Josh Reddick vs WWE wrestler Daniel Bryan. Supposedly Reddick will keep the beard all season long. I’m sure that’ll feel real comfortable in KC in July and Cincy in August.
This wrestler may have bombast and Twitter followers, but Reddick’s beard kicks his ass.
Summer in Texas will be fantastic too. Man that thing is ugly. It’s basically how mine looks if I didn’t trim it every so often.
DC’s “snowquester” may have failed to materialize (it’s been mostly rain and blustery conditions today), but working from home has its merits. For example, I just learned from the spring training game I have on in the background that the Nationals’ hitting coach is David Eckstein’s brother.
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Keep us posted on any news about Jason Werth’s beard.
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kidnyless
Will Reddick get to smack the “wrestler” in the face with a pie?
Reddick’s wackiness is endearing when he hits like he did in the first half, and kind of annoying when he hits like he did in the second half.
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So bring back the mouthguard, you’re sayin.
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Does help to chew the ‘nerves’ away I’d imagine.
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I’m hoping against hope that he turns out to be as good as his first half suggested. A star player with Reddick’s personality would be a big marketing boon for the organization.
Speaking of marketing, I got a personal email today from a sales rep with the team alerting me to the “rare” availability of some decent season tickets at discounted prices ($40 for MVP infield, $38 for MVP). Anyone else get similarly approached?
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I did not.
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Did not get that one. I did get an email two days ago linking me to the A’s Dynamic Deals page, which actually does have quite a few below-list-price ticket offers for April games (subtext: 2012 success is not manifesting in better sales for midweek games).
However, since you can’t get these deals unless you also pay the usurious online fees, they will continue to not actually be worthwhile for those of use who can get to the box office.
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Fking “convenience” fees. Total load of bullshit.
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For the record, I’d gladly pay it if they renamed it something to the effect of “Didn’t get off your fat ass to buy them” fees. I’m a man of principle… basically just one.
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I would support this.
This is a pretty cool bit of sabermetric research.
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Pretty cheeky, McCracken–>Great White Whale!
And this is an excellent screed/troll.
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I enjoyed this.
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Eh. I need to give it a more thorough read, but the writer appears to be railing against (his own) intellectualized idea of what punk is/was, rather than the actual experience of having lived through an era and how that may or may not have had lasting effects.
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TL, ONLY READ A LITTLE. but yeah, troll.
1) I have a dear friend at microsoft who was in SLFs band. he would mock you for playing a corporate party at microsoft.
2) Punk rockers are baby boomers. the first generation were born in the mid fifties.
3) I know plenty of people with jobs without savings accounts. this makes me think this guy has way more privilege and none of the self awareness about it needed to make these comments
4) punk rock uniform was, is, and always will be a problem. that is society. I think this guy is just some two bit intellectual, or as andeux puts it, a troll
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I got bored pretty fast too. Lots of straw men in there.
Niner fan bait: I got to tour this place today.
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Why woudl Niner fans care about photobucket?
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Sorry, I was editing my photobucket folder paths. Photo fixed.
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Nice. My company was chosen as the vendor for their network, so we hear updates pretty frequently.
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Cool!
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How come they let a Raiders fan in? Are the Raiders moving down there?
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God I hope not.
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why it is by far the best public policy option.
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Not for Oakland and the East Bay it’s not. If there were a magical super-regional government that shared resources and costs equitably, then yes. But since cities and counties compete, it’s very important for Oakland/Alameda County to retain one or more teams.
As a fan the thought of the Raiders playing 2nd fiddle to the Niners in their stadium turns my stomach.
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They’re probably used to playing 2nd fiddle to the Niners by now :P
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::high five::
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Why is it important for Oakland to keep the Raiders?
Also if the Raiders leave they can stop spending money on that and try to keep the A’s which would actually do something to spur economic development.
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Coliseum City is a legitimately exciting potential development (which also could employ a lot of unionized blue collar workers in the warehousing, hotels, office parks and R&D facillities). It is however less promising without a sports anchor tenant. While I’ve certainly not given up on either the A’s or the W’s, it would be stupid to not try to keep the only team actually trying to stay in Oakland right now, which is the Raiders.
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Please name me one football stadium that has served as a successful anchor to economic development
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You have reached the limit of my ability to responsibly engage in this discussion. Except to say that in the real world of economic development cities/counties have to play the hand they’re dealt.
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Is that because you cant for work reasons or Im pissing you off?
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A. Would be happy to discuss in person.
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ok
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ill show up in about 20min?
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If that’s the case, it may be better for Oakland to stop spending money on sports enterprises that could/should be paying their own way and historically don’t turn a profit for the area outside themselves and focus their attention on the real problems they have. As important as economic growth is to it, their best strategy may be simply to pull back, reduce/consolidate, and *fix* their issues. Then, if it makes fiscal sense to do so, focus on growth. Oakland seems to think they should compete with the biggest cities in the region when perhaps they shouldn’t.
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You COULD say the same thing about pretty much every city in California, including ones trying to get the A’s.
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Well, I wouldn’t say that about every city, but most of them, particularly most of the bigger cities. If you want to make this about Oakland vs. SJ, then yes, SJ too should be focused on other things as well. The very fact that you think this has anything to do with that though concerns me, it suggests your priorities for the city of Oakland are backwards. I think, in general, way too much time, energy, and especially money is involved in trying to keep a big city big. Sometimes it’s better for a big city to simply accept that it hit *a* peak and scale back. Just off the top of my head, I’d throw Detroit in the same arena. That doesn’t mean give up, it just means be patient, pull back, and rebuild. Not much different than a baseball team choosing to rebuild instead of continually trying to throw money at players in a desperate sense of trying to continue a dynasty that’s come and gone.
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I think we’ve lost the plot a little moving from football (~10 home games) to baseball (81+ home games).
FSU’s point that the Raiders want to stay in Oakland is fair, but whatever happens there doesn’t really translate to talking about baseball teams.
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That was my point. Football doesn’t drive economic activity like baseball does.
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Yup.
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Can a football team really be the only anchor for a development like that? I would think you would need one, and maybe both, of the A’s and Warriors just to be assured of enough days where people would be showing up.
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They are counting on other events besides traditional sporting events, including concerts, monster trucks, moto-cross, and conventions, since a big component of Coliseum City is convention space. But obviously it would help quite a bit to have another team at the complex besides just the Raiders. I think that the focus should be the Raiders, since they are the only team that has said that they want to stay. If you can nail the Raiders down and get them to anchor the project, things might move with the other teams as well, pure speculation.
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If the Kings stay in Sacramento, part of their plan is a WNBA franchise. Oakland should get one too.
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It would make so much sense for a WNBA team to be in the Bay Area!
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Or, Lew Wolff and the Raiders could have joined forces to build a mixed-use development centered around soccer, football, and baseball on the Coliseum City site. The football stadium, if designed properly, could have served both football and soccer, a la the wildly successful Sounders FC in Seattle.
Oh well, that ship has sailed.
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Howdy stranger!
It is still possible that Coliseum City will host both a baseball and football stadium. The planning is being done to accommodate that option for as long as possible. If the Raiders and City/County figure a way to put their deal together financially (big if), there will come a point in maybe 18-24 months where the A’s will be forced to say in or out. The A’s would be offered the same deal they’ve talked about for years: City/County give the land and infrastructure, team builds the ballpark. Oakland’s best hope is that at that point, for whatever reason, this sounds like a better deal than whatever uncertainty/obstacles are there for the San Jose plan.
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I took Jeepers to mean that the Quakes option is off the table.
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Yes, I was just obliquely riffing off.
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I really hope it happens. I love Oakland, and it deserves better than it gets. Not to say it isn’t its own government’s fault much of the time, but still.
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I would FKing love Coliseum City.
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You were riffing off far more eloquently than I ever could.
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My toenail fungus wants to stay too. It doesn’t mean that it will generate economic activity.
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Now hold on. Don’t sell yourself short. If you do something great with your life it could be worth a fortune.
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This is my point.
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I want a retractable roofed, retractable floored, part grass, part artificial turf, indoor/outdoor stadiarenaseum for baseball, football, basketball, hockey, events, and winter mass-sheltering of the homeless.
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I was here.
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We got an invitation to that, but I was put off by the dress code and the thought of going up in a personnel winch, whatever the FK that is.
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One of those big construction site elevators that goes along the exterior of the building. Not a big deal.
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Good god what a shitty article premise. Being net neutral means that over a year the panels generate enough electricity for the home games. Not that the panels somehow power a full stadium at night.
Still a good thing, and good on the Niners, but geez.
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and also, that implies that for the year, its generates enough electricity for 10 days.
I bet its more, but the implication is not impressive to me.
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No playoff games, hopefully.
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The article basically rephrases the #sfsuperbowl campaign press release. It is very cool that the Niners are building what will be the most “green” US pro sports stadium ever.
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Bullshit. They’re having RED seats. There’s no green in there color scheme :P
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Too bad they can’t build cheap and effective solar panels into the seats.
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Mouse Wheel seats!
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Who the hell are you?
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Not Batman, that’s for sure. My movies wouldn’t suck.
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Are you trying to piss me off?
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Yes.
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Oh.
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Just having fun. Actually I’m SF Mayor Ed Lee.
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Who?
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You didn’t like any of the Batman movies?
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No, I did, especially the Dark Knight. I didn’t see the last one.
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The Christopher Nolan movies are incredibly overrated rip offs of the Shaddow
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Your sentences are incredibly overrated ripoffs of spelling.
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If I was ripping off spelling I would surely get more words right.
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Excellent comeback.
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why thank you
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Bwahahaha
With Furcal going under the knife can we please trade lowrie/nakajima to the Cards for something good?
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Nakajima can’t be traded because he was a FA signing, right?
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without his consent. Hey we got lawrie and were going to play him at SS youre riding the pine or you can play for STL might do the trick
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It also needs commish approval doesn’t it?
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All trades do.
Brandon McCarthy continues to rule.
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Danny Knobler is a shitty sports writer
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Win
Labor Day weekend Bay Bridge stroll will be free after all!
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I cant wait! That is going to be really fun, at Save Oakland Sports, we are forming a group and we are going to walk across the bridge holding an A’s banner…
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I wasn’t going to go — it seems like the kind of scenario for a panic attack halfway through — but if there’s an SOS group I will!
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Yeah it seems like fun…I guess West Oakland Bart and then walk from there?
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I’m not sure what the deal is, I’m assuming there would be a shuttle. My understanding was that you only walk from Oakland to Treasure Island and then take a shuttle bus back.
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Ok, we were wondering, so they are not closing the bridge and allowing you to walk all the way to SF? That would be really cool, cuz then you just Bart back….
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Don’t they have to shut the whole thing down to do the connections? Not sure they can do that and have the bridge fully open at the same time so maybe the whole deal will be open.
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Article says “trek from Oakland to SF,” I hope that’s the case, I want to go all the way across. Then maybe ferry back.
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I looked at some articles, and it does look like it’s all the way across.
Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Public-walk-to-open-new-Bay-Bridge-span-4267382.php#ixzz2MvFVZohl
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Awesome!!!
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I was planning on coming back to the Bay Area just for the Bay Bridge half marathon thing that’s supposedly happening in September. I’m really excited about it.
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Seriously! I have enough trouble being in a car or bus going over the damn thing, let alone creeping along in a crowd of people…
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Son of a bitch, that would be amazing.
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And the new lights look really cool!
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I haven’t see ‘em yet.
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We were over there last Thursday night and they were testing the system, so we got a sneak peek…
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If I ever moved there, I’d spend about three weeks frolicking around before I actually completed any important task. Yes, bitches. I frolic.
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That would be fun to see. I’ll go to Alcatraz with you.
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Ooooh. I think I’d join you for that.
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Hell no. I think this is the start of at least four horror movies I’ve seen.
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But 7 pornos.
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Truth. Even more reason to say no. Those two crazy bitches? Pshaw.
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You’d wear them out.
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Right.
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Whatev. Replace you with Bloom and it’ll still be fun. Hell, I might even have a better chance of getting… um… lucky.
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I’ve still never been to Alcatraz.
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Sounds like a FKup!
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I haven’t been in over 20 years, but I found it fascinating.
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I haven’t been to Alcatraz either. I was supposed to go on my first visit to San Francisco, for the Public Radio Conference in 1987. My company sponsored a private tour for all of the attendees, and all of us were supposed to go to help load people on the bus and the ferry and so on. But my boss and I were bad. We loaded our assigned buses from the side entrance of the St. Francis, told everyone we were going to take a later bus, then met up with two similarly-minded colleagues in the lobby, went out the front door, down Powell, and onto BART. Then we got off at the Coliseum and that’s how I saw my first A’s game.
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That’s a great story!
I had to pass on a chance to spend the night on Alcatraz once, I’ve always regretted it.
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Not 1987, May 1989. It was my only sight of the Embarcadero Freeway, I remember thinking it was ugly….
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Is there a pretty freeway anywhere?
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I like multiple-flyover cloverleafs as seen from above, or from one of the middle elevation ramps.
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Good timing, there.
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This put a huge grin on my face!
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We were going to go to Alcatraz on a family trip out here sometime in the 80s, but they were sold out on the day we tried to go. Come to think of it, it may have been the same trip for my first A’s game too.
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My boss wanted a beer, so we went to one of the stands on the concourse. (No beer vendors even then?) The woman asked to see his ID. Since he wasn’t driving, for some reason he had left it at the hotel. So she wouldn’t sell him a beer. He said “Madam, I’m 42 years old”. “I don’t care; no ID, no beer, that’s the law.” So then I stepped up and ordered two beers — I had my license. She looked at it, looked at me and said “Okay, but I DON’T want to see you give one to that man!”
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I think this is my game , I definitely remember Eck….and now that I think of it, one of the guys who was with us was from Boston, and it makes sense that he would have come to a Red Sox game.
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Batting eighth, the right fielder, Billy Beane. Batting ninth, the shortstop, Mike Gallego. LOL.
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Gallego homered.
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What ever happened to those guys?
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Ha! I beat you by one day. At least you got to watch a win at your first game.
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Did you respond “Don’t worry I won’t. I’ll give it that boy” instead?
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I promised she wouldn’t….see me do it.
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When I went to Yankee Stadium with my dad for my birthday I bought the beers for us. I was 13.
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When I was growing up my neighbor would send me to the tavern on the corner to get him a six pack every other day in the summertime. From probably ages 7-12 I exited the bar with cold beer, on his tab, sounds crazy to me as an adult, I can’t imagine this happening nowadays.
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sent to pick up camel racing winning tickets in Kuwait. I was 6.
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Herb Caen once wrote in his column that he loved the A’s because even he got carded at their games. This was in the early ’90′s, I think.
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Really? I once had a birthday party there. I also got to go out on the employees’ boat when I worked at the US Atty’s office, which was pretty cool.
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Three weeks would be a start.
Danbot asks questions to himself, answers them well.
Bad day for fine dining venues:
1. Fire at Chez Panisse badly damages restaurant facade; interior mostly OK.
2. The ostensibly “best restaurant in the world,” Noma in Copenhagen, was the center of a norovirus outbreak. Maybe now it’ll be easier to get a table.
A+ for Grant (who is nonetheless an idiot) for blowing my mind a little.
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Edited for obligatory reference.
The A’s scored 12 runs and made only 9 outs today before the rains set in. Two HRs for Donaldson, one each for Smith, Peterson, and Choice.
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Choice is looking… well… choice this ST.
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The posse always ready – 98 at 98
My posse come quick, because my posse got velocity.
Who knew Public Enemy was talking about Josh Donaldson?
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apparently hes better at forgetting his uni that you think.
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My posse’s on Broadway.
This month’s secret audio treat is my new compilation of assorted Italian film music (mostly giallo and horror films, with a few sex romps and tales of religious persecution of science thrown in for good measure) — it’s a Morricone kind of weekend, innit? I did a couple of my notorious remix constructions for a couple of tracks… see if you can spot the edits!!! You can’t of course, cuz I roll all seamless and precise.
Processione Del Maestro!<------click please
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did I leave an ital tag open? please forgive I.
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Fixified.
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thanx :P