But not completely off-topic, as it has a bearing on why our team hasn't won a pennant in close to 20 years ...

The BBTN crew was out to lunch when they responded to the Marlins president's complaint about Ichiro's new deal. Yeah, of course Ichiro is a fabulous player and he's conceivably worth $90 mil, but Samson's real complaint is that it's unfair to let the big-money teams stack the deck FURTHER in their favor by having exclusive access to the best free agents (not to mention those prime draft prospects who are willing to play chicken with signability). Free agent salaries look to be entering the blowoff stage.

But all of this goes unmentioned by the BBTN guys, whose employer is demonstrably biased anyway.

We need a salary cap! An $80 million team ceiling would be a good start. It's NOT a coincidence that the #2 and #3 payrolls have the best records in baseball. Where's the outrage from when the Yankees acquired A-Rod?

P.S. I need to change my sig.

Thank you for participating in the 2007 MLB season.  You hung in there despite having three of your players; Crosby, Chavez and Kendall, not showing up for the first 92 games.  The injuries were tough but frankly without CC&K knowing how to put bat to ball the team's standing would not have been significantly different.

Going into Sunday Oakland please begin the reconstruction process.  First and foremost.....

• fire the hitting coach.  Noone knows who he is, and given the results of the offense, I'd swear he just exists in name only.  If he can be found, his flight out of Minnesota should be to anywhere but Oakland.  Firing this coach sends the message "changes are a comin....."
•  Next the tough part....please upgrade for the future.  The Beantrust knows what the team needs...now let's go get it.  It's time for the Beantrust to earn his keep.  If I may suggest one option...look to the LA Dodgers.  They could use a slick fielding pedestrian hitting third baseman and we have just what the Dodgers ordered.  Chavy for Betmit, Loney and a minor league pitcher (or a similar type trade) could be a good start towards building for the future.
•  Finally, do something about the training staff.  Perhaps a dose of their own medicine is in order in which case you should expect a worker's comp claim from them by the end of the week.  Given their effect on our players you should expect them to be out for the season.  This presents the perfect opportunity for replacement.

I will do my part as a fan and attend games and root for the A's to improve.  All I ask of you, Oakland A's, is to put a product on the field that gives me hope that we will be competitive again in 2008.

Kindest regards,

A Loyal Fan  

with a shot at getting into the playoffs. Think of the rags-to-riches, riches-to-rags turnover among NFL playoff teams every year, in a sport where there is a hard cap.

Sure, one can object to seeing players' paychecks getting muzzled, but shouldn't the interests of the fans of small market and mid-market teams supersede that? What kind of a sport is it where a group of teams starts every season with virtually no hope of going to the playoffs? How'd you like to be a Jays, O's, or D-Rays fan the past ten years, looking up at the Yankees and Red Sox?

People are treating Samson like a jealous hypocrite, but I see him (and us) like the 1st grader who's getting beat up by a bunch of 7th graders. It's not a fair fight.

or does it seem that the team played with more intelligence and intensity when Macha was the manager?  Right now I just don't feel that Geren is a great improvement over Macha. Macha was prickly, the players hated him, and the media wasn't crazy about him. I wasn't crazy about him!  To Geren's credit, Geren is more touchy feely with the media, and the players seem to like him because he never has anything negative to say about them. He'll leave you in even if you suck. But, some of Geren's decision making this year just seems sophomoric. Like leaving Crosby in all the time: he sucks and everyone seems to agree on that, but Geren never pinch hits for the guy, like tonight. He's played Kendall way too much, and he puts Colby Lewis in way too much. He'll bat Kotsay second when Kotsay really hasn't done jack since his surgery. Swisher is playing everywhere in the outfield, and that has to affect his hitting. We all know that Marshall can not pitch to righties, but he will anyway.  People may say that Geren has had a lot of injuries, but key players on the team have not been injured and they are playing with their heads in the clouds, i.e. Kendall, Crosby, and Chavez. Åfter tonight's loss and seeing the stat on t.v. where this team has tied the 1976 Å's in most games in a row with three or fewer runs (i think that is how I heard it), it got me thinking.

Macha was despised by fans and players for many things (communication, disrespecting team leaders, poor bedside manners, blind adherence to statistics), and (and this is a big AND), many of the dissers never appreciated him for what he undeniably brought to this organization - WINS! Macha focused on getting the job done and spent painstaking hourse doing the little things - like this squad, his teams had massive injuries, poor starts and long losing streaks. But when Ken was manager, every one of his team was squarely in the playoff hunt in late September and beyond.  

Macha haters need to take a long look at themselves because the attitude that any manager could have equaled or surpassed Macha's accomplishments is the same attitude that got us Geren....and this team is out of it in mid-July without the faintest hope for a miracle.  Nothing against Geren on the level of effort or attitude - its all there. But he's also not getting the job done - all dissection of his performance should begin and end there. Perhaps I am in the minority, but to me, wins - not the "respecting" of Kotsay/Zito/Crosby/Kendall/Chavez - is what matters to me as a fan.  

For real A's fans, to a man, this season has been like no other.  Not since early 1999, have I felt what I have felt since mid-April - that this squad was never, ever going to make a serious run in 2007. The footnote is the '99 team did have some interesting things happen in August and made things somewhat exciting. Sad to say that's not happening this year.

...the club has decent pitching including last night, but no one can expect these guys to win when they can't/won't score runs. The margin of loss is usually small, but they still can't score. I  repeat what I said a week ago.

Good teams have the skills to manufacture runs. An example would be a hitter reaching on a walk, stealing second base, going to third on a ground out hit to second, and scoring on a fly ball. A run is scored without a base hit.

This is a team that could well have assets it hasn't used, i.e., teach Crosby to hit to the right side or send him down until he learns how to do it; teach every one of the players to bunt so they can work the squeeze (particularly Chavez, Kotsay and Swisher). There's more, but you get the idea. With this club, small ball is far better than no ball at alll.

"The Dodgers have hit majors best .299 since hitting coach Bill Mueller replaced Eddie Murray."