Forget Moneyball - 2013 Oakland A's The REAL Story
OAKLAND A'S Official On-field Caps and Tshirts and Playoff Souvenirs ON SALE NOW
Joe DiMaggio once worked with the Oakland A's and Charlie Finley in
the 1970s/80s and would be proud of the current team, which plays much
in the style of the old Yankee Clipper....good old, hard-nosed, no
nonsense , smart baseball. There are no big name stars, just a lot of
eager, aggressive, intelligent fun-loving 'lower paid' players who are
playing for the love of the game as much as anything. There is also a
manager, Bob Melvin, who has upset GM Billy Beane's old theory that the
manager doesn't make a difference, who took over a team that revolted
against it's previous manager - and the coaching staff is second to
none. They've gotten the most out of their young team. No help from
modern technology, ie PEDs, like the cross Bay team. This is good old,
real Golden Era Baseball like when DiMaggio played.
FORGET MONEYBALL - WHAT MONEY? 'Low Paid' 2013 A's The Real Hollywood Story
by Mark Purdy, San Jose Mercury News
OAKLAND -- The Hollywood producers blew it. Completely.
Perhaps you saw "Moneyball" a few years ago, the movie about the 2002
Oakland Athletics team supposedly composed of inferior players that
shocked the baseball world with the killer combination of creative
strategic thinking and Brad Pitt's extremely evocative close-ups.
Mundane stuff, compared with 2013.
The current A's team is the one that really deserves to have a film
made about it. Maybe that will happen if the month of October becomes a
rousing final reel. We'll see if that happens, beginning here Friday
when the A's face the Detroit Tigers in Game 1 of the American League
Division Series.
To be sure, the A's of 2002 were intriguing.
Oakland Athletics players and fans exult as the last out of the game
is made against the Minnesota Twins, Sunday, Sept. 22, 2013, at O.co
Coliseum in Oakland, Calif. (D. ROSS CAMERON)
They had a 20-game win streak and did break ground when general manager
Billy Beane (portrayed by Pitt in the film) started using statistical
data to make personnel and lineup decisions.But come on. Those A's did
not feature a stadium that leaked raw sewage; or an uncertain future in
their home city; or a relief pitcher from Australia who screams a lot
and grew up playing rugby; or a right fielder nicknamed "Hillbilly
Jesus"; or a powerfully exotic slugger from Cuba who obliterated the
Home Run Derby at the All-Star Game. The A's of 2013 have given us all
of the above. And then some.
"We do have some interesting guys," A's manager Bob Melvin conceded this week.
Not that many casual sports fans in the Bay Area would know. MORE
There were a lot of great months in the A's 2013 playoff run, but none
better than the month of September, that saw the A's overcome a 2-game
deficit to eventually win the Division and finish the season five games
ahead of the Rangers, who were knocked out in the play-in Wild Card
game. The A's played strong when it counted, and as Texas faded, they
took complete advantage; even Texas' end-of-the-season winning streak
was too little too late to dethrone the 2-time defending American League
West Champions, and that's why the Oakland Athletics will be playing
tomorrow.
The A's started September by finishing a sweep of the Rays, obviously
catching them, too, at their weakest point of the season. A lot of the
A's success--winning the Division with a full week to spare--came by
playing Texas and Tampa Bay at exactly the right time. Had the AL West
and Wild Card gone down to the wire with the A's still in the mix, they
would have had to win out to keep pace with the other teams, who won the
remainder of their last games to get into the playoffs, even
briefly. Before the penultimate showdown between the A's and the
Rangers, the A's first took out the Rays, in game #136. Nico has the call: Joe
Maddon thought he would try as many different pitchers as possible, so
the A's decided to score in as many creative ways as they could and the
end result was a 5-1 victory, a sweep of Tampa Bay, and just 1 game
between Oakland and Texas in the standings as the Rangers come to town. This left the A's just one game back, as they geared up to face the Rangers.
Unlike previous experiences with the Rangers, the A's did not waste
this opportunity, fighting hard to take two out of three, and climbing
back on top of the AL West. Game one was recapped by Lev Facher, who coaxed the A's to a tie: A
solid five innings from Dan Straily, home runs from Coco Crisp and
Yoenis Cespedes, and scoreless relief work from Dan Otero, Brett
Anderson, Ryan Cook, and Grant Balfour have the A's back in a tie for
first place. In front of 23,495 frenzied fans on a sun-splashed day at
the Oakland Coliseum, a few costly mistakes on Texas' part and a
nerve-wracking yet effective four innings from the bullpen gave the A's a
4-2 win, and seemingly all of the momentum in the AL West race. There really wasn't anything "seemingly" about it. Aside from losing the following night, the game also handled by Lev Facher:
Well, the A's are back in second place. An all-around uninspiring
evening from the green and gold has the A's a game behind the Rangers,
making the rubber match tomorrow afternoon almost a must-win with three
games in Arlington looming on the horizon. Bartolo Colon was both
mediocre and unlucky tonight, while the A's offense stalled repeatedly
with runners in scoring position. The bullpen wasn't great, either.
Heard this one before?, the A's would strap on their playoff
underoos and decimate the rest of the month, winning series after
series. They finished the Rangers' series with a win, as baseballgirl tells us, the game also marking the return of Daric. Barton. The
plucky A's, winners of eight of their last ten games, shook off
yesterday's loss like it didn't even matter, and continued their trend
of stomping all over ace pitchers as they dismantled Rangers' starter Yu
Darvish and gutted the rest of the Texas bullpen to the tune of 11-4.
The big blows of the game were home runs off the bats of Moss,
Donaldson, and Coco. Oh, and also: Daric. Barton. This tied the A's and Rangers for first place, with barely 20 games to go in the season..
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