Elephant Rumblings: Melvin Not Worried About Olson’s HR Tally, A’s Prospects Heating Up

A’s Coverage:

• Game #31: A’s drop game, series to Mariners...
• Cwik: The underrated star at the center of the A’s surprising start...
• MLBTR: Athletics Release Simon Castro...
• Milles: Melvin reflects on his time managing Ichiro...
• A’s Farm: Jorge Mateo’s 4 hit Thursday night included 2 HRs and a stolen base...

MLB News:

• ESPN: Mariners’ Ichiro Suzuki to enter front-office role for rest of ‘18 season...
• Crasnick: Braves call up 3B Jose Bautista from minors...
• ESPN: MLB to announce Yankees-Red Sox games in London...
• Perry: Indians’ Terry Francona becomes one of just 24 managers to win 1,500 games...
• Cwik: Emily Jaenson named general manager of D-Backs’ Triple-A team...

Baseball Interest Stories:

• Sam Miller’s Radical Ideas Series: What if MLB teams could bid for more home games?
• Sawchik: Trevor Bauer Might Have Conducted an Experiment...
• McNear: Will Ichiro Be Our Last Universally Beloved Superstar?
• Paine: The Braves Got Hot Fast, And They Might Stay That Way...

Today in Baseball History:

• 1943 - National League President Ford C. Frick demonstrates that the revised “balata ball” is livelier than the previous year’s ball by bouncing it on a carpet in his office. The major leagues have turned to the balata ball because of wartime restrictions on the supplies used to make standard baseballs. When introduced in games on May 9, there are six home runs hit in four doubleheaders compared with nine home runs hit with the previous ball in the first 72 games.
• 1984 - At the Metrodome, Dave Kingman of the Oakland Athletics is awarded a ground rule double when the ball he hits disappears. The Athletics slugger’s towering fly ball goes through a drainage hole in the stadium roof and never returns to the playing field.

Best of Twitter:

• Melvin on Oly’s power outage, or lack-thereof...

• Between Felix, Nelly, and now Dee Gordon, the M’s are just full of A’s killers...

• Whenever he arrives, this guy is going to be fun...