You know the rest of the story: Mets win division, Mets go to World Series, Mets lose in 7 to what were to me then absolute d-e-v-i-l-s in wacko-looking pajama uniforms and break my tender little heart. I cried inconsolably for weeks afterwards, seriously. That was my first exposure to this sh*t and I don’t know that I’ve ever fully recovered.

Fast Forward to 2001 and my pal calls me up and tells me he has a ticket to the ALDS game between the A’s and the Yankees, but he can’t go cuz he has to work and asks me if I wanna go. Having never been to a playoff game, I take the bait. It turns out to be the Jeter “flip” game, 1-0 Bronx Bastards and Jeremy Giambi still doesn’t slide no matter how many commercials and Tributes to the Messiah they make out of the footage.

Something about that game touches my soul and at that moment I become hooked, perhaps for life. Now you all know how you got stuck with me, not that that makes it any easier O_0

Twelve years old. Mitchell Page, Klutts, Revering, Guerrero etc. (Got off to a late start due to coming from a non sports household. My dad not only didn’t like sports, actively thought they were unhealthy, too competitive. Born to the wrong dad, missed out on little league etc.)

But really, it started in earnest a couple years later. Rickey and Bill King. I just love those guys. Billy Martin ruining arms (but i didn’t know or care.) Running and straight up taking games away from opponents.

For some reason i’ll always remember talking about Rickey’s 130 SB season with this random lady on the Greyhound i was taking, traveling alone for the first time, from Spokane WA to Oakland.

Taking BART with my friends for $1.50 bleacher seats (ah, the old bleachers.)

Been to a few great ones, some heartbreakers. Saw the Twins eliminate us a few years back, also saw J Giambi’s walk off vs the Yankees.

Saw a cycle and a triple play. (And a no hitter, but not the A’s. Believe it or not, Ramon Martinez, Pedro’s bro threw it vs the Marlins for the Dodgers in Dodger St. Actually one borderline high fastball away from being a perfect game.)

There is nothing like walking up the ramp and seeing/smelling the grass. A cathedral. Even the Col.

i have a handful of earlier memories from very bad teams in the late 70’s, (too young to remember the mustache gang), but rickey stealing bases is what got me hooked for sure.

Behind the netting of the backstop watching ‘Billy Ball’ with an outfield of Henderson, Murphy, and Armas and any starter that would seemingly throw 150+ pitches a game.

Ughhh even then I was like SLIDE!!!

This idea of a post never gets old for me. I’ll share mine later.

It was sometime in 99’ or 2000. I had never been to a baseball game before or knew nothing about it. Growing up, I was never into sports mainly because my dad forced me to play soccer. He was one of those parents yelling at there kids during the game and trying to be their own "personal’ coach.

Anyways back to the A’s, My dad was a huge A’s fan, we had a couple of hats, pins and jackets hanging around. In all honesty, I never knew Oakland had a baseball team. One day my dad decided to take me out, I didn’t know where so I went. We live in the san mateo county and we usually took the bay bridge to Oakland. What stands out to me (and still does today) is when driving down 880 South to the Coliseum, you see the big red brick warehouse. That build has always stood out to me and when I see it, I know the Coliseum is right around the corner and I get a big smile on my face. During the game, I clearly remember Jason Giambi hitting a foul ball to right field and knocking out the score board lights. That pretty much that got me hooked to the A’s.

I followed the A’s and went to alot of games with my dad up until 2003. My dad and I had a falling out and I went to go live with my mom ( I was 13 ) and didn’t care for baseball anymore.

Fast foward to 2009 and during work, My manager was a huge Giants fan and I mentioned to him that I used to be an A’s fan. He told me that Giambi was back with the team and I thought that was pretty awesome. I remember asking the wife if she wanted to go to a ball game and she agreed too. When I was driving to the Coliseum, I passed the big red brick warehouse and all the memories came back to me again. It really felt great seeing that. At the time, all I knew was my dad. I grew up in a very sheltred life and couldn’t really express myself. My happiest memoires of growing up were going to baseball games with my dad.

Now in 2011, I’am a die hard A’s fan and very proud to say that I’am. In ‘09, I went to 10 ball games and they lost every time but I didn’t care. I had a great time watching the team play and being with the wife. I have a 2 yr old son and a 7 month old daughter, and i’m very excited to take them to their first game to remember.

I regardless of what people say about the Coliseum, I love it and once the team gets a new stadium (I’m pro-Oakland) I will be very happy. But at the same time,I will be sad because I will no longer be able to drive past the big red brick warehouse.

-Spanky

Started watching when I was 5 on TV when my dad abandoned his native Red Sox after the Buckner Boot in the 1986 World Series. My first real memories though are from the next season 88 when I went to my first game at the Coliseum. I still remember the long drive up 880, walking down the ramp and into that sea of orange seats, the huge field and seeing all the great players they had at that time, Terry, Big Mac, Canseco, Walt, Carney taking BP… I loved it. Frankly I still love it. I may deride the Coliseum as a dump, and it really is a dump, but I still love it even if it’s not an appropriate venue for an MLB team anymore.

I was 5, living in western Massachusetts. My father returned from a business trip to the West coast with an A’s t-shirt and an A’s pennant (“Swingin’ A’s”), one for me, and one for my younger brother. Somehow, I managed to claim possession of both items. I was just becoming aware of this game called baseball and the A’s became my team, even as they entered the dark time of the late ‘70s. (Unlike 67Marquez, I have no memories of the ’72-’74 A’s, unfortunately.) I grew up with Mitchell Page, Dave Revering, and Wayne Gross. I’ve been an avid fan ever since and I still have that pennant.

I went to a game with my neighborhood pals and their parents, and watched Vida beat Cleveland…

But my real true memories about really having strong opinions about the A’s were in the aftermath of the 72-73-74 championship run, when Charlie O dumped everyone, and our beloved A’s became the “tripleA’s”. I specifically remember reading either newsweek or SI at my grandparents’ house and scoffing at the notion that the A’s would be terrible, I mean, C’mon man, they’re the A’s!!!

At the ripe age of 10,11 & 12, they’d won the world series, and even though they’d lost to the BoSux in 75, the fact was, those green and gold uniforms made it impossible for anyone who donned them to be anything but superterrificawesome.

Sadly, my 14 year old wisdom was proven to be, in fact, wrong….Still cherish the memories of going to games with my cousin to watch those teams of the late seventies though…

Good Times! Yes! History will repeat itself…

My older brother, who used to actually schedule beating me up (“The pounding will continue Thursday after school”), was an enormous Dodgers fan. The mustached guys in the awesome yellow jerseys throttled them in the World Series and made my brother cry like a little girl with a skinned knee and shit. I swiped my other brother’s A’s helmet and wore it to school every day for the rest of third grade.

Three years later, my dad took me to my first MLB game for my birthday – - a Labor Day doubleheader between the A’s and the White Sox. A’s put up a seven-spot in the second inning of the first game and won 8-7. They lost the second 2-1 despite a complete game by the legendary Pablo Torrealba.

Ernie Riles was sweeeeet with that leg kick.

After I had bugged my Mom enough, she caved and bought the ANG discount tickets using a newspaper clipping. I believe back then it was $3 for upper deck tickets with the discount. I know we played the Royals and lost, but I most remember sitting about 3 rows from the back (in what I now understand was around 314), my Mom sneaking in a large bag full of food and cans of Coke, and eating something she told me were called “nachos” and getting myself full of cheese.

Also, I was happy to get away from my screaming sister, who was 15 months at the time. So yeah, that’s it.

I live in the broadcast area of WGN (like everyone else since it’s nationwide now, I think) I really didn’t pay attention to baseball much, because I lived out in the country where we didn’t get TV reception. When I moved into a bit larger city, I got better reception. In 2006, my mom had some baseball on, and I started watching: it was the Tigers playoffs in ‘06. The ALCS that year was the first time I saw the A’s. I liked them simply because I wanted to root against my Tigers-loving family, and green is my favorite color. We only had below-basic cable, so my new interest in baseball was limited to the occasional Cubs or White Sox game on WGN.

My brother really liked the Tigers all of a sudden, just as I liked the A’s, so we got basic cable that included Fox Sports Detroit. I got to see a few A’s-Tigers games in ‘07-’09, and was stuck seeing MLB.com gameday for the rest. Some time along the way, I found out about AN, which skyrocketed my interest: this was the first place I “met” any other A’s fans. For my birthday in last year, I got MLB.TV, and I got to see last season, including all of Braden’s perfect game. This skyrocketed my interest even further, and here I am!

Never really liked baseball until then. Must have been year 2000 when I started following. I just have random memories of all the cool players, the ALDS distress, the MVPs, and the Cy Youngs, all of the early 2000s. I remember my teacher getting a call in November saying Jason Giambi won MVP we were all so excited. Bunch of characters on those early 2000s teams. Like the Giants today.

My first memory of the A’s was during their playoff run in 1981 that they had yellow on and that nobody would play in the backyard with me.
My interest grew from there. The teams of the early 70’s became my personal research project as I was 6 and 7. My first game in person was with an outfield of Armas, Murphy, and Henderson. I have vague memories of Murphy reaching over the fence to steal a dinger though I am not really clear on that.
I remember crying when Rickey was traded in December of 84.
The first season that I followed start to finish was 1987. Rob Nelson was supposed to be the new best thing at 1B but a formerly converted 3B named Mark McGwire ended up stealing his thunder. I saw Reggie in person that year and being in a crowd chanting “Reggie! Reggie!” is something I will never forget.
1988 was something special because in the spring I just knew the A’s were going to be something special. And Gibson stepped on the plate as he swung!
1989 was of course special for a lot of reasons. I made a point of going to Rickey’s first game back (an extra inning loss to Toronto). At this point I, of course, was well past hooked for life. Getting to rub it in against my Gnats fan family members was huge for me at 12(my family from the bay area, which is most of my family, is split more or less 50-50 between A’s and Gnats fans).

6 Years old.

1. Awesome mustaches
2. The garish colors
3. The larger than life personalities.

Hooked for life.

This wasn’t the best area to listen to AM radio, especially when the “Clear Channel” stations would boost their power at dusk. My late grandfather was an avid California Angels fan, and for my 9th BD(1968), he bought me a 10-transistor pocket radio, so that I could listen to the games. I still remember hiding under the blankets, while I was supposed to be asleep, and the anxiety of trying to keep track of the A’s games, as the signal faded in and out. Of course, my mom never knew I was still awake( yeah, right!). Thank you Grampa, and Mom!!

Twas a September Saturday afternoon game Vs. The Brewers. It was a surprise, he told me that morning that we were going. Getting to the park, and seeing the field for the first time, hearing the organ music, and the fans. He bought me a batting helmet, yellow with green bill. We clobbered the Brewers 7-0, Dave Duncan hitting a homer, and the fireworks after each homer. I’ll never forget it, when my Dad passed away last summer, we spent the last two days of his on earth watching the A’s on TV. He passed right after the ninth inning was over. A’s baseball was a constant in our lives together, for that I am thankful.

My other brother was a Giant’s fan. I must have been a smart kid because I became an A’s fan. My earliest memory was attending games in the late seventies and early eighties with my best freind’s grandma and grandpa. The players I remeber most were Dwayne Murphy, Tony Armas, and then Rickey Henderson. I was also a big fan of Mike Norris. The thing I remember best about attending games was actually a short time later when it seemed every time Davey Lopes came to the plate, he proceeded to hit a home run.

My dad had taken us to a Giants game in 1967 and my brother and I tried to get autographs but were shoo’d away by the ushers. My dad called Horace Stoneham (Giant’s owner then) to complain. We got free tix and went back and the same thing happened. My dad said NEVER AGAIN and the next year we went to Oakland.

Before the game, my brother (the brave one) and I went to get autographs. I held out a newspaper (The Oakland Tribune, A’s edition) and some guy signed it. I thought that was cool. I had no idea who he was.

Ran back to our seats, showed the paper to my dad and asked how the guy was. My dad said “Rollie Fingers?”, never heard of him. Been going to A’s games ever since and been to at least one game every year except for the year they were just too plain painful to ensure – heck you couldn’t even find them on the radio that year. I think they were on some 5 watt FM station out of Berkeley.

My question is what was the best moment you saw in person? I’ll start with Ryan Christensen’s inside the park HR. Only ITPHR I’ve ever seen.

he had been watching it for a little while and I wasn’t paying attention as usual. My grandfather suddenly put down the leg rest and leaned far forward in his big chair as the announcers started to get excited.

I turned and looked at the T.V. Some guy named Rickey Henderson was on first base. I saw an unsuccessful pick-off move. The next pitch he broke Lou Brook’s single season stolen base record with 119.

First Pitch of the First game I ever watched, an important major league record was broken

Seemed like something I wanted to watch more of.
  Rickey stealing bases,
    the A’s,
        the A’s winning,
important major league records being broken whenever I happen to look at a baseball game on T.V.

Needless to say, my expectations might have been just a tad bit high the next few years. Rickey started me off. Kong and his sometimes 550 feet home-runs keep me an A’s fan after Rickey left.

I was three, and I attended an A’s – Royals game. It was the Season Opener, and I went with my dad, also a big A’s fan. I think the A’s won, 5-3. I t was a really great experience. I think one of the things that got me hooked was not only that they played well, but that they had colorful jerseys.
Anyway, after that, I got hooked, and have been a huge fan ever since.
The weird thing is that I was born on October 28, 1989; the day the A’s clinched the WS by beating San Francisco.

his rookie year ….. I was hooked. Don’t know against who, or when. I was 7.

Collecting baseball cards. Dave Kingman, Dwayne Murphy. Great A’s jerseys too.

First" in person" memory, at the Seattle Kingdome, McGwire hit a homer off of Randy Johnson that hit the wall beyond left field. To this day I’ve never seen a ball hit so hard and so far.

but one day I decided to skip work and I drove to Shibe Park.

My first memory that the A’s even existed was before the 1968 season when my Dad handed me an A’s schedule. I couldn’t figure it out thinking he had handed me a different kind of Giants schedule. It took a few minutes to understand that the A’s were new to the area and would be playing in Oakland.

I watched the first game the A’s played at the coliseum on TV.

The first A’s game I attended was on my ninth birthday, Sept 6 1969. The A’s lost to the Twins in 18 innings. Reggie hit a homer. I remember that. I don’t remember Tony LaRussa pinch hitting. My Dad took a photo of me with the mule. We stayed for the whole game which lasted more than five hours. I remember thinking that the rabbit that popped out of the ground to give the ump baseballs was pretty cool.

I have written about the A’s for the Alameda Sun since 2004.

I have been to three A’s Fantasy Camps which has opened up incredible doors for getting to know former A’s like you wouldn’t believe. If there is any chance you have to attend an A’s Fantasy Camp, grab onto it.

This one. Catfish threw a complete-game 2-hitter. Reggie lofted a big fly. I know my parents took me to a Gnats game in 1970, but I wasn’t interested.

When I was 8, I was playing catch with my older brother that I wanted to be Vida Blue (kids being kids, I wanted to be my favorite player). My brother told me I couldn’t possibly be Vida. When I asked why, he told me that it’s because Vida was left-handed. The fact that I, nor anybody else in my family, look nothing like Vida never came to mind.

1972- small farm in rural North Carolina. 10 years old and this ole’ Country boy named Catfish is pitching for some West Coast Team with wild colors and long hair. I was hooked. I spent the next 3 years pitching baseballs and dreaming of becoming another Catfish Hunter. Been a diehard A’s fan ever since.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately on how and why the A’s are so important to us as a family – more so than the Raiders or other teams have been. The love and passion for them crosses gender and generations, in-laws and friends – we are connected by THIS team – the underdogs on the other side of the bay. I think Finley worked to make it a family game…Thursday was Lady’s Day – Dad would take us to the game and pay $1.50 for himself, $0.75 each for the boys and the girls would get in free (bleacher seats of course)…toss in homemade goodies and he spent less than $10.00 (don’t know what parking was then) to take his large group of kids to the game. And don’t forget Family Nights, Farmer’s Day, Camera Day, etc. – brought fans closer to the game and to the team.

True we had great teams to follow but even during the lean years, the family kept going to games. It blows my mind that everyone in our family has an A’s story – aunts, uncles, cousins, everyone! We can talk about the A’s with anyone in the family – common ground. Pictures come to mind too…a baby in the arms of future stars (Don with Reggie, Scott with Rickey, Patrick with Stew) – whoa!!

We are a large family who grew up without many of life’s extras but we thrived – the A’s have always been homegrown and they thrive. As a family, we appreciate the things in life that others take for granted – that’s why we can love and follow our team even when they aren’t playing well. We want our kids to know what it was like to sit in the bleachers, get burnt to a crisp and beg for extra innings. We want them to go to a double-header (not even scheduled anymore) so you get two games for the price of one and usually some kind of entertainment between games. We want them to remember when the peanuts were hot and the vendors would toss you a double pack for fifty cents. We want them to create their own memories to share with our grandkids.

The A’s are important to us because we can relate to them – we share their joys and their disappointments but we are always there for them – just like we are for each other. The A’s are homemade (not store-bought) like we are. They make their own prom dresses and shop at Target – they don’t need $100 million dollar payroll to win a championship and we don’t need $$ to be a family. They have fun and we have fun watching them – it doesn’t get any better than that!

The San Jose Merc asked readers to share their memories of Catfish Hunter shortly after he passed away. My entry made Page 1 of Sports section.

My birthday is May 8, 1968. On that day I was to go to my first Little League Practice (Upstate NY baseball starts later than Cali). I did not have my own glove so I was forced to use my older brother’s glove.

 When I sat down to eat breakfast that day, my Mother allowed me to open a present before the normal ritual of full family participation later in the day. Very unprecendted. Something was up! I open the gift that she selected for me and it was a baseball glove. Yea!
Oh, not so yea, because when I saw the “signature”, it was Jim “Catfish” Hunter. Who?

At that point, I tried to hide my disappointment because I knew my teammates were going to give me grief at practice. They all had Mantle, Clemente, Yaz, models etc.
Cruel world.

Sure enough, my teammates at practice all joined in the “fun” of razzing me about my “Catfish” glove.

Jump to post dinner/cake cutting. After the proceedings ended, my siblings all went their ways and around 6:20 we heard my mother yelling for the entire family to come see the news on TV. Holy HELL! Jim “Catfish” Hunter pitched a perfect game against Minnesota on my birthday!

I’ve been an A’s fan ever since.

Growing up about 20 miles from Cooperstown, I used to hitchhike as a kid in the summer to Cooperstown so that I could see the scores of the Oakland games. The Hall has a scoreboard outside of the hall, visible from the street.

You try finding out the results of an A’s game that would start at 10:30 PM EST.
The 11 PM news would typically show " after 2 innings, Oak 1 Chi 0" and the morning paper would show a big fat N next to the score to indicate night game because it was still being played as the paper went to print.

I love perfect games! (thank you Dallas Braden, but you missed my birthday by one day!)

Bash Brothers
Stu’s stare downs
Eck’s stache
Walt Weiss ROY campaign
Carney’s Batting Stance
The roar of a capacity crowd at the Coliseum w/o Mt. Davis
BART Rides
Sweeping the Sox
Sitting in 209 as the Dodgers celebrated Orel’s win in Game 5 and bawling my eyes out

  As a child, my sister and I spent a lot of time at my Grandparents’ house in San Leandro. Since we couldn’t share a bedroom without mucho bickering and psychodrama, I would sleep with my Grandpa, and my sister would sleep in the other bedroom with Grandma. Grandpa would leave a radio on all night, talk show or ballgame usually.

  My earliest A’s memory was 1971. I was five years old, and all the older kids in my neighborhood were talking about Vida Blue. It was a year later that my lifelong fandom was cemented. I was lying in bed with my grandpa, listening to the game. Sal Bando hit a home run, and Grandpa hopped out of bed. “C’mere, buddy”, he said. We stood by the open bedroom window on a warm Spring evening, and listened to the gentle thunder of Finley’s fireworks.

  My grandpa passed away on Good Friday 1975. He was bowling at Bayfair Lanes at the time, and we should all be so lucky to die doing something we love. He lived long enough to see Catfish bail, but was spared Holt’s grounder to end the ’75 playoffs. He spent his formative years in Detroit, a UAW man. His first love was almost certainly the Tigers, but after that night standing at his bedroom window, I could love no other team.

  I’ve no idea why I liked him. I bought my first A’s cap in 1973 at Busch Stadium in St Louis for $3.50. I became an A’s fan in 1985, a bad year to be sure, and I don’t know why I did it, but I chose them over the Giants and Cardinals that year and stuck with it.

Mom married my step dad when I was 4. I didn’t see my biological dad again until I was 12. My step dad instantly became my dad. I remember watching him pick strawberries out in the backyard and we’d listen to Bill King and Lon Simmons paint a picture with words. He took me to my first game in ‘83. It was Carl Yastrzemski’s last game in Oakland. I had didn’t care who Carl Yastrzemski was, I just wanted to see my A’s. Later that year Pop and I were at a furniture store in Sacramento and there was a guy with a gold chain about 10 feet away from us looking at a pimp ass leopard print couch. I tugged on Pop’s sleeve and whispered “That’s Rickey Henderson.” Pop leaned down and whispered “No, it’s not…” then he glanced over and saw that it was indeed Rickey Henderson and he took me by the hand and walked up to Rickey and said “Mr. Henderson, my son and I are the biggest Oakland A fans in Sacramento. Could you please shake my son’s hand and tell him to clean his fucking room once in a while?” Rickey busted up laughing and shook my hand and told me to clean my room. He asked me what position I played and I told him “Left field, just like you. I also hit lead off, just like you. Last season I stole 48 bases in 16 games! I’m gonna be just like you!” Rickey busted up again and said “You’ll be good, but don’t worry about being like Rickey. Nobody else ever gonna be like me!” He gave me a high five, shook my dad’s hand and told me to work hard and good things would happen to me. If I ever stood a chance of not being an A’s fan, that chance died right there and then. Pop and I go to 5-10 games a year. In fact, I just bought our opening night tickets. Throughout the years, no matter how pissed he was at me, no matter how pissed I was at him, when the A’s were on TV we would sit down and watch them.

My formative sports years were in Denver in the 70’s, where I’d sometimes watch the Denver Bears, an Expos farm team (with Bombo Rivera).

I became an A’s fan when Marvin Davis came as having come to an agreement on buying the A’s from Finely in late ‘79 / ’80 – it never happened, but I was a fan from then on. Ended up living in Pleasanton during the Bash Brothers’ time so was able to finally watch a bunch of games. I see every game they play out here in Chicago now, and usually catch a couple when I go back to Cali to visit friends.

When I was in 4th grade I was living in Newark, CA. I was sitting in class one day when I got a call from the intercom that said I needed to report to the front office for a doctors appt. When I got to the front desk, my dad was waiting there for me. He looked stern and told me to follow him to the car. Despite not knowing what was going on (I was not aware of a doctors appt. on that day) I followed. Once we got to the car he turned to me with a smile and said “We’re gonna play hookie today, bud”. We drove to the nearest BART station and BARTd it to the Coliseum. I had never been to a baseball game before so this was huge! I can’t remember the date, but I know Jose Canseco hit a homerun and Rickey Henderson stole a base and they instantly became my favorite players (that still holds for Rick). It was one of the coolest experiences of my life. Even though my dad is a big Dodgers fan, it lit a green and gold fire in me that never went out. Fast forward 10 years later I was ditching class at UC Berkeley on my own to catch the BART to the game ALL THE TIME. Obviously my loyalties to the team have developed to more complex levels over the years as I got more into the politics, sabermetrics and general minutiae of following the team but I will never forget that day, that game or that feeling. Green Collar Baseball, for life.

I grew up in Centre County, Pennsylvania, as a rabid little Pirates fan. Roberto Clemente was, still is, and will always be, my favorite player.

In 1972, when the Pirates lost to the Cincinnati Reds in the playoffs, I was distraught. I hated the Reds, and there wasn’t a chance I was going to root for them in the World Series. Even though I knew nothing about them, and everyone else was for the Reds (our area was decidedly National League), I decided to root for the A’s. Well, over the next three World Series I discovered that The Moustache Gang was a great team to root for.

In 1984, I moved to Oakland to attend graduate school, and I started to go to A’s games. My youthful fling at A’s fandom, which had been dormant over the years as I had struggled on with the Pirates through trying times, was renewed. I thought the Coliseum was gorgeous, and I could go see the Pirates play two series a year at the ‘Stick. I became an A’s season ticket holder (this is still one of the great deals in baseball, and I remember I got my first half season seat in section 317 – 41 games for less than $300). I had come from the Wasteland (can you say “three hour drive to Three Rivers Stadium?”) and had arrived in Baseball Heaven.

“You can do it Claudell!”