Craig Wilson Interview June 10, 2006

Listen to the Pittsburgh Pirate infielder talk about Power hitting, Coming back to California?, Winning/losing close games, and about the best part of his game.
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Rick Kaplan
Staff Writer

OAKLAND (June 12) – My apologies, Esteban.

I wrote in this column, over and over again, that the A’s made a mistake in acquiring Esteban Loaiza for $22M for three years.

At first, he did indeed look like a lemon. He couldn’t get anyone out with an 82 MPH fastball that wasn’t moving, and went on the DL after four starts.

Loaiza said that he was injured, but that he would be back to pitch effectively for the Oakland Athletics.

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Dan Uggla Interview June 6, 2006

Listen to the Marlins Rookie as he talks about growing up with baseball, the toughest part about his first year, Stealing home, and about being selected by the Florida Marlins from the Arizona Diamondbacks in the Rule 5 major league draft.

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Inside Baseball with Marty Lurie & Bruce Magowan – The Grimsley case: Police the use of human growth hormone, Zito: Staying or moving?, Interleague Play: A’s vs. LA, Yankee woes: Adding Abreu?

Segment one : Marty & Bruce.
Segment two : Marty, Bruce & Jeff Passan
(National Baseball Writer for YAHOO! Sports).
Segment three: Marty, Bruce, Robert Buan & Jeff Passen.
Segment four : Marty, Bruce & Robert Buan.

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With about 100 games left in the 2006 baseball season things are no clearer now than they were when the first pitch was thrown on April 2nd.

The AL West is still a mystery.

The Angels are not playing good baseball. Perhaps the most disturbing sign for Angel fans is the lack of hustle exhibited by super utility player Chone Figgins this week.

The Angels are a team built on hustle. They play the game correctly. Not so this year.

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Rick Kaplan
Staff Writer

OAKLAND – Roger Maris, Reggie Jackson, Catfish Hunter. World Series champions. Yankee gods.

And former A’s.

Few in New York even remember that Maris was an K.C. Athletic first. Or that the “invincible” Yankees of 1927-28 were utterly destroyed by the mighty Philadelphia A’s of 1929.

Our Reggie wears a Yankee cap in Cooperstown. That hurts. At least Catfish stuck with us.

And there was the Berkeley Brawler, Billy Martin. Wanting to be a Yankee for life, he was demoted to the A’s (the Kansas City version). For a New York loyalist, it was the equivalent of a degrading banishment to baseball Siberia.

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Many years ago, in fact it was the 1987 Major League Baseball All Star Game in Oakland,California, Orestes (Minnie) Miñoso told me that “20 years from today, Hispanics will just about domintate in baseball”.
As a kid growing up in Cuba, Miñoso was my favorite player. He played for the Marianao Tigers of the old Cuban Professional Winter League.
What he told me almost 20 years ago in Oakland
is true, it is happening. Miñoso is in his 80s today and lives in Chicago, the city he loves and for the
team he played with the White Sox for most of his career.

By Amaury Pi-González [Read more →]

Marty–Here’s something I wrote about a long-time friend of mine who died yesterday. Bob Giron worked as our equipment manager at USF for over 36 years, and his career in the Army I think went back to when Ike suited up for West Point. But he’s one of those characters you meet around sports who brought a timeless quality to every conversation and delivered genuine warmth with every handshake!

George Devine, Jr.

George thanks for the thoughtful article about a good man in the world, not just the world of sports.

Marty [Read more →]

Marty; The series with the Mets last week was encouraging in many respects, discouraging in others. The Mets are concededly one of the strongest teams in the league. The Giants more than held their own with them. They took two out of three, with a little luck could have swept them. On the other hand, Benitez almost blew two of the winning games.

Before the season began, it was the informed opinion that the West Division was the weakest division in the league. Almost sixty games have been played and the two leading teams are Arizona and LA, with the Giants tied for third, four games behind Arizona. Arizona and LA are improved clubs. If Gagne shortly comes back healthy, LA will be the club to contend with. This division has four teams over the .500 mark; the Central and East divisions have two. Arizona, last week, swept a four game series with Atlanta, on the road. The West has shown it can compete successfully.

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Rick Kaplan
Staff Writer

OAKLAND (June 6) – Oakland is 9-14 in one-run games (games decided by one run) in 2006.

The A’s have had difficulty scoring thus far, and in holding leads when they do.

Knowing this, Frank Thomas, of all people, “manufactured” the Oakland Athletics’ first run on Sunday against the Minnesota Twins.

Leading off the bottom of the second, Thomas lined a ball into the left field corner. Hustling out of the box, even if in slow motion, the Big Hurt surprised everyone at the Oakland Coliseum, including Twins’ leftfielder Lew Ford, when he set off on a gingerly jog to second base, arriving a hair before the ball.

Then, in a relative burst of speed, Thomas scored from second without as much as a throw from right field on Bobby Crosby’s line single.

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