Oakland A's Days

Sad

A really bad weekend for Oakland.

Photo via www.doginasweater.com.  

Early Hating: The Angels are Gross

 

What kind of team tries to sell their fans stuffed dead pink monkeys?  The Angels' merchandise looks like something from Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.

Future Favorite A: Corey Wimberly

One of the best things about Spring Training is that it gives us the opportunity to scout our future favorite A's.  And for 2009, let us just tell you that we cannot wait to see Corey Wimberly in the bigs!  Wimberly is a non-roster invitee infielder who played second base in the Saturday game against the Giants.  We love him because he is short and fast.  But more importantly, he has serious flair.  During warm-ups, he was doing back flips in the outfield.  No joke.  Also, he wears his pants high with green and gold stirrups and his semi-long curly afro puffs out of his hat just a bit.  Not to mention that he apparently loves reading, chess, and Keyshia Cole.  Imagine Eric Byrnes + Ozzie Smith with a dash of Chone Figgins.  This guy is one in a million.

First Look at the New Famous A's

Coming out of camp, we are struck by how odd it is to have multiple famous baseball players on our team.  Odd, and completely kick ass.  Now, when someone says, "who do the A's have this year?" there are like 4 guys that any casual baseball fan will know.  We love it!  And although it is going to take considerable mental energy to keep track of all the no-name pitchers the A's are going to have running around, the offense looks to be front page news.

 

So here is a quick OAD run-down of our impressions of the new A's that everyone has heard of:

Jason Giambi -- It could not feel more normal to see him back in green and gold.  All is forgiven and we are delighted that he is an A again.  He hit a MONSTER home run on Saturday and all the A's fans went wild.  Phoenix Muni played "Whoop There it is."  Good times.

Matt Holliday -- We didn't see much of him on our quick trip to spring training, but can we just say that he shines like a golden baseball star?  He has a ridiculously handsome face and ripped, tanned, hairless forearms.  If it wasn't for his eyebrows, you'd think that he has alopecia.  He got a hit on Saturday and we cheered, "yay Holliday!"

Nomar -- We just weren't all that hyped about Nomar going into Spring Training.  We were more like "meh."  But after seeing him play on Sunday, we are incredibly excited that Nomar is an A.  He was aggressive at the plate and had 2 beautiful hits.  And he just looks so distinctive -- you can easily pick him out of the crowd.  Also, we are counting the seconds until we see Mia Hamm at the Coliseum. 

Orlando Cabrera -- Unlike Nomar, we were super excited about this signing.  But O-Cab didn't make much of an impression on us at spring training.  He played in the game against the Angels on Sunday, where we sat in front of some very friendly Angels fans who kept calling him "O.C" -- something that should absolutely never happen in Oakland -- and who told us how much they loved having him on their team and how sure they were that we would really love having him as an A.  Although we normally question the judgment of anyone who would pledge their loyalty to the Angels, we're going to take the word of these nice people.  Moreover, as usual, Bobby Crosby looked terrible, so that makes us even happier to have him around.

Phoenix Bound

We will be at spring training this weekend.  We plan to scout out all the new A's and send back reports via our awesome new Twitter feed.  As a preview, here are ten things we are excited about:

10.  the warm Arizona sunshine
9.    the first hot dog of the season
8.    that Bobby Crosby isn't the A's starting shortstop
7.    O-Cab
6.    the Return of Jason Giambi
5.    Matt Holliday
4.    Matt Holliday
3.    Matt Holliday
2.    Matt Holliday
1.    Matt Holliday

Nomar?

O-Cab!!!!!!