With under three weeks left in Arizona, the A’s remain hot on the heels of the league-leading Angels in the chase for the Cactus League championship.
Tonight’s game in Surprise is available on MLB.tv (Royals telecast). It’s highlighted by Mark Canha’s annual March appearance as a starting center fielder. It’s a good chance to preview the 2017 Nashville Sounds’ chances as the infield and outfield feature entirely bench or AAA players.
ICYMI here is tonight's A's lineup at Royals: pic.twitter.com/kbB9ct8G0H
— Susan Slusser (@susanslusser) March 10, 2017
Sunday afternoon’s game doubles as the 3-hour ticket sales infomercial on CSN California with Glen and Ray.
Or perhaps you are overestimating the 2017 Oakland A’s roster…
Having a hard time not rooting for Colombia here
The sight of Gregerson isn’t changing my mind.
Speakeasy Ales & Lagers shutting down. That’s a fairly big name to be biting the dust. That industry is long overdue for some retrenchment though. It’s like opening a microbrewery has been considered a license to print money. I know of three new microbrewery/brewpubs scheduled to open in South Lake Tahoe between now and the start of summer, and yes a tourist market can support some of that business but three seems excessive.
According to the sfgate article, they took on too much debt expanding to a much larger brewing system.
Buying opportunity for ptbnl?
I think I’d hate doing it for a living.
weeeee!
that’s the deaf club?
maybe next door.
delirium/skylark must be making a killing
Guillermo Moscoso on the mound for Colombia in the ninth inning of a tie game. I would have sworn he was from Venezuela.
Shockingly, he took the L.
Rats, I apparently can’t calculate the Pacific time equivalent of Arizona time so I missed the first 3 innings of the A’s game. It asks a lot of Cotton to be the #3 starter at the beginning of the season but he seems to be doing well tonight.
So, the WBC is starting every inning beginning with the 11th with runners on first and second. A glimpse into the cockamamie future.
Venezuela may be wearing the ugliest uniforms I’ve ever seen. Bright blue vest, red sleeves, yellow lettering, and gray pants.
Anyone know if there’s a way to get the old MLB TV player back? The new one is horse dung as you can’t adjust stream quality. The constant skipping/lagging makes it unwatchable.
First place!
I would watch more of the WBC, but those USA/DR announcers are the absolute worst
They’re pretty bad. It’s someone I’ve never heard of plus Cliff Floyd. They seem to have sent the top crew (Gary Cohen?) to the Mexico group, which is extremely strange.
Wait, Rosales is back?
He never left our hearts.
…or our bitter tear ducts.
Columbia just got pool- wining run thrown out at plate vs DR on a 7-2 double play, throw by Jose Bautista. Heading to extra innings.
And now they go to the NCAA football-style overtime innings.
Canha in LF making a strong case against even trying him in CF.
Yes, try as Ray might, the Arizona sky ain’t that much higher than the one we have in Oakland.
And Detwiler making a strong case for letting him exercise his opt-out.
He just did it again in RF. Went back on a ball and had it fall in front of him.
(According to the Buancast)
Cyclones and Aggies – w00t!
Potential second weekend matchups of doctorKs vs beds, FSUs vs Eds.
Likely round of 32 matchup of colins vs Eds
First half of this one was pretty great.
Final Four battle could be the Cal Gang vs. the ECs. :-/
{grabs popcorn, wonders how to watch NIT in Europe}
Nope, if they play on my birthday =/- a day, they lose. so the colin’s or the WTF is happening with an 11 seed play in game???’s will be moving on to week 2
If fact, if UCD wins the play-in game, I could have head-to-head matchups with the Bedsters on successive weekends. My dream matchup would be Davis vs ISU in the Sweet 16.
OK doc, I’m seriously considering picking Iowa State to beat KU and then make the Final Four. Convince me that’s stupid.
Pros: Monte Morris, team has good senior leadership, rapid fans that travel well (even back in the ’80’s we called Kansas City ‘Hilton South’), ISU beat KU in Lawrence earlier this season.
Cons: Frank Mason, KU will still have effective home-court advantage, ISU is in a 5 vs 12 match in the 1st round so an upset is more likely.
FK it. Go for ISU to advance at least to the regional finals. I think they beat Oregon, but probably lose to Louisville.
That’s where I landed also, Cyclones beating Kansas then losing to Louisville.
I have Carolina beating Villanova for the championship, god help me.
Since John Wooden retired the Pac-8/10/12 has two championships in 41 tournaments. Arizona’s chances of getting to the championship game in their home state are looking good after the first weekend. On the other side of the bracket Carolina has its hands full.
Arizona’s ocerrated. St Mary’s should have beat them, and either Gonzaga or West Virginia (my Final 4 pick) will.
Just as long as Nova wins the whole thing. (I’m running away with last place in my bracket)
Mulder will work 35 games on television, up from 20 last year. With CSN doing 147 games, that means Ray is down to 112 on television, so look forward, or not, to more Ray On The Radio this year. Please, please keep using Roxy for fill-in play-by-play when Ken or Vince is off, although with Ray on the radio side that much I could see them scheduling it with him sitting in as the second radio PxP voice.
This has the potential to be annoying.
it is going to be.
Almost seems like Ms. Sun has better things to do.
Hey, she may end up being great at the job. The problem is that the job is annoying.
agreed
I’m afraid her main assignment will be to track down people eating Dibs, do the standard “Where are you from?” and “How many A’s games do you come to each year?” interview and engage in witty Dibs-related repartee with Ray, while the game is going on in half-screen size. How often do these reporters have any actual in-game news that isn’t either visible on camera (blood gushing out of somebody) or reported on the press box PA? Once in a while when Milton Bradley dumps coffee all over the starting pitcher but that’s about it.
I’ll hold out hope that someone smart and driven as she seems to be took this A’s gig for the opportunity to make it interesting or challenging.
You take this gig because it’s a stepping stone to regular work at a place like ESPN.
I’m suspicious of anyone who is involved in as many things as her website suggests.
I feel the same way about Kara Tsuboi. I couldn’t stand her at first, then I kind of warmed up to her. Still I feel the root of the problem is the job it self and not Kara.
I love Kara, but last year her job really morphed into 90% selling (“Are you kids having a great time with the on-field experience your parents shelled out $200 for?” “Yes!”). I hope this might change with the New Regime.
I guess this means they are not going to reprise the TV/radio simulcast weirdness they did for mid-week day games last season.
The simulcasts were two years ago. Last season’s arrangement was the same as this year’s, with the other team’s telecast shown in the Bay Area on MLB Network’s alternate channel. The 15 for this year are all midweek day games, including some of those 9 a.m. and 10 a.m. first pitches.
If Mexico holds on to beat Venezuela, those two plus Italy will finish the group at 1-2, with only one able to advance. There can only be one playoff game to determine who advances, so someone is getting knocked out on a tiebreaking formula. Here are the tiebreakers:
They’ve created a set of rules where the official scorekeeper could decide who advances.
Frustratingly, Gary Cohen and friend are not keeping us updated with live standings of who would get bounced based on current scores.
Italy allowed 20 runs in 19 innings against Mexico/Venezuela
Venezuela has allowed 19 runs against Italy/Mexico so far
(Mexico will necessarily have conceded fewer than Venezuela if they win this one — they both allowed Italy to score 10, albeit in one more inning for Venezuela)
So if the current score (8-4 Mexico) holds, Venezuela will edge out Italy for the playoff spot (tomorrow against Mexico). But if Mexico gets another run, then we have to look at earned runs and possibly batting average.
And just as I type that, Mexico scores another. We are now in crazy territory if this score holds.
So it turns out Mexico was the team eliminated!
Venezuela allowed 21 runs, and Mexico allowed only 20. But Venezuela played a 10th inning against Italy! So they allowed 1.05 runs per inning, while Mexico allowed 1.1 runs per inning.
In other words, I suck at math. In my defense, at the time I went to bed Gary Cohen had declared that by letting Mexico get to 11, Venezuela was out unless they won the game.
Still not quite right. Mexico allowed only 19 runs, but in only 17 innings.
Mexico 19 runs in 17 innings = 1.12
Venezuela 21 runs in 19 innings = 1.11
Italy 20 runs in 19 innings = 1.05
This is why I majored in History.
nice thing about math? you fail a semester and you don’t get doomed to repeat it.
Except for poor Mobius.
I thought he gave up on school and started stripping?
Still not quite right. Mexico allowed only 19 runs, but in only 17 innings.
Mexico 19 runs in 17 innings = 1.12
Venezuela 21 runs in 19 innings = 1.11
Italy 20 runs in 19 innings = 1.05
(Italy walked off Mexico with 5 runs in the bottom of the 9th without an out. Even one out there would have ended up changing this tiebreaker.)
Oh, that part in the parentheses is really fucked.
Double, double (with runner on 2nd only making it to third, so maybe a missed fly), double, error, walk, single, single. Ouch.
Also, apparently there is controversy over the tiebreaker and what “partial innings” means. (The interpretation being applied is the standard baseball way of calculating (E)RA, which presumably was the intent, but it could have been worded better.)
So if I’m understanding all of this correctly (a dubious presumption at best), after failing to hang a 12th run on Venezuela in the top of the ninth, Mexico’s only path to advancing required them to let Venezuela tie the game in the ninth.
Then they either score three in the 10th to win it and eliminate Venezuela, or they play enough scoreless extras that a one or two run win would eliminate Italy.
I think that’s right.
And the flip side is that if Venezuela also understood the situation, knowing that tying it up could endanger their advancement, they would want to just make outs in the bottom of the 9th, similar to the situation ec described below (and also to some famous weirdness in soccer tournaments).
Venezuela had something extra to gain by winning though: avoiding the tiebreaker altogether and advancing directly.
Oh right, I already forgot that this was just to get into a tie-breaking game.
From a strictly “don’t get eliminated today” perspective, your strategy was right. I think half the coaches in the NFL would do that.
And if the official scorer can’t decide,
That needs to be something like a talent show. “Dancing with the Baseball Stars” or some such.
Bad facial hair contest.
Get the rope and ribbon: tug-of-war decides this just like on Battle of the Network Stars
Yeah, that’s pretty standard in the international tournaments. I remember one where we played Sweden and had two on in the bottom of the ninth when we scored the run that pulled us within one and then purposely ran ourselves into a final out, because we didn’t want to risk tying the game and then giving up one more run in the tenth and losing because that would have tipped the tie-breaker.
Fun part is how do you value the runs against scored in 11th inning…
Oh man, if that ever happened in a tournament that reached American hot take artists’ radars…the takes would be very hot.
dls
Imagine if Fosse had to explain that.
Seems like unless you’re willing play with randomized and probably hidden tie-breakers, that sort of scenario is likely to play eventually.
Fangraphs top 100 prospects
The A’s look pretty bad on this list — Barreto at 67, Puk at 68, Cotton at 71; Holmes and Chapman get honorable mentions. I don’t think I’ve seen Barreto that far down on any other list, but they don’t think he will stick at SS.
The A’s had him playing second yesterday with Rosales at short. And then Kortroneo were talking (following a conversation with Forst) about Barreto having an outside chance of making opening day, but only if Lowrie were to be injured opening up the starting second base job.
At this point, I’ll be surprised if he’s a shortstop in the bigs.
Yeah, I wasn’t meaning to dispute the naysaying of Barreto’s SS defense. It seems like that is a pretty broad consensus at this point. 67 still seems like a fairly low rank for him though?
I don’t know if there is a consensus on him at this point. Sickels has him at #12, and says this:
That #12 ranking for Sickels is an A-, and his #67 prospect is still a B+, so it might not be as big a disparity in valuation as it seems.
Yeah, always a good reminder not to attach much significance to the ordering of these things.
That’s true, but in my mind there is a pretty significant gap between an A- and a B+. As Sickels suggests, one is elite and one isn’t.
So the Red Sox traded the #1 prospect in baseball for maybe the best starting pitcher in the American League, and meanwhile they still have the #2 prospect in baseball.
Must be nice.
Moneyball + money >>>> Moneyball.
They extra guy that the Red Sox threw in for the Chris Sale trade (Michael Kopech) is at #21 on that list.
i totally forgot my team was winning the tournament. stupid xmas break + AFA strike.
This from Harry Reid’s former chief of staff seems right to me regarding the Obamacare repeal bill.
Tom Cotton (of all people) said exactly the same thing.
Wow
SAD!
Yeah, he’s probably pretty surprised he isn’t getting the warm hug of wingnut welfare. I kind of am too.
Venezuela-Italy tied 2-2 in the ninth after Miguel Cabrera unloads to deep center.
Odor just drove in the go-ahead run with a ball off the top of the wall, but he only got a single because he bat flipped so hard.
Italy went with NNOB jerseys. Terrible.
K-Rod got the save. Ew.
Is the requirement for playing for Italy still just being able to point out the country on a map?
Thanks, and go As.
Must be able to quote from The Godfather Parts I and II.
Name that ends in i or o.
I’m pretty sure half of them can’t. However there are a couple of real products of Italian league (the same as with the Dutch), which is more than can be said for team Israel
Just wait until Sam Fuld makes Aliyah and founds the scrappiest baseball league in the middle east.
Actually, a friend of mine who is a scout for the Pirates has an organization to promote baseball globally. One of their projects is Baseball Le’Kulam where they get Jewish and Arab kids in Middle East to participate in the camps together. Great guy and a great project.
Interesting interview with Breslow
BSOL watch–over Yonder!
Step 1: Yonder Alonso becomes Barry Bonds
Step 2: A’s have a real shot at .500
If Adam Rosales can turn himself into Chris Carter, then anything is possible.
Dave Kaval is a green and golden god.
http://www.eastbaytimes.com/2017/03/14/as-lowering-beer-prices-at-the-coliseum/
I do appreciate the fair pricing. 77 beers on tap is a little excessive, a number that impresses on the surface but without any real point. A couple good IPAs >>> 15 mediocre IPAs. Put either Drake’s or Racer 5 at every concession stand, for me that’s better than having to walk past 5 stands until I find something I like, especially considering how difficult it can be to navigate that lower concourse (start with 20 oz. of beer, get to your seat with 14 oz. left).
I imagine a lot of them will be only in the WSC. They had a pretty good selection of 20 or so there the last few years, along with the ones scattered around the concourse concession stands.
IIRC, the park in Seattle has lots of beer stands, different from each other, and each with about 5 different brews. So you might have to go a long way if you’re looking for a specific beer, but you can usually find something good close to your seat.
But it’s also true, as you say, that beyond a certain point, the extra variety doesn’t add all that much.
That picture of him is horrifying.
Meanwhile, a Lagunitas is still $14 in San Jose.
Thanks, and go As.
Two minutes later
Big if true.
Hmmmm. I’m ready to be disappointed by this. Something about “Trump tax returns” rather than “Trump’s tax returns” makes me nervous.
branded tax returns.
OK, well, let’s see I guess.
My hot take: 2005 deliberately leaked by Trump camp because it’s only year that shows him actually paying taxes.
My guess is that even the full set of Trump’s tax returns will be lacking in bombshells. Yes, there are years when he didn’t pay tax, maybe lots of them. But he already admitted as much. Maybe there will be some documentation of questionable deals, but no smoking guns. I think that the only reason that he hasn’t released his returns is because he doesn’t wanna and FK the media. It’s just a demonstration of dominance, with no deep motivation at all.
Probably not much in the 1040s themselves, but I suspect the detailed schedules from recent years would show that he owes a lot of money to Russian banks, or something along those lines.
It does seem like Maddow (and the rest of us) got played on this release.
Seriously, who even gives a shit about 2005? It’s hardly representative of what’s going on with his finances today.
Jaff (pronounced “Jeff”) Decker is a “young Matt Stairs type” according to Grady Fuson
Geez, stereotypes, a short fat white kid who grew up playing hockey is a “Matt Stairs type.” Why not a Joel Ward type, huh?
LEICESTER!!!!
Thanks, and go As.
Firing the manager who won them the title has worked wonders.
Winning the Champions League while being relegated would be an impressive double!
(not that they’ll do either)
British, Spanish, German, and Italian league champs all in the CL quarters. Cool.
Thanks, and go As.
:D
Thanks, and go As.
What is happening here?
That would be Javy Baez celebrating a thrown out runner as he is applying the tag for the out.
Thanks, and go As.
Imagine if we had Tony La Russa managing the USA team. He would have guys throwing at the Dominican/Puerto Rican/Venezuelan hitters once an inning.
Cal in the NIT: Apathetic, or actively trying to lose? No Rabb and Bird, but CSU Bakersfield?
OTOH, six of the eight NIT games were won by the lesser team, by seed. Perhaps not everyone was just happy to be there.
I didn’t watch the game, but generally they shouldn’t allow power conference teams in the NIT due to apathy. Those teams have plenty of chances to get into the NCAAs and if they don’t make it, just go home. A lot like when a major-conference football team with high expectations has a disappointing season and winds up in the Whataburger Bowl against a Mid-American Conference team, and mails it in after a bunch of players are suspended and sent home for bad behavior in the bowl city. It’s a bigger deal for the mid-major conferences which get only one or at most two teams into the NCAAs.
They’re just not very good. And without Rabb they are terrible.
House cleaned, and now the next issue is, the new chancellor didn’t hire the current AD.
Wow. I guess being good at recruiting pays well even if you can’t actually coach.
FKers: Recommendations for credit cards? Capital One has pissed me off for the last time with their horrible customer service.
I’m interested too. We’ve had Working Assets for a long while, but they sold their credit card business to Bank of America a while back, which is quite a slap in the face since their whole raison d’etre was ethical banking.
If you’re into travel and have a Chase account, the Chase cards (Freedom, Sapphire Preferred, Sapphire Reserve) are very nice. I believe the bonuses have gone down, but I’m paying for a trip for 4 to Wimbledon with the bonuses on the cards. The CSR also pays for Global Entry and gives you $300 to spend on travel (of course it also has a huge annual fee that is waived year 0).
I’ve had good luck following Nerdwallet.
I personally only have the Costco Citi Visa, but I have been trying to figure out a way to get a travel rewards card to pay for the various tournaments and shit for the boys the next few years.
Thanks, and go As.
If you’re a member, USAA now has a 2.5% cash back card with no annual fee and no limits (it does require a monthly $1000 transfer or direct deposit from outside into a USAA checking account, which I do anyway). Cash back isn’t sexy but it’s the easiest to redeem and use, more so than Southwest Airlines points, although in some travel-related cases like hotels and rental cars the Southwest points from that card have value greater than 2.5% so that’s a backup card I’ve retained. I think some of those Chase cards vignette lists have decent cash back rates and are worth looking into.
Not a USAA member, unfortunately. I agree that straight cash-back majors more sense than miles/rewards. Mostly though I don’t care as much about that as I do getting a card company that won’t always suck whenever there’s a problem (most recently flagging legit routine transactions as potential fraud and disabling my card).
Most of those companies are ranked fairly closely. I haven’t had a problem like yours and can’t remember the last time I had any problem that wasn’t easily resolved, dealing with USAA, Chase and US Bank for all of the credit card and bank accounts.
We use the Citi Double Cash for everything except restaurants/gas (where the mandatory Costco card is >2%).
Call me old fashioned, but I like cash rewards best.
I was choosing between the Citi Double Cash and Capital One Quicksilver (1.5% cash back). I ended up choosing Capital One because they didn’t tack on a 3%(?) fee to all international transactions.
Probably the extra 0.5% would more than make up for the times when I am out of the country, but seriously FK fees
I was going to recommend that Citi Double Cash card, but those J.D. Power ratings (expanded version here) put Citi at the bottom in most categories including “Customer Interaction” and “Problem Resolution”, which specifically were Upgrade’s main concerns. I have no personal opinion about Citi as I don’t do any business with them.
If you have a Fidelity account, they have a 2% card as well.
Yeah, I can’t speak to those topics since I haven’t had experience with either. What they do have is a good web interface making it easy to redeem rewards.
If customer service is the main concern, I would recommend any Amex card, primarily the Blue Cash Everyday (3% CB groceries, 2% gas, 1% everything else). Looks like they’re currently doing a 10% off for restaurants for the first 6 months promotion.
Discover has pretty good CS too. Obviously with Discover and Amex, you run into issues where they’re not as widely taken as Visa and Mastercard.
Citi, CapOne, and Chase CS is all about the same, unless you’re willing to go for one of the high annual fee cards.
Thank you all for the very helpful info.
I have to take a moment to trash Discover. They once trashed my parents’ credit because a bill for something like $9 got lost in a move, and were entirely unhelpful in getting the issue resolved with credit agencies once it was discovered and paid.
I won’t ever carry one of their cards.
i love the wells fargo CC.
it came related to several other bank accounts in my name with very modest late fees and charges thanks to having been pre-matured for several months, and best part, I DIDN’T EVEN HAVE TO SIGN UP FOR ANY OF IT!!
To echo the comments of others, I’m a pretty big fan of the Citi Double Cash. One thing to mention though, the 1% in cash back that you get from the initial purchase is deducted from the 2nd 1% on the payment. E.g. the 1% on the payment amount is effectively .01 x .99 x statement (I think), so it’s not quite the full 2%.
If you’re thinking about the Amex Blue Cash, I’d consider viewing this link. From my understanding, Amex changed the Blue Cash Rewards program, to essentially cap the rewards at 5k; however, the “old” version is still around. The catch of course is that you have to first spend 6 grand in order to unlock the 5% bonuses.
The other card I have that I still get pretty good use out of is the basic Chase Freedom card. The 5% categories can suck from time to time, but overall the card still holds up well. The capped rewards are annoying though.
Whoa, my company’s CEO is in the name of the year bracket.
I’m surprised Faraj Fartass and Fortunate Sithole would meet in the Sweet Sixteen; that sounds more like a Final Four matchup.
He’s watched “Reefer Madness” so he knows.
I just found out that the Cincinnati Reds manager is a Tam High alum (along with me and nevermoor). I think that someone probably already linked to his 77 f-bomb rant from 2015.
Price is a lot older than me, of course. This guy, on the other hand, was in my class and if our yearbook had a category for “most likely to be sued for corporate espionage”, he definitely would have won that vote back in 1998.
Levandowski? Ha, I have a little experience with him, and am similarly unsurprised.
Yeah. He was a smart guy, but not a lot of scruples.
As more details come out, he seems to have even more levels of conflict of interest. This is not going to end well for him legally. (Financially, he will probably be okay, as it seems he is currently worth nine figures, and has probably stashed some of that away where it can’t be clawed back.)
Man City has already pissed away its aggregate lead half an hour in. Buckle in for a lot more goals though.
And those 3 away goals set up a hefty hurdle.
But the result of the night already came in, with Wimbledon beating MK Franchise 2-0 at home.
This is my favorite champions league tie ever. No defending allowed.
Kraut Balls!
Kraut Balls!
(FTFY — Soaker edit)
There was a video clip of Kaval with the head Comcast/Spectra concessions person at the Coliseum going through some of the new food options. They showed a throwback Colossal Dog with sauerkraut and said the kraut “would be available”, but whether that means “available at the self-serve condiment bar” wasn’t clear, and wasn’t really implied.
Kraut macaroons? No. No kraut macaroons.
You bring a baggie to the ballpark and load up on free kraut at the concession stand. Duh.
When I smell a lady lying in the sun I’d rather not think of sauerkraut.
” frameborder=”0″ allowfullscreen>
SEE YOU IN COURT
nice that he didn’t dance around the issue
más culo que alma. o… ¿menos?
OK Manu, we just need you to pass this into Aldridge…
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“i hadn’t made one that cleanly all year.” —MG
I prefer it when these doomed experiments are aimed at finding the next Tony Phillips type.
BP’s projection for the 2017 A’s: forgettable
Forgettable
That’s what A’s are
Forgettable
Tho’ near or far
Like a clang of glove that stings to me
How the thought of them does things to me
Never before has some team been more
Forgettable in every way
As someone who volunteers for Meals on Wheels and sees the people who use its services, FK this guy in the ear.
fund these things and people are still starving!
Interesting read on the longstanding preparations for Queen Elizabeth’s death.
I read the statement here from Williams and wonder if the gun was still being pointed at him when he made it.
wtf?
Nothing quite like breaking the literal rule #1 of gun handling. And doing it on air.
Dingerz
Of the four NCAA games now underway, three feature teams named Mary.
AV bait
HA!
thanks.
Unfortunate draw for the Champions League quarter finals – its a bit of a shame to see all the heavyweights paired off (Bayern/Real, Barca/Juve) and moreover that the middleweights are paired by style (Atletico/Leicester, Dortmund/Monaco).
Really I love the draw. Dortmund/Monaco is goign to be like 14-12 on aggregate.
Thanks, and go As.
And Atletico/Leicester 0-0 after 17 hours of extra time.
Yeah, I’m happy with it too.
The clashes of the titans are a round too early, but I’m not going to complain about getting those games at any point.
Leicester will force Simeone to come out and play. It should be a good chess match.
Dortmund-Monaco is going to be spectacular.
Chris Webber has made himself into a good CBB color guy. So glad that he’s on the Heels call and not Reggie Miller.
Don’t you be badmouthing Cheryl’s brother.
Apparently San Francisco has an NASL team now? And the NASL still exists? And the first game is next week?
insider tip: they kinda suck.
they have a few good dudes helping run the team though.
Thanks, and go As.
They won the league title!
And just folded.
i looked into going. the ticket prices were not reflective of the stadium and status.
Marc Dos Santos should have a coaching job in MLS.
Thanks, and go As.
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“These guys remind me of myself when I first started, I only knew three chords too.”
Someone behind home plate at USA/DR has a sign that says
We want
Bartolo
Colon
On the plus side, Trevor Plouffe is a home brewer. More concerning, he’s best buds with Josh Willingham.
Five excellent new “Rooted in Oakland” A’s commercials. Doolittle and Vogt are good of course, Gray and Graveman are wooden, but the star of this troupe is clearly Bob Melvin.
Jesse Hahn, getting
dinked to deathhurt by mistakesshelled.Federer is unbelievable.
“He’s an asshole!”
japan olympics tells baseball: fuk you.
Hipple biffday, Ed.
Hehe, from over here, too!
am a little disappointed with my cousin in egypt. he is usually first, mostly before my birthday for some time
And UCLA didn’t give you the bday loss you expected.
boooo
what do you think, opening day zito v yankees or UCLA v Florida?
That Russel Westbrook kid will never amount to anything.
Yo 5Aces: Is this Nunes character your congressperson? Because he is embarrassing.
If I was still back home he would be, but as a now reluctant Angelino I do not have to claim him.
(And yeah, he is a piece of work)
Oh yeah…
He is really covering himself in glory today.
i like snowden’s angle. which with just a little help from popsych ends up being about trump’s ego (again). it’s not whether mr narcissistic got collected by the NSA. it’s that everybody gets collected by the NSA, always.
…feel free to reply after reading this, NSA.
make it so.
(yeah, different series, i know. i just don’t know any sulu quotes.)
…and he just broke the law on national TV. holy shit.
Thanks, and go As.
Bruh
I meant this, but… WTF?
Thanks, and go As.
We were officially in crazytown looooong ago.
We need a complete shutdown of Republican chairmen from Fresno, at least until we can figure out what is going on.
*ableist.
LOL, come on man. We are well into “girlfriend who lives in Canada” with these “sources.” Just admit that it’s Bannon or Trump, and go back to Fresno.
Welp.
In other words, call the coroner.
Dr. Romeo was quoted as saying “None but fools do wear it.”
Wladimir Balentien hits the ball too damn far to play in Japan. We should sign him just for the fun of it.
Seriously, he is just punishing baseballs for the Netherlands.
First inning of Netherlands-PR, Jurickson Profar singles and then while he’s doing the whole point at dugout/raise the roof routine, he fails to notice that he has wandered off the bag, and that Molina has thrown behind him, and that he’s out.
Oh.
I think there may be a fake Marlins Man behind the plate at the WBC game.
EDIT: It’s him. He just grew a beard.
uh oh, we are losing ec
I know this guy from a croatian sports board
bg bait
Ah, another reason to despise Elway and the Donkeys.
Annoying but not surprising. I think he went to the damn inauguration.
OTOH, I have found some common ground with James Comey.
The slumping but still division-leading Sharks are trying to get healthy in Minnesota vs the Wild, who sport a red-and-green ensemble tonight which I find disturbing.
jeopardy’s been rubbing up against wheel for, has it been decades now? still no sign of osmosis.
Japan brought a brass band that seems to have a song for each batter. So cool.
I just received the following workplace safety alert from the lab:
How many weeks until everyone gets those industrial exoskeletons?
its spring, aren’t they a little late removing their seasonal protective gear?
Uh huh
OK
Hmmm
This is corny as hell and I love it.
{Heads to Goodwill for Giants cap.}
Rumor: These are the caps you get.
http://m.sfgate.com/sports/article/With-Giants-hat-trade-in-and-Muni-stop-takeover-11020994.php
I went to 3 Goodwills *and* Out of the Closet and not a Giants cap to be had. :( I really wanted a free new cap. I have like 5 A’s caps that are beyond wearing at this point.
My UNC hat is seriously thrashed, but I told myself I won’t replace it until we have another championship banner.
Just get a Sacramento River Cats hat haha
they don’t say so explicitly, but i suspect this is really about the white guy in the white house.
8 of 9
same for me. but i think i failed out of lazy, not vision. i gave up early on the one where you had to count how many. but i do pretty well on these ones that are just about relative difference.
which one did you miss?
Same as you, I counted 1 fewer than the actual number. It did take some time to let my eyes adjust to each one but as long as I was at least a little patient I could see them.
it’s good to be patient when you’re looking for subtle dicks, i always say.
Heh. I got a perfect score on the other test, better than I would have guessed given how much time I’ve spent looking at paint colors and then getting them totally wrong when I see them on the wall. But that has a lot to do with the lighting in stores versus in a home.
Exactly right. The tiny one was well hidden by the others.
7 of 9 – one miss falls into the category you’re describing, but the other I couldn’t see even after they told me where it was.
9 or 9.
and this? this is the best thing in the whole world.
So how are you feeling about Chile? A play-in game against New Zealand or Tahiti is a decent safety net, but presumably one you’d rather avoid if only for pride.
i’ve lost track tbh. haven’t been paying attention to how individual players are doing, or who’s in/out of the lineups. but yeah, i’m basically relying on my deeply held beliefs about sports corruption vis a vis advertising rubles to make sure messi gets to russia.
His brand is worth a lot
pretty sure maradona is up to his nose in this scandal.
whoops. i thought the game was today. see how bad i am at this anymore?
Trying to imagine what the death toll would have been yesterday if automatic weapons were readily available in the UK.
0, because true british patriots would have stopped the criminal!!!
the containers podcast, besides being really interesting, is hella bay area proud. especially epp 1.
Predictions for this afternoon’s vote? I’d expect it to fail, but the House Republicans are so supine these days I can still imagine the Trumpster Fire’s crude threats and insults working.
It’s toast. Which means it’s likely to pass and we’re all going die.
It’s dead.
Only question is whether
TrumpBannon insists on a humiliating vote just to confirm who goes on the enemies list.The scenario that scares me is not that the House bill becomes law, but that the House bill passes and then McConnell replaces it with something new in the Senate that is just as terrible but not as crazy.
I see the way that games out, but I’m skeptical that McConnell could keep such a massive and difficult project requiring involvement of multiple senators and their staffs bottled up such that we haven’t heard anything about it publicly. Also, if that plan exists, then it must either be opposed by a lot of Republican senators who have urged the House not to pass their bill or those senators have been kept out of the loop completely.
Given that the main reason the House can’t get this bill passed is opposition from the “Freedom Caucus” who want something more draconian, I’m having a hard time envisioning either worst- or best-case scenarios.
I can certainly see enough GOPhers in congress voting for the bill to maintain ideological purity while trusting in the senate to kill it to avoid having to live with the consequences (the Gove-Johnson/Brexit strategy).
I think that was true when Obama was president (symbolic vote to repeal Obamacare in its entirety knowing he’ll veto), but not now that they own the consequences.
Let’s say there are four basic groups of House Republicans:
(1) conservatives in competitive districts (often erroneously called moderates)
(2) conservatives in districts that are not competitive absent massive wave
(3) conservatives in completely safe districts
(4) Freedom Conference ultra-conservative wackos
Group 1 knows this bill is extraordinarily unpopular in their districts. They don’t want to buck their party leadership, so if this bill were a runaway freight train sure to pass the senate, they might go for it against the wishes of their constituents. But if it’s doomed in the Senate, they would be crazy to vote for it. They would be writing their opponent’s devastating attack ad for no gain. And by voting no, they get to position themselves as willing to buck their party in a district that loves that shit.
Group 2 knows that they will hold their seats unless the bottom completely falls out for the party over the next year. Their interest is probably in passing something to keep the party looking competent-ish, so they vote for the bill regardless of what the Senate does.
Group 3 can only lose their seats in a primary. They probably just don’t want to draw the ire of Trump and Fox News, so they vote yes and forget all about it.
Group 4 defines itself around never compromising. Even when a piece of legislation moves the country further toward the libertarian dystopia they desire, they will oppose it for not taking us all the way to Thunderdome. And the fact that the Senate will kill it anyway is even more reason to vote no. Why compromise their principles for something that will never become law?
So I would say Groups 2 and 3 vote yes for ideological purity reasons, Group 4 votes no for ideological purity reasons, and Group 1 votes no for self-preservation reasons. Groups 1+4 are more than enough to kill it.
nobody cares about your fantasy something something.
My above comment didn’t make it obvious, but if you click through to Wikler’s tweet, there is a thread that describes his theory.
stomper got medieval or something? and what are the birdhouses on its back?
sorry if these points are addressed in the content. this is one of those cases of re-posting after briefly looking at headline and pics.
I like it, but he’s so angry looking. I like a friendlier elephant.
We have to intimidate the Giants fans haha
I-5 between Redding and Mt. Shasta on a day with snow in the forecast:
1. Strong likelihood of needing chains?
2. Any chance of a closure?
@GM: Not a drive I take much, but I-5 doesn’t go above 3500′ in that stretch, so my guess is closure very unlikely, chains somewhat unlikely.
Sweet, thanks. Will carry chains just in case and hope that there are chain monkeys to help me should I need to attach them.
It’s getting late in the year to have a chain requirement of much duration in the daytime anywhere on I-5 in that area, even over somewhat higher Siskiyou Summit at the CA/OR border. Nighttime and before 10 a.m. or so, more likely. Lots of Caltrans cameras here; at the moment I’m seeing snow falling near Mt. Shasta City but just wet pavement.
This is mildly disturbing.
lmao
OMG I can’t breathe
It was hard not to hear all that as a declaration that they are going to sabotage the law.
Yes, that was my take as well.
Ryan is standing in front of the cameras right now admitting his party can’t govern. This is remarkable.
He’s right.
Thanks, and go As.
for the first time!
Ahahahahaaha
“Just another day in paradise, okay?”
The bill was tremendously popular. Believe me. It had the most support of any bill in the last 50 years. That’s not coming from me, it’s what everyone’s saying.
If you split this kid in half you’d have three, maybe four hall of famers.
You left out the Bo Jackson comp
The hits just keep coming today!
*foundered
No, it was a fishing expedition.
whoa. i’ve never felt this OK after reading reader comments on foxnews.
though i can’t believe they didn’t moderate out the N-word.
the breitbart comments are just as opaque to me as ever though. they spent half the comments under one healthcare failure article deconstructing a pizzagate joke. and i mean that in the actual meaning of deconstruction, not the more recent one where it’s a misnomer for dismantling.
In my sports experience communities of online dickheads lose interest fast when their team stops winning.
Present company excepted, of course.
No fair-weather online dickheads we!
trying to formulate a soaker/all season tire joke, but I am afraid I don’t know enough about tires and seasons
Well…I have made a comment or two or 20 that fell into the “online dickhead” category, but I don’t think the subject of discussion was ever all-season tires.
I assumed you have seen all season tire fails through the winters
lol.
Derrida would be proud.
i don’t knowif you guys are following this “russia” story, but its fucking bonkers
MIkeV picked a good qualifier to attend.
bah. no tension. well, except on the strings of the honduran net.
Warning: A’s content
17 year old Lazarito Armenteros gets a call-up today to the split squad game against the Dodgers, in part so he can meet Puig.
And that is a Dodgers TV game so I might check out a few innings later tonight. You have to know the depths of the A’s farm system to recognize the players in the split-squad group that’s playing the Dodgers. Oh, but it’s another Canha in CF game.
#GOPDnD.
Nerds!
The big Andorra/Faroe Islands World Cup qualifier is still scoreless at the half.
And Edmundsson is off!
Seems to have picked up a second yellow while taking a free kick …
And it ends scoreless, with the Faroe Islands unable to take advantage of their 60% possession.
I am still a little new to cricket…is this a term I am not understanding here in 2017, or is it a term I am understanding in 1817?
Origin unclear, but usually attributed to the 1930s in reference to Ellis “Puss” Achong (a West Indies left-arm wrist off-spin bowler of Chinese origin).
good god
interesting.
sometimes i get into this ouroborosian space where i think, what if judging the isms of the past by the non-isms of the present is itself an ism (anachronism?) that we’ll be judged by in the future? except that if it is, the future would need to understand and forgive that ism? it’s very confusing. like going back in time, meeting a great grandparent, and, well, this could go either way really, so let’s do both… seducing them, then killing them.
don’t judge me! i am of my time.
I suppose I get it. but do we have to perpetuate?
Manaea is working on some things.
Triggs working on some similar things
Do you guys think the goatfucker was right? Just a random question, really.
about as random as it gets, and all i have anywhere close to the topic is: since it’s sunday, maybe i’ll find some birria. mmmm birria.
goddamned niece on bay area visit changed her mind *en route* to taqueria; i endured chowder in a bread bowl. i tried to retaliate with pho for dinner. backfired when she, understandably, loved it.
further word on birria sundays…
i barfed at the pool on monday. (thought the coffee had just landed hard…) but then on bart at embarcadero. and at the office bathroom floor (eeeever so close to actually reaching the toilet). and on bart stairs on my return trip (but i was well prepared with disposable baggies). and at home one last time before i could successfully keep a glass of water down, some time around 1pm.
guess i’ll try a different taqueria next sunday!
I am somewhat happy that I have no idea WTF this refers to
Thanks, and go As.
Indeed. Well rid of that place.
No rush. Athletics Nation has an effective business model tbh.
Final Four, baby!
You realize every single person in America who’s not a North Carolina alum will be rooting against your team. Well, the CBS execs want Carolina to get to the championship game. But, I mean, this is something even Donald Trump and Paul Ryan can agree on.
There’s truth in what you say, as North Carolina is the Goliath to the other three Davids. But don’t discount fans of the power conferences generally from being on Carolina’s side in Phoenix. The crowd at an all-Carolina final, for instance, should tilt blue.
Vegas, baby.
Thanks, and go As.
just bet, baby.
I’d still put the odds of a new Vegas stadium actually getting built at 50-50.
Which is a better bet than Cisco Field in Fremont. So dont count anything until kickoff.
Mark has to make some commitments, with name on dotted line, and Adelson’s complaint was that he and his advisors kept moving the goalposts. I’m wondering in particular about the B of A money. But Oakland and Alameda County aren’t coughing up a $750M gift which makes me lean toward Vegas happening, but by no more than 60-40 for now. I do think a Las Vegas franchise can be a success, the legislation does not name the Raiders and that Jacksonville owner is probably circling the deal like a vulture.
I’m curious to see how the Vegas market pans out, once someone gets there. For this deal, Noll the dour stadium econ guy was especially negative about the ticket revenue projections. OTOH, there aren’t any good models for selling big chunks of seats to transient fans OR a in a single-market economy. Maybe it could work well enough to avoid empty seats, but is it enough to pay for a stadium?
Fun conspiracy theory I read somewhere: the NFL likes this deal because they think Davis will soon get underwater and be forced to sell.
I’d like it for that possibility too. That and what it potentially does for the A’s. But it still sucks for the fan base that loses it’s team, again. Pure greed by someone who lacks the money to own his team.
Business is business.
I assume they have to sell something like 15K-20K tickets for each game to fans of the visiting team (so the atmosphere inside the stadium will be a lot different than at the Coliseum). A lot of those would be sold to the hotels which would create weekend travel packages. Maybe the hardest to sell year after year would be the Denver and Kansas City games. The Chargers would be able to draw from both LA and San Diego, and for the other 5 regular season games there’s a rotation of opponents so those teams’ fans are asked to come only every 2nd, 3rd or 4th year. I think they can do this on eight weekends in the fall. It also suggests why a baseball team there would fail and why the NHL team will fail; can’t get out-of-towners for regular season midweek games so easily, and for baseball in July and August in particular.
The Raiders will always draw plenty of Silver and Black diehards from Oakland, LA and everywhere else. And everybody who comes from out of town contributes to the $750M via the occupancy tax; only the Las Vegas locals get a free ride on that.
Noll never met a stadium deal where he didn’t think the sky was falling.
It should be successful then.
I feel like Denver and KC would be cheap enough flights that fans could plan a weekend to go.
Thanks, and go As.
Assuming you have frequent flyer miles yeah.
Denver flights are super cheap. Especially for someone willing to travel for a football game. KC would be more difficult.
We’ll see, though, whether that unprecedented visiting team gate really exists over the long haul, because if it doesn’t the assumptions about both direct revenue from tickets and indirect through occupancy taxes will fall well short. And of course Vegas in general is especially susceptible to economic ups and downs. That’s why I’m more skeptical of a deal which is financed by ticket assumptions, as opposed to being backed by some other source (see theory of NFL backing the BoA investment itself while Davis founders).
I agree that the r-squared between the depth of a recession and the number of empty seats at a Raiders game will be quite high. However, the hotels and other travel package agencies, as season ticket holders and PSL owners, will bear much of that load.
I’d bet on the deal being a certifiable disaster.
At least from Mark’s side of it the deal is looking pretty good so far (Adelson News link).
Wow, I am very surprised at this. Lucky for them the initial payments were due in January before everything went to shit. Wonder if they’ll have a high default rate on the subsequent payments.
On a separate note, I’m surprised that four years later four names in the starting lineup at the top of this post are still with the A’s. Five if Adam Rosales comes back again.
I only count three.
Oops. Forgot Cotton was gone.
I expect in depth analysis.
Cindi
Yeah I don’t think anyone here cares.
http://www.athleticsnation.com/
Doesn’t ring a bell.
https://newballpark.org/
Hell, that one’s in the Blogroll.
https://web.archive.org/web/20050405232718/http://www.athleticsnation.com/story/2005/3/30/175110/947
JamesV was the last FKer who would nibble at the bait and we haven’t heard from him in quite a while. I hope he’s enjoying Portland.
Portland is decadence.
Oh I always get suckered into bait. But it would have to be something really good and obvious to take my time right now. I think we are at the point that they have forgotten us and we are too small to care.
Rebrand news
Well this seems wildly excessive.
front page news at home btw. someone tell trump he’s been displaced. also, someone tell putin, see if he can do anything.
Do we know what he said?
“A hot dog is a sandwich”
Thanks, and go As.
get out of here. get our of here. your mother’s conch.
that’s literally. the sense of the second part is dirtier than but not as directed as it sounds. it’s usually heard as a goddammit.
after the game he shook the other refs’ hands but said something like, yeah no, to him instead. the ref looked all, yeah i wouldn’t expect it.
Uh huh. It definitely wasn’t because they were afraid he’d throw a lawn dart while getting booed within an inch of life.
Afraid that he would look too much like this?
um hmm
thats right
uh huh
oh no!
fix yourself, guy…
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Oh God what would possess him to put those pants on.
What would allow him to put those pants on? Surely not the laws of physics.
What if he put them on before inflation?
Then there would be Silk damping, and there sure as FK isn’t any Silk damping from that picture.
The belt gives him a pronounced dipole term.