Even I’m not old enough to have any first hand recollection of that.
Jesse held the Tigers scoreless in the top half, A’s now batting in the bottom of the first.
"Kraut will get you through times of no money better than money will get you through times of no kraut."
I stupidly forgot to bring my radio to work to listen while I lunch. With no TV I imagine it’s a pretty crowded radio booth today.
I remember as a kid seeing episodes on Nick at Nite and wondering what the hell the theme was talking about because they mentioned some place called Idlewild-like that’s a real place…
Made my jail visit early.
Seriously, get a mlb radio subscrition. you will never forget your phone.
Just doesn’t seem worth it for something I already get for free 98% of the time.
It’s worth every penny since I don’t have reception at work, so I can stream any day games.
Thanks, and go As.
You don’t pay for it!
Or a phone with an FM tuner.
Local kid in the finals of the Scripps-Howard Spelling Bee. Somehow she’s not homeschooled. She does appear to be of Indian extraction though (homeschooling and Indian subcontinent being the most common Bee contestant characteristics in my years of Bee watching). Finals air live on ESPN tonight at 5:00.
That school did not exist when I was in Jr. High, else I likely would have gone there. Go South Bay!
Ouch, walking . is not a recipe for success.
dammit other half of shitty middle infield tandem
Walking Reddick and Punto back-to-back, that’s impressive, but if he walks Sogard next Ausmus may go out and kill Porcello dead right on the mound.
Damnit.
It’d be nice if Sogard wouldn’t swing at the first two pitches AFTER HE WALKED BASES LOADED.
Please send Sogard to AAA where he belongs.
Please, this. Ugh.
what the actual fuck
Well that wasn’t totally predictable.
Also, why can’t I easily find a picture of someone killing a Keebler elf?
Usually the internet is good for that kind of thing.
To the Photoshopmobile!
I’m half inclined to draw one up right now.
What about a Keebler Elf suicide king?
Just got a phone call saying mandatory outdoor water restrictions.
Thanks, and go As.
Now the slip-n-slide party will have to use Crisco instead.
KY.
Thanks, and go As.
Now that sounds like my kind of party. We’re all naked right?
Under our clothes.
Checking in with Tyler Hoare, the artist who has spent 40+ years decorating the Berkeley/Emeryville waterfront and mudflats with his work, most famously the Red Baron.
well, that was tidy
there you go alberto, make him work
More Walks please Mr. Porcello. That may be our ticket to victory today.
no, josh. not like that
.!?
O_O
O.MI.GOD.
Holy crap!
.!
.
Gameday’s just broken, right? Nick Punto didn’t really hit a home run, did he?
The video replay is great. Tiger’s announcers: “Punto? Really?”
Watch out, the rest of the league’s gonna get the word that you simply cannot throw a first pitch fastball past Nick Punto.
#18 in 3612 career plate appearances.
Punto? Punto!!!
dammit.
DP pls.
Good to see our “but they make it up with their defense!” players fking it up.
well, I’ll take that I guess
I don’t think that should have been a sacrifice fly. The runner at third wouldn’t have tried to score if Reddick caught the ball.
not having video, Roxy and ken made it sound like kinsler wouold have held if reddick comes up with it, but I don’t know what kind of flub it was
Reddick took a weird roundabout route to that ball. He tried to catch it off to the side but dropped it. It was not deep enough for Kinsler to tag with even an ordinary RF’s arm.
I do not like going away for a few moments only to look back and see us having given up the lead.
can we please score a bunch now?
No. The A’s appear to be slipping back into offensive frustration mode.
The team contract with the pie man includes a monthly minimum, and Lew won’t waste money on pie they don’t use.
dammit
unfkingbelievable
dammit
Bases load, no outs. Nothing. First and third, no outs. Nothing. Fk you guys. Stop letting him off the damn hook.
Ok, who set the bats to the 2011 setting this morning?
“Yup, here’s your problem. Someone set these bats to feeble.”
nigel tufnel, i’m looking at you.
Runs, please.
Gotta come through here.
sigh
Ughhh
It looks like we’ll need the greatest offensive game of Nick Punto’s career to win this one.
Two things:
1. The Progressive ad with Flo singing the World’s Biggest Puppy song is funny.
2. The A’s, despite the fact that they will likely set the single game LOB record for the 150+ history of MLB, are going to win this game.
Just your typical Jim Johnson appearance.
Will anybody bid
$2 million$1.5 million$1 million for 100 games of Johnson?Fuck that. WE’LL PAY FOR YOU TO TAKE HIM.
Fuck Johnson. I’m out.
He couldn’t get it up, sorry.
Man Johnson really does suck bollocks.
Is this performance art? Is Johnson trying to see just how many innings he can implode in before he’s removed from the team?
It’s getting awfully close to fuck it, DFA and move on.
Some sort of phantom injury allowing a rehab stint might be in order.
A chronic case of suck
He should just get TJS. Not that he needs it, but fuck, all the cool kids are doing it.
I have to think they’re asking around for anyone who wants to take a bit of Johnson’s salary off their hands…but assuming there are no takers this is the obvious next step.
DFA and see who offers anything. I take $, if they can pay any of the salary at all I let him go.
No, he’s there. Just fking do it. Like a fking bandaid.
It’s ok to bring in Otero in a 10 run game but not ok in a 1 run deficit. Fking BoMel.
How booed is Johnson getting on a scale of one to Philadelphia?
They were booing Alburquerque coming in from the Tigers bullpen. Nobody wastes breath on Johnson anymore.
Albooquerque deserves it
And more troubles with RISP with a Reddick popup to cap it. He’s hitting worse than Punto.
Honestly, this 4 game series is pretty much a perfect reflection of both of those playoff series. Just no opportunity for the JV shutout in a 5th game.
Instead of “Vote For Josh Donaldson Head On A Stick Night”, could we just have “Jim Johnson Head On A Stick Night”?
Pike. His head needs to be on a pike.
Game of Throwns.
Game of Chones?
Game of Groans.
Is there a Game of Moans porn yet?
Nope.
I love SFGate leading with “Another Johnson Meltdown”
Damn. That’s harsh.
No, the added nails in the coffin are easily the best thing about this game.
I find solitude in the hope that johnson never darkens the A’s bullpen mound again.
The jokes.
If you turn the J in his name 90 degrees, it’s shaped like a limp dick.
Oh my God. Mine does too.
SFGate got tired of the Johnson reference, but kept the same theme I guess.
Welp. Here’s the teAse.
Dear Dave Dombrowski: Your closer is aging and we have somebody with 101 SAVES the last two years on Blue Light Special.
And it all comes down to Punto
It’d be funny if they IW him for Sogard.
Lowrie unavailable?
If they brought him in, they’d walk him and face Sogard.
Apparently not!
We seemed to be getting the most out of this TeAse.
If you give Punto 3 walks and a home run you MUST lose.
Please, Jed…
This is some good TeAse.
Definitely in the running for making the Top Ten Tease list.
One baserunner away from Max TeAse
Yikes. Jed has been Sogard over his last 10 games.
And of course fking Johnson is the difference.
I hope to hear the magical DFA words later this evening.
There’s no way Melvin can use him now, so we’re one man short on the roster, and from his point of view if he’s going to get his shit back together in anticipation of free agency it has to happen somewhere other than Oakland.
That is probably our one saving grace. Normally you have this with a guy who has time and you are just stuck with him. He has to want to get in a better position and fast. If I were in his shoes I might already be saying play me or trade me. I dont know if it helps, but at least he wont be complaining about it.
Those are most definitely words DFA has thought over the years.
Snicker.
Baby Ruth
that or walking kelly in the first.
Nothing like the goddamn Tigers to change our perception from World Series Contender to Can’t Win The Big Ones. It’s kind of like finally feeling like you’re a full grown successful adult, then your mom posts something on your Facebook wall about your struggles with bedwetting. Or so I would imagine.
In fairness, you ARE reaching that age where incontinence can become a problem.
Twix.
whammied. i was in the car. someone in the lane next to me called protective services on me for beating the steering wheel.
Naturally the narrative, at least from Jane Lee and Joe Stiglich, revolves around fans booing Johnson. Lee basically called A’s fans out on it.
How about getting through a few games at home with some scoreless appearances instead of allowing 13 ER in 8.1 IP (compared to 3 in 13.2 on the road)?
This is a performance-driven sport. Hell, all sports are, and whether it’s right or not you can’t expect paying fans to just sit there and smile when someone keeps stinking at home. It may be an aberration and a bit of bad luck given Johnson’s better success away from the Coliseum, but it remains a problem now.
Doolittle’s even quoted as basically saying the booing sucks because the team talked up how great the fans are when the new players joined the team.
The booing, to me, means people give a damn enough to let their frustration be heard. Many of them would be just as quick to cheer wildly when players make game-winning plays.
Nobody has the right to avoid boos. Maybe you’d like to see boos reserved for people who aren’t giving full effort, but here we are. What will it take to change it? Johnson pitching a lot better at home, and overall. It would have changed for Barton as well if he turned things around, for that matter. He didn’t, fans let him hear it, and the A’s have him back in Sacramento again.
But if players think a little booing suddenly makes the fanbase bad, they need to reevaluate.
Yeah, I don’t like it when fans boo our own players, and I do think the Coliseum has gotten worse on that score in the last couple years. But Johnson has been horrible, relentlessly, agonizingly horrible, and getting mad about the booing misses the point. Pitch better, dickhead, and then comfort yourself with the thought that you proved the haters wrong.
It doesn’t seem like he’s the one complaining about the booing though. It’s his teammates, who are sort of admirably defending the guy.
I didn’t read today yet, but in th past he did say “i would boo me”
He seems like an ok guy
I think it’s a byproduct of having a successful team again. It brings with it a certain level of expectations and some fans aren’t shy about expressing their displeasure when someone’s doing poorly, even if the team’s been one of the best in the league so far.
Like GM said, Johnson’s wearing it so far. He seems to think he’s just been unlucky here, though. I get the fact his teammates want to stick up for him, but they’re not going to earn points with the fanbase by complaining about booing. That never ends well for the players.
It may be harsh to say, but they need to just accept that it’s happening and ignore it the best they can if it bugs them. Otherwise, like it’s been noted, play better.
On the other hand, when you have people like Jane Lee making it into more of a thing…hard to ignore entirely. They could still say something like “We wish it didn’t happen but we know what it takes to make it stop.” Lowrie at least said this:
“They’re people paying to watch a game, but you would also hope they would be supportive when guys are going through a rough time.”
You could also say, “Well, where are all the boos for the players who kept making outs with all those runners in scoring position?” It’s a different story when many of them have been making big contributions toward the team’s success. That earns them more leeway until boos come out.
Sogard: “well if he wore glasses no one would care if his plate appearance ended up in the worst possible case scenario!”
But then…I don’t condone this.
“I mean, we all take notice of it,†Doolittle said. “One guy was giving him the double-barreled middle finger above the dugout after one of his outings. That’s disgusting. That’s pretty ridiculous that he has to deal with that.â€
that is ridiculous
I can’t really give a double-barreled bird, because for some reason my left hand won’t quite go into that position without help from the right hand. This despite my being left-handed. Weird.
That’s weird, I can flip someone off with perfect form on either or both hands at nearly any angle. But I can’t make the Spock sign.
I can Spock with either hand, but I have to think about it a little with my left, or else the pinkie goes off and does its own thing.
Not being able to flip someone off with my left is a real problem when the kids are in the car. Maybe I need to move to the UK.
I can do the Spock sign without conscious thought only with my right hand, and I can easily switch it from one V to two (middle/ring fingers together, index and pinky out).
With my left hand, the middle/ring fingers just want to stay together.
you guys want the number of my hand therapist?
she’s been working really hard to help me get back to double barrel. and i can go back and forth from LL&P to nanu-nanu at will, ambidextrously if somewhat lopsided for lack of strength. one more week of putty squeezes and rubber band stretches and she says i can book a trip to NYC via vulcan and ork.
hurts like hell to snap though. they gave me an Rx for no beat poetry readings.
Isn’t the Mork just the Spock with your hand turned sideways?
its how i leaned
no that’s one you do with 4 hands, slide the gap into the other gap, open up, and it makes it look like a…
oh wait. i was thinking it was \||/. you’re right.
Can you do 2 Legit 2 Quit, though?
A nice quick DFA should solve the boos quite adeptly.
Yes, he’s welcome to spend the rest of the season not getting booed in the anonymous irrelevance of Chase Field.
I have mixed feelings about the booing, but I could definitely live without Jane Lee getting on her high horse about it. For one thing, as you point out, that just turns it into a bigger issue than it really is.
Whether a particular player gets booed depends (fairly or not) on other factors besides their performance – what kind of reservoir of good will they’ve built up with the fans, what their attitude seems to be, and how much money they’re making. Johnson seems fine in the attitude department, but he’s making a lot of money (by Oakland standards) and has been nothing but bad here. It would be different if he were still in Baltimore, just as it would be different if it were Balfour or Doolittle struggling here.
Personally there were several other players I found to be much more tired acts. I hope Johnson can get his shit together somehow.
And one of those already got his walking papers!
I was trying to be subtle.
don’t forget the 3 unearned runs tht were entirely his fault too (throwing error).
I agree booing your own is bad form, unless its josh lueke or something.
the one caveat is how else can the fans emplore bob melvin not to use him?
Any unearned runs were later changed to earned. He doesn’t have any unearned runs on his record now according to BB-Ref. I’m guessing an error was changed to something else.
weird.
but better i suppose
slegnA knocking around Brandon Maurer (why is he in the big leagues). So looks like it’s a 1.5 game lead entering the weekend series.
Hey, the draft is next week! Nobody cares now that we pick low?
with drew and santana off the market, I care less about the draft this year
Morales is still homeless.
he would have been better than blanks, but now that we have already gotten blanks, it seems like only a marginal upgrade.
Supposedly there’s a lot of pitching that’s available so that could help the A’s. They have a really small bonus pool though.
Just tweeted to Jane Lee:
So will it be acceptable to boo Jim Johnson in Sept, after the 6 games he’s lost for us in April/May cost us the AL West title?
Wait, what in the hell got into Nelson Cruz? Other than PEDs I mean.
I’m not linking to Jane Lee, but she tweets:
Donaldson on booing: “I think it got out of hand early, and now it’s almost like it’s just the cool thing to do. It’s awkward.” Donaldson said his perception of the A’s fan base has changed because of the booing.
I’ve always thought that awkward silence with some disgusted muttering mixed in was more devastating than booing anyway.
Also:
Donaldson “Makes me think different about our fans. There was a time when we were all one unit, fed off each other, which made it special.”
I wish the qualifier of “some” would be included with this. I have a feeling some of this booing attitude is coming from people who just don’t give a damn about any kind of so-called connection or bond that may exist.
It’s kind of adorable that he and Doolittle are still capable of being hurt by this. I love these guys.
Doolittle: “You have every right to boo over lack of hustle, lack of effort, preparation, stuff like that. None of that’s going on here.”
They should try playing elsewhere. Maybe somewhere like Philly. They’ll rethink all their comments and realize they don’t have it so bad after all.
I think they know they don’t have it bad. I get more of a vibe that they’re disappointed because they thought we were different.
But do you think Sogard would not be getting booed at this point? Or Reddick? Different=/= perfect.
Oh, definitely. But I think this all stems from him getting booed in his very first game. I’m sure his teammates feeling like the fans didn’t give him a fair shake.
Now that I can buy. And while I understand some leaps in logic that could have led people to do that, I didnt like that myself.
But at this point its time to get out of an inning once unscathed at home.
For some reason I couldn’t read that first sentence as anything but a statement of “I finally have some money and now I’d like to partake.”
I think that’s the crux of the thing. He shouldn’t have been booed in game 1 despite him sucking ass. And nor should he have been booed the second or third time. But since he really hasn’t had a strong out in front of the home crowd, it’s really hard to defend him against being booed now for his failures. I still don’t do it myself, but man do I groan hard the moment he comes into the game. And (as far as I can tell) he doesn’t exactly get booed when he comes in, just when he’s failed. And I suspect the moment he comes into a game and sets someone down one two three he’ll get a non-sarcastic standing O. As quickly as this crowd will turn on you, they’ll stand and support you the moment you prove yourself.
Im 100% sure he will get that cheer. And if anyone says its sarcastic I will be pissed. Just give the fans one chance to cheer you damnit.
And for the record, I would love to partake when I become financially stable.
I remember a Mulder start where he shat the bed in the first or second and started getting boos. Not heavy, but just annoyed. But then he kicked it into gear, settled down, and ended up going 6 strong despite having given up 4 runs early. When he walked off the mound, he got a very genuine standing O.
The early boos were 100% from fans wanting Balfour to be the one the A’s kept, I think.
Naturally, Balfour’s pitching only marginally better for the Rays and he’s getting booed as well.
he was shitty in the bay bridge series too don’t forget
yeah, that was really bad. I really didn’t understand
I still say game one was all “the guy who is replacing rAge and is getting a ton of $$$”. Now none of that is realistic as a reason to boo that quickly, but it does happen.
I bet 75% of those guys have no idea that balfour sucked at the end of 13 and the beginning of 14
It was likely a lot of things. The full house, the excitement to the start of the season/opening night, two straight divisions and high expectations for the season, replacing balfour, a game 1 victory insight for the first time in years. It was a bit of powder keg for an over reaction.
Well, when you have people like this out there…
ok-put his picture up at the ticket booth and revoke his IP. No tickets for him for a year.
And that even when GB was doing “good” (his streak) it was still a lot of smoke and mirrors.
The love of Balfour was tons of cursing and yelling and the fun of moving your arms to Metallica.
Yes, this, most definitely. People’s love of Balfour’s act blinded them to the increasingly suckiness of his results.
When you show up to a Metallica concert and get Wham instead…
In fairness, he wasn’t that bad. He just always seemed to dance near the edge, and I had a vague sense all of 2013 that he was one pitch away from falling apart physically, mentally, or both.
oh my god, I thought we lost him to the fog in that toronto game
He was always kind of wild, which could lead to some scary situations, but he also had a great strikeout rate and was very hard to hit.
And though that last part was to some extent driven by a great BABIP, that wasn’t so much luck as being put in the right situation for his skills: he was a flyball pitcher in a big park with good outfield defense behind him. (Just as Johnson was helped in Baltimore by being a groundballer with good infield defense, as someone pointed out recently.)
You would think this is exactly the type of information that our FO would use in evaluating these decisions.
reddick and sogard would be getting the business in philly, maybe chicago and new york.
Also Talk radio isn’t down on reddick and sogard. the booing is a product to degree, of actually being talked about on sports shout radio
She is now defending that she isnt pushing the story when she tweets every single comment about it.
God I wish we could coordinate like a single clap instead of boos. Maybe we all need to say “good job good effort”.
stiglich did an article today
Papa today was wondering if there’s ever been a player in the Bay Area that the fans turned on so quickly. The only one that comes to mind was TARE, but I think it even took a while for the fans to turn on him. Even JaMarcus got some initial love, no? Anyone come up with someone else?
Dan Pastorini.
Replaces Stabler, breaks leg, replaced by Plunkett. Now thats wrong place wrong time.
He did get cheered once, though. When he was dragged off the field after breaking his leg.
Mean Oakland fans. Changes my opinion of them….
I did go to a Raiders game that season when the Cupertino HS band did the halftime show (that was tremendously fun). If found the fans to be quite nice. Only one guy threatened to kill me, and he was too drunk to have done much about it.
Since we were the halftime entertainment instead of paying customers, the Raiders had us sit in the baseball bleachers near the LF stairway. The temporary football bleachers blocked our view somewhat, so we could only see about 65 yards of the field (we did a halftime show the previous year for the Niners, and they did basically the same thing by putting us in the seats down the RF line). Plunkett was the starter by this time, and Raiders beat Seattle. I was kinda pissed at our band teacher who made us leave around the end of the third quarter.
Tom Gugliotta was pretty quick.
And Mike Dunleavy too, if I recall.
Yeah, that’s a pretty good one. He still pisses me off.
Cant think of anyone on the A’s. I would have to guess for other teams just based on guys who I know were unpopular. Someone can vote these up or down.
Marc Wilson
Joe Barry Carroll
Steve DeBerg?..
I thought of Joe Barry too, but I think he was actually pretty good his first year. It was only later that he sucked and it sunk in that the Warriors had effectively traded Robert Parish and Kevin McHale for him.
I think you are right. And honestly I think the other 2 got at least a year as well. I just couldnt do any better.
Maybe Larry Brown when he came to the Raiders? But even that I think was more being pissed that Al signed the guy, not him himself.
Matt Holliday.
NO SMILES=NO CHEERS!!!
It took a while, but yeah once the turn was made it went pretty hard against him.
As I recall it went:
1. Trade made, most fans thrilled to have a star. Some pissed to be trading talent for a rental.
2. Holliday starts slow, everyone turns on him
3. Holliday heats up, everyone remains pissed
4. Holliday traded, A’s completely shafted when CarGon hits it big and Wallace fizzles.
mitigated by Michael taylor’s success of course
For me, it was:
1. The A’s are going for it! I wish it was Sweeney instead of CarGo but it couldn’t have been Sweeney. Oh well, it’s exciting times!
2. We’re gonna get Furcal! No more Cliff. It’s been like 3 years since the playoffs. That’s like forever, but we’re going back!
3. If the A’s are committing money to Furcal, maybe they can convince Holliday to stay and build around him and Furcal.
4. Oh, we’re not getting Furcal and there’s been no hint of even discussing long-term with Holliday. Maybe Cliff’s really gonna break out this year…well at least there’s still off-season left.
5. Hey we’re getting Giambi back! And Nomar (ok I legitimately loved Nomah as a player so I did like that). And OCab! Yay?
6. Holliday is starting kind of slow. But those guys who say he can’t hit out of COL are wrong. He’s still a great player. Maybe the A’s can turn it on after May like back in the day.
7. That was a hell of game against the Twins. 11 runs back? 2 HRs from Holliday? Too bad this is a lost season.
8. Man, fans are heckling Holliday at home? Jeez.
9. Hey we got Wallace, finally a hitting prospect who has zero questions he will hit at the ML level! And I’ve played against him. And he was an A’s fan growing up!
10. Wow, we traded Wallace already. His defense must really suck. Man that was a long HR in that youtube video by Taylor. I’m excited.
11. That’s really Taylor’s line at Sacramento? And he’s how old?
12. Wait CarGo is really that good? Ugh.
I suppose you can’t just boo him from the manager’s office
Both are at a nice crisp 0 WAR this year.
zero is a number
holy crap, I am glad we cashed out early, but Sam fuld is 8th in position player fWAR. 33 PA
I’d prefer you not say “crisp” and “0 WAR” together, although when I look it up, hmmm.
At least he’s not Michael Choice.
wow, gntry has played half the time and ia about a win better
*Wonders how Grant Green has a .393 OBP with only 2 walks in 56 plate appearances*
*Notices .432 BABIP*
what would happen if johnson and his .390 BABIP faces him?
More booing.