Bombs Away

Jay Payton introduces himself with a homerun in his first AB as an Athletic. Chavez and Swisher also join in the action.

And to this point, the 5th inning, Zito's pitching almost as good as Harden yesterday.

Doesn't get any better.

Speaking of Swisher - this guy's gonna win Rookie of the Year. Book it.

Byrnes in Colorado

Yep, he's been traded to Colorado for Kennedy and Witasick. Two acqusitions I really like.

But Byrnes in Colorado, I'm seeing big things there. Sure, he's not great on defense. But I think this guy is going to put up huge offensive numbers in Coors. I just picked him up on my fantasy team and I'm starting him as soon as possible. Byrnes has been a fan favorite of many Oakland fans, including me, for how he plays the game. It'll definitely be reason for me to check out the Rockies on Extra Innings every now and then.

A quote from Byrnes in a Yahoo! article on the trade:
"I'm excited about the opportunity to go play for the Rockies and I'm sad to leave Oakland," said Byrnes, who grew up in the Bay area and appreciated the fan support. "I'm going to miss everybody in the organization. It's the only organization I've ever known. The 24 guys in the clubhouse are 24 of my best friends, everyone from the janitor on up. I can't thank them enough for giving me the chance to play major league baseball."

With the supposed heat between him and the management, that was a pretty classy quote to leave with. Big props there.

Jay Payton for Chad Bradford was finally finished too. Payton isn't that great, and I'm hoping he'll be shipped pretty soon too. But it's good to see that trading Bradford won't be that much of a loss with the two pitchers we just brought in.

Tonight, it's Harden vs. Rogers. Hopefully his bad outing at the ASG carries over. I wonder if we see any of the new guys in action tonight.

New Football Blog

If anybody out there happens to be a Jacksonville Jaguars fan or just wants to check it out and tell me what you think - check out my new blog located here.

Scott Hattey-berg and Bubba Crosby

Yeah, those White Sox announcers sure are annoying. Gotta love those guys with names. Makes you wonder how they consistently get Scott Podsednik's name right.

Oh yeah, and that "Hegone!" that sounds like a hillbilly making karate noises..well, that got old really, really fast. At least we didn't have to listen to the homerun routine.

Good win after losing some aggravating games against Toronto. Nothing sweeter than Street striking out Frank Thomas for the game clinching out. Hearing that abrupt hush, all across a packed stadium...It's great.

By the way, I never realized how strong of arm Swisher had out there in right field until tonight. Don't ask me why, but man, he can sling it.

Tomorrow, I'm going to count how many times I can hear a fan say "hey so-and-so, you suck @&$#!" on the Chicago broadcast. Fun game.

Bradford for Payton?

The A's have reportedly agreed to a deal that will send Chad Bradford (back) to Boston for disgruntled outfielder Jay Payton. - Rotoworld.com

Interesting. I would have liked to see Bradford come off the DL and back in our pen, but then again this trade could be as a result of perhaps one of the OF'ers getting traded soon.

Payton had been complaining recently in Boston about playing time with manager Terry Francona, and according to Rotoworld, had a recent confrontation with the guy in the dugout that finally caused the front office to make a move. That's what makes me think if he does infact come to Oakland, he's going to demand a starting role, and the A's just might end up having a hole to have him fill.

Then again, a lot of people are saying Beane will immediately ship him elsewhere upon his acquisition, but we'll see.

Breaking Down Joe Morgan

Great article I found on the Scout.com A's message board, that you can find here: http://www.sfweekly.com/Issues/2005-07-06/news/feature_print.html. It takes apart Joe Morgan and his "Billy Beane wrote Moneyball and is the devil" ways. Very, very, very good read that all of you should check out immediately.

The A's took the first game in the series against Toronto, but lost pretty badly today. But it's all good. Back below .500 but I'm very confident that even better things are coming soon. And by the way - screw that Texas pitcher, Nick Swisher for ROTY!

One final note for yet another short entry - I'm up at 1:55 AM with NBC on. It's official - Carson Daly is by far the worst late night host in the history of mankind. The lame jokes and midget-size furniture make me want to hurl.

Currrrrvvveeeee

A's win the series against the White Sox. Nice little streak going on. National attention slowly coming.

Not anything better than watching Zito curveballing to death somebody, 10 different times in slow motion on SportsCenter (or Baseball Tonight, whatever it was). Even had the lil ball tracking line! Thomas' reaction to the pitch was great. What the F are you doing, Frank? Bunting? Yes, your homerun made the highlight reel, but Zito made sure he also was included, a couple thousand times, with you as the victim.

Great, great, great stuff. Especially with so many White Sox trash talkers out there. Which speaking of those guys, when are you guys pulling the trigger on the Chavez trade? We really need that Crede guy, he's the next big thing...or whatever.