Elephant Rumblings: 3/29 Céspedes, Colon Power A’s Win vs. Seattle in Japan

A’s Coverage:

• Brioso: Longtime Athletics minor league coach, manager Webster Garrison hospitalized with coronavirus
• Kroner: March 29, 2012: Yoenis Céspedes, Bartolo Colon spark A’s in Japan ($)
• Seattle Mariners at Oakland Athletics Box Score, March 29, 2012
• Hickey: A Decade of A’s Trades: The 1990s
• Hill: Breaking down an extension for Mark Canha (meh article, interesting idea!)
• Henry: Seth Brown fulfills big league dreams with Oakland A’s ($)
• Selz: 2020 Farm Report: Oakland Athletics

MLB News:

• Passan and McDaniel: What the MLB deal with players means for 2020 season and beyond
• Polishuk and Dierkes: Details On The MLB/MLBPA 2020 Season Agreement
• Shapiro: Rob Manfred: MLB Finished Red Sox Investigation, Report Delayed Due to Coronavirus
• Todd: Latest On MLB Plans For Team Employees

Baseball Interest Stories:

• Harrigan: The best to never win a Cy Young Award
• Dator: David Ortiz’s estate sale includes a 2002 printer with ink cartridge
• Laurila: Sunday Notes: Zach Davies Plans to Rely Less on Changeups, Brandon Brennan on mass quantities, Brett Anderson on playing sans fans, Roger Clemens met Morgana, and more.

Baseball History Reader’s Club:

• Clair: He invented a cocktail ... and the knuckleball (Article about 1890’s pitcher Toad Ramsey, and yes that was the nickname he went by! Also, some say Toad’s pitch was a pre-knuckle, not a true one like we see today)

Today in Baseball History:

• 2001: Pitcher Dwight Gooden announces his retirement. A four-time All-Star and Cy Young Award winner, Gooden posted a 194-112 record with a 3.51 ERA and 2293 strikeouts over a 16-season career.
• 2010: Pat Venditte gets to show his stuff in an exhibition game for the Yankees against the Braves. When switch-hitter Brooks Conrad steps to the plate, home plate umpire Mike Reilly reminds Venditte of rule 8.01 that states that he must commit to one arm, in order to avoid the fiasco of his professional debut with the Staten Island Yankees in 2008, when he and switch-hitter Ralph Henriquez Jr. changed sides repeatedly in a cat-and-mouse game.
• 2019 - In a rare occurrence, position players take the mound for both teams in the Dodgers’ 18 - 5 win over the Diamondbacks. The two teams’ bullpens are worn out after playing a 13-inning game the previous night, so with a large deficit in the 7th, Arizona sends back-up catcher John Ryan Murphy to pitch, and he gives up 7 more runs in 2 innings. The Dodgers then ask their own back-up catcher, Russell Martin, to close out the win in the 9th, and he obliges by setting down the side on 10 pitches.

Best of YouTube:

Good lord did I forget how satisfying are La Potencia’s home runs. This is a deeply satisfying watch...

Three minutes of vintage 80’s MLB reporting in all its glory. That stolen base clip, haha! Tom Candiotti would himself pitch into his 40’s, including two seasons with the A’s as an old fogey...

Great music, great clips, weird pitch (who has the nastiest knuckleball?)...

Best of Twitter:

Feel-good story of the week...

Not sure if this is journalism/news or Heyman’s editorial opinion (here’s the original report last month about more teams and a “pick your opponent” format)...

Beane won’t be able to make transactions? He must be losing his mind...

Darn right...