Hideki Matsui, David DeJesus, Josh Willingham, Grant Balfour, Brian Fuentes, and Brandon McCarthy are the new Oakland Athletics. All added during the offseason, these acquisitions show the A’s are serious about competing for AL West again. Much like the Giants across the Bay, the A’s in 2010 were highlighted by great, sometimes brilliant pitching, and one of the worst offenses in the majors. Unlike the Giants however, Oakland had some …

If you’re a baseball fan and you’ve never been to Spring Training, you owe it to yourself to go. Trust me on this, you’ll have the time of your life and wonder why it took you so long to get there. If you’re an Angels fan and you live in Southern California, you can easily drive to Tempe, Arizona in five or six hours. I’m telling you; it’s worth the …

Now, the Mariners say they are hopeful Bradley’s nuclear temper will chill a bit under the influence of Grade A characters like Ken Griffey Jr. and Chone Figgins, a recent acquisition. They are also counting on a calmer, more sedate Milton Bradley being a productive Milton Bradley.

It’s days like these which make it hard to be a Cubs fan. Sure, it stings a little when Ryan Dempster gives up a three-run bomb to Manny Ramirez in the NLDS or when Alex Gonzalez boots a routine double-play ball in eight-inning of Game 6 of the NLCS, but it’s those moments which make us who we are. Admit it, Cubs fans, the sting of defeat snatched from the …

A top prospect since being a part of the package that landed Mark Mulder in St. Louis, Daric Barton hasn’t quite taken hold of the first base job in Oakland as expected. But people certainly shouldn’t write off Barton, because he still has a chance to be one of the better first baseman in the game. The bigger question is whether that could happen in Oakland, given that Brett Wallace, Chris Carter and Sean Doolittle should be ready to contribute at the major league level very soon.

This leaves the Athletics with a nice problem, as they have to figure out what to do with all of those bats, as Wallace tries to stick at third base and Carter tries to adjsut to left field, neither of which is likely to work out particularly well. If the Athletics consider trading Barton to make room at first base for one of those guys, which is really more of a when rather than an if, then he could be a very appealing piece to any team in need of a solid first baseman with good OBP skills.

Last season, Billy Beane, Moneyball icon and godfather of the modern GM, uncharacteristically chased a straight. He attempted to make a run at the postseason by virtue of a strategy completely contrary to that which made him famous. He traded a blue-chip prospect (Carlos Gonzalez) for one season from an impending free agent slugger (Matt Holliday). He signed a quartet of aging injury-prone veterans – Jason Giambi, Orlando Cabrera, Nomar …

By C.J. Butterworth
Base Ball Writer of the People
July 28, 1924
Publishers! Editors! Who needs these blind, bloated buffoons? Followers of this glorious game hunger for freshness and daring in their daily accounts, not stodgy, predictable grammar lessons! Some dark day the newspaper form could perish altogether, and it is the craftsmen with vision, the ones who speak for the ordinary base ball fan, who will survive.
Thus, …