No doubt the injuries to Rich Harden, Bobby Crosby, and Bobby Kielty contributed mightily to the A’s demise during their stretch run. However, for me the most devastating injury the team suffered was the season ending elbow surgery for closer Octavio Dotel.

Here’s why.

Click below for the answer and more! [Read more →]

by Glenn Dickey
Sep 28, 2005

THE ATLANTA BRAVES and the Oakland Athletics both took on massive overhauls of their teams this season. The Braves have clinched the National League East. After a gallant run, the A’s fell short in the American League West, being eliminated by the Angels last night.

What’s the difference? The Braves have Andruw Jones. The A’s have Eric Chavez. Both are their team’s best players, but they’re really only comparable with their defense; Jones is a superb center fielder and Chavez is the best third baseman I’ve seen since Brooks Robinson, who is the gold standard. [Read more →]

No matter what happens over this weekend in the American League keep your eyes focused on the final three games of the season.

Seems like every time you turn around the Devil Rays are in the picture.

The Angels face the troublesome Rays in Anaheim this weekend before the Halos invade the Coliseum Monday.

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If you are a baseball fan and like the history
of this great game, then you have to visit the
Oakland Museum of California “Baseball As America” exhibit direct from Cooperstown,
but with plenty of local flavor.

By Amaury Pi-González [Read more →]

Marty; On Sep’t 16th this page carried an article which raised the question whether “choke” was or was not too strong a word to use in connection with the performance of Benitez in the third Padres game. This was the game, as you will undoubtedly, painfully, recall, in which Benitez blew a two run lead when one strike away from completing a sweep of the three game series.

Click below for a most interesting analysis of the Giants.
[Read more →]

You can call José Canseco a whistle blower
an informer a stoolie or chivato which is
the word used by Cubans, but whatever
you call him you must call him right.
This 2005 season Home Runs dip to 1997 level.

Amaury Pi-González [Read more →]

As the 2005 baseball season enters its final two weeks, six teams are in contention for playoff spots in the American league. Only four will continue to play past October 2nd.

In the National league only the Cardinals have clinched a playoff berth, leaving the remaining three postseason spots still up for grabs.

The White Sox are struggling. All of a sudden their starting pitching has gone in the tank. Here’s a scary thought: righthander Jose Contreras is the steadiest pitcher on Ozzie Guillen’s staff. No wonder the Cleveland Indians are licking their chops as they get ready to face the Sox next week in Chicago in a crucial three game series.

Can Cleveland catch Chicago?

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[Read more →]

by Glenn Dickey
Sep 16, 2005

MANY PEOPLE wondered why the A’s, representing a city which is more than 50 per cent black, did not have a single black player on the roster in the period in between their optioning out Charles Thomas and signing Jay Payton. Was this deliberate?

In fact, as the always perceptive Joe Morgan explained to me, it’s the system, which is why the percentage of blacks in baseball has fallen to nine per cent. [Read more →]

So here we are coming to the end of another
season, the Seattle Mariners might not loose
99 games again, they have a group of younger
players and these guys might decide if
the Angels or the Athletics win the West.

By Amaury Pi-González [Read more →]

Marty; The most important inning in the most important game of this diminishing season. The opportunity to sweep the Padres, maintain the increasing pressure, look forward to four more games against a San Diego team which had just blown the lead in late innings in each game.

In this crazy season, a Giants team which can’t get to the five hundred mark, had a single out standing between it and the momentum needed to get it to the playoffs. Who would have bet against them? They had the closer they wished for, Benitez. He had, in his last eleven outings saved ten games. He was throwing ninety-seven miles an hour.

Click below for the answer.

[Read more →]