Have a Favorite Obscure/Overlooked Former A?

I can still hear Bill King basically calling a play just by saying his name: “…hot shot of the bat of [someone], and… Bordick!”

I forget his name

great guy and he went to the same High School as my Mom

/thread

Also, Kelvin Moore. Dude woulda fit right in with our current prospective 1B logjam.

Billy McMillon!

That lefty sidearm caught me completely off-guard back in the day.

Liked him after he hit 22 bombs in ’77. Loved him after he threw 2 1/3 scoreless innings against the Twins in ’83.

Decent infielder who often got overlooked for his contributions. He was doing some minor league coaching in my region several years back.

Even as a little kid, I knew he sucked. But his name was STORM!!!! Awesome

Guys with loads of potential who never quite achieved stardom – for various and sundry reasons.

All of the Above

what’s not to like about a guy who is so good he can win the NL batting title while playing for the A’s?

Brent Gates for some reason. Terry Steinbach was always a fave too, but hes not really that obscure.

I just remember him coming out of nowhere to hit 36HR & 106 RBI.

I was also a fan of Billy Taylor. It took a while for him to make the big leagues. He didn’t have a lot of talent. But, he did manage to save a few games.

He’s not that obscure, but I thought he was a key to the 1989 team and also brought them back in 1998 before he got hurt, even if he was kind of a jerk.

Some others: Matt Keough, Mitchell Page, the aforementioned A.J. Hinch.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrick_Lennon

A year or two ago I was watching an old replay on the MLB channel of Randy Johnson’s 19 strikeout game against us from June 24, 1997. Pat Lennon comes up to the plate and is obviously roided out of his freaking mind, and Fosse and Papa start raving about how he “changed his off-season training regimen” and “put on 15 pounds of pure muscle and dropped down to 4% body fat.” A nice little reminder of how unbelievably naive everyone used to be about steroids back in those days.

the last knuckleballer to pitch for Oakland.

Matt freaking Stairs! dude was my hero….for what reason, i have no idea

Dude was a useful player. He played C, 2B, 3B, and 1B. the ability to play 2B and C is not something to be sneezed at. Had a good eye and was a generally useful player for, well, for 1993 at least.

rob piccolo, shooty, cliff johnson, dave mckay, mickey klutts, fred stanley. that whole team was field with obscurities other than the all-star outfield and starting rotation.

And I must include….

SCOTT BROCIUS!!! BOTTOM LINE!

was the man

(Properly pronounced Ma-Shore, not May-Shore!) His superhero name made him an instant favorite, even though he never lived up to his handle.

Langerhans wins for most obscure though. Those 2 games were so memorable. Didn’t he drop a routine flyball in Boston in his second match and then get traded?

I know many of you would say “Mark Mulder? He wasn’t overloooked!” but as a young kid watching him pitch, nobody looked at Mark Mulder the way I looked at him. I loved watching him pitch because he wore the same number I wore, his windup was mostly like mine (I ended up making tweaks to make it exactly like mine), and it helped that he was a rock solid starter. My reasoning for putting him on here is that he was often overlooked because of Barry Zito and Tim Hudson. They were definitely the more flashy pitchers at the time. It killed me when they traded off Mark Mulder, and it was devastating to see him have that first great season in St. Louis. To this day though, my Mark Mulder man crush is still strong!

So yeah, I guess he’s OK…

but I’ll always have much respect for Steve Ontiveros, too. Don’t have his numbers in front of me, but it seemed like he always got more out of his talent than expected and did well for us in some big games.

But he mashed while he was here, Rico Carty.

for obvious reasons.

please do not say him.
as for me, its all about matt stairs and adam melhuse. but if marco scutaro can be considered obscure, he’s easily number 1! walk off on an 0-2 count down by 2 off the foul pole against mariano rivera. amazing.

We have to mention Keith Ginter just because he inspired the term “Ginterized.”

thought he could’ve been a good back of the rotation guy or become our closer after izzy left.

Long live T-Red

or as i used to call him when I was nine, Tomato Signs.

Angel Manguel

Ernie Young.

that is before he bought his own island in the South Pacific to avoid paying child support.

And Eric Fox. I will never forget his bomb in Minnesota in ’92.

Billy McMillon was also one of my favorites. And one of my Jerseys bears the name of the legendary Micah Bowie, Yankee Killer.

Dave Collins, always thought he hustled his ass off and he was Rickey’s Replacement in 1985.

Bruce Bochte- Before McGwire came, he was always solid. Read about Bochte now, he is one trippy dude.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruce_Bochte
Mind you I was 7-9 years old at the time going to A’s games with my Dad and Sister.

I know KINGMAN was not obscure, but man dude could hit HOME RUNS like no one’s business. Shame he was a social deviant, imagine him, Canseco, and McGwire in the same lineup for at least 2 years, GOOD GOD!
p.s.
My sister scanned pictures of us at Fan Fest in 1983 (During the Regular Season)