There Once Was a There There

What did Oakland use for traffic control before stop signs? Traffic lights!

Oakland is now replacing traffic lights with stop signs due to homeless encampments stealing from Oakland's electrical boxes: pic.twitter.com/Y2lFQ8BJsM

— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) May 19, 2024

Don't blame Republicans. John H. Reading was Oakland's last Republican mayor from 1966-1977. Wikipedia:

In 1968 Charlie Finley moved the Athletics baseball team from Kansas City to Oakland during Mayor Reading's tenure. The Oakland Athletics won three World Series while Reading was mayor. He was instrumental in gaining funding and supporting construction of the new Oakland Coliseum and expansion of the Oakland International Airport.

John Madden (1936-2021)

The 1970's was a miserable decade--runaway inflation, gas lines, Watergate, the fall of Saigon--but at least Bay Area sports fans could find solace in their Oakland teams.

Charles Finley moved the Athletics from Kansas City and won three straight World Series from 1972 to 1974. Both owner and players broke the mold with "Charley O the mule, orange baseballs, mustachioed players, the designated hitter and designated runners."

The Golden State Warriors, led by Hall of Famer Rick Barry, were the surprise winner of the 1975 NBA championship. They dominated the 1975-1976 season, only to fall in the Western Conference finals to the Phoenix Suns.

Both the A's and Warriors were fan favorites--let's not talk about the mediocre 49ers and Giants, who rarely made the playoffs--but by the beginning of the 1970's football was already the most popular sport in America, and the top echelon of the National Football League included the Oakland Raiders.

Celebrating the 1977 Super Bowl Win

Led by its brilliant owner Al Davis, the Raiders were a team of castoffs, misfits, and rejects. John Madden, who died yesterday, molded this unconventional roster into a championship contender and became the most successful coach in Raiders history.

Just 32 when he became the Raiders’ head coach, Madden, who quickly became known for his sideline outbursts and unruly hair, led his team to the playoffs eight times in 10 seasons and compiled a .759 winning percentage (103-32-7) that still ranks as the highest of any coach with at least 100 victories.

Every January, while it was cold and raining outside, we could count on Raider football to entertain us on weekends.

During the '70's the Raiders had to go up against a historically great dynasty, the 4-time-champion Pittsburgh Steelers, as well as the Miami Dolphins, who in 1972 became and still are the only undefeated team in NFL history. Given the competition, John Madden's record was remarkable.

Tom Landry

Prowling the sidelines with his portly frame and expansive gestures, John Madden was the opposite of Tom Landry, the buttoned-down coach of the "America's team" Cowboys.

Madden's game-planning and Hall-of-Fame players made Raiders-Steelers must-see TV. The playoff game between the teams in December, 1972, was decided by the Immaculate Reception, perhaps the most famous play in NFL history. I remember watching that game on a tiny low-res TV screen in Hawaii and thought that Terry Bradshaw's 4th-quarter 4th-down pass was knocked down and the Raiders had won. Then the fuzzy TV showed a Steeler (Franco Harris) racing toward the end zone for a Steeler touchdown and victory.

Huh? What just happened? Similar to the 1969 moon landing, you could hardly see it and you couldn't replay it.

We were sad to see John Madden retire from coaching in 1978, but even in those days it was understood that he was headed for a stress-induced heart attack if he continued.

Again, much to everyone's surprise, he became the most popular TV football analyst of all time and put his name on one of the most popular sports videogames of all time.

I don't know when it was that politicians sought to become a person "you would like to have a beer with," but they should just say "I want to be like John Madden." R.I.P., coach.

Dog Bites Man

A Moraga man was bitten by a coyote: [bold added]

Kenji Sytz (LinkedIn)

That was until the end of their workout, when [Kenji] Sytz felt a sudden, sharp pain in his left leg. From a push-up position, he quickly rolled over to find a coyote clamped down, hard, on his shin and calf.

In a matter of seconds, Sytz jerked up his knee, wound up and slapped the coyote in the face to convince the animal to release him.

At first, it didn’t budge. It took nearly a minute for Sytz and his two workout partners to shoo the animal back into the Friday morning darkness.

Jack Wakileh, one of Sytz’ friends, said all of his years watching animal documentaries on the Discovery Channel prepared him for that moment. He chased the coyote from the football field’s 20-yard-line to an open gate on the other side. It would run 10 yards, pause, then stare back at Wakileh, he said.

It wasn’t until Sytz rolled up his jogger pants that he saw the deep puncture wounds, and dangling fatty tissue. Wakileh said Sytz tried to play it off as a minor flesh wound.

“I’m like ... ‘you need to go to the hospital,’” Wakileh said. “That’s not broken skin — I see your muscle.”

But Sytz said he was in good condition Friday after getting treatment at a hospital for the puncture wounds left by the coyote’s fangs in his leg — including rabies shots. Sytz said the shots were more scary than the bite. He said he’ll limp for some time, and lamented having to miss a planned 10-mile run this weekend.

“I’m an avid outdoorsman. I was more afraid of the needles,” he said.

Comments:
1) The coyote didn't attack an isolated target but a member of a three-man running group. Both mountain lions and coyotes are becoming more brazen and/or hungrier.

2) Kenji Sytz is an Engineer, Berkeley grad, and family man per his social media profiles. He showed grace under pressure; it's nice to know that macho-ness--not the blustering and boastful kind---is still alive in a few young men.

The Joys of Almost Summer

Bill from Pittsburg, CA exults

While sports no longer provides the escape from reality that it once did, it still has the capacity to surprise. The surprise in this case occurred in the stands.

On Sunday an Oakland Athletics fan caught two consecutive foul balls. Commentators have opined that the odds against this event were one in a billion or one in a trillion.

At first blush, statistical analysis suggests those odds are wildly overstated. Here's a back of the envelope calculation: with a little over 15,000 in attendance, and assuming that 40 foul balls were hit into the stands during a game, the average fan has a 1 in 375 chance of catching a ball. The chance of getting two balls in the same game is one in 375 squared, about 141,000-to-1. Of course, the probabilities can be adjusted by seat placement--the upper decks in large stadiums get hardly any--but we're still a far cry from one in a billion.

If we layer in another filter, the odds of back-to-back balls landing in the same place must be at least 1 in 10,000. Now we're at 1 in 1.41 billion (141,000 x 10,000). OK, you can cheer now.

Another phenomenon is how much joy one derives from snagging a fly. Every guy is an excited little boy again when he catches a ball that costs about $30.



Female fans show their joy, too. This San Diego fan became an internet celebrity and received several marriage proposals due to her one minute of fame.

Colon Examined

Lost in the furor over Alex Rodriquez, the Oakland Athletics received good news about Bartolo Colon. Colon (accent on the second syllable) had been suspended last year over performance-enhancing drugs but was not on this week's list of players targeted for suspension.

Bartolo Colon is one of the top pitchers in the American League and sports a 14-3 record and a 2.50 Earned Run Average. At the advanced age of 40, he is having one of his best seasons ever and understandably was suspected of using PED's. Now that he's good to go, the A's, who are leading their division, have an excellent chance of making the playoffs. © 2013 Stephen Yuen

Bush League Treatment

The Oakland payroll ranks near the bottom

Major league baseball players are blessed with physical gifts, adulation, and wealth. Just making the team guarantees a minimum salary of $490,000, while superstars like Yankees C. C. Sabathia and Alex Rodriguez make north of $20 million per year.

That said, consider the plight of the Oakland Athletics, one of baseball's best teams. The A's won the American League West division in 2012 and are in the lead again this year with a third of the season completed. Despite their excellence the payroll is one of the lowest in baseball; the top three players on the New York Yankees make more than the A's entire 25-man roster.

The A's also have to endure playing in baseball's worst park. The 46-year-old Oakland Coliseum is the only remaining "dual purpose" stadium that hosts both major league baseball and National Football League games. Its deteriorating infrastructure and high-crime surroundings hold the attendance down (another factor is ownership's regular attempts to move the team out of Oakland). Attendance this year ranks in the bottom third of major league cities; in 2011, before the team became a contender, Oakland was dead last.

Perhaps the, er, low-water mark occurred this Sunday, when a sewage leak forced the A's and visiting Seattle Mariners to abandon the clubhouses and take showers in the Oakland Raiders' locker room upstairs. Snippets from USA Today:

[A's owner Lew Wolff]: "It's all a bunch of crap."

[Lew Wolff] was all set for a nice meal at the Athletics' Westside club on Wednesday night, he divulged, when a raw sewage leak emerged in the kitchen. The restaurant was immediately shut down.

The Los Angeles Angels, who play in Oakland nine times during the year, have filed complaints in the past about the conditions, worried about E. coli in the training room.

It turns out that sewage leaks have been occurring since 1975. No, your humble observer does not feel sorry for A's players, but they do deserve better. © 2013 Stephen Yuen

The Excitement is Justified

The never-ceasing din of 24/7 sports has led some to plea for an off-season for fans. The worst transgressor is football, formerly a September-December activity (or November---in postwar Hawaii the king of sports was high school football, which ended the day after Thanksgiving). Now NFL fans can get their fix throughout the year, from the draft to minicamp to pre-season to the regular season, playoffs, and Super Bowl, after which the cycle starts all over. The cacophony never ceases as basketball, baseball, hockey, racing, golf, and tennis, as well as biennial to quadrennial events such as the America's Cup and the Olympics blare for attention.

In the San Francisco Bay Area, however, the current year-round excitement is justified. Both the hockey (San Jose Sharks) and the basketball (Golden State Warriors) teams have overachieved by making the playoffs and defeated favored opponents in the first round. The San Francisco Giants have won two of the last three World Series, while the Oakland Athletics surprised everyone by winning the American League West Division in 2012. The San Francisco 49ers lost to the Ravens in the Super Bowl and are one of the early favorites to win it next year. Only the long-suffering fans of the Oakland Raiders have nothing to look forward to.

FYI, per Wikipedia's entry on Multiple Major Sports Championship Seasons the most recent metropolitan areas to be home to two champions were Boston in 2004 (Red Sox and Patriots) and Los Angeles in 2002 (Angels and Lakers). Only once--Detroit in 1935--did three champions (Tigers, Lions, Red Wings) hail from the same city.

Bay Baseball Good and Bad News

First, the bad news. After storming back from a two-game deficit, the amazing Oakland A's fell 6-0 to the Detroit Tigers in the deciding game of the divisional playoffs. They had no answer to the superior pitching of last year's Cy Young award winner and league MVP Justin Verlander, who handcuffed them twice during the five-game series. Nevertheless, what they accomplished with one of the lowest payrolls in baseball against resource-rich teams is one of the top baseball stories of 2012.

The good news is that the San Francisco Giants will continue to the next round of the National League playoffs. They faced even more daunting odds than the A's, because the Giants, after playing terribly in two losses at AT&T Park, had to win all three games in Cincinnati (the A's were trying to win three at home), and the Reds had not lost three consecutive games in the Great American ballpark during the regular season.

The Giants scored six runs in the fifth inning of Game 5, then held on through tension-filled later innings to prevail, 6-4, over a strong Reds lineup. The decisive blow was a grand-slam home run by All Star catcher Buster Posey. Go Giants!

Posey talks to Matt Cain's hand (SFGate)

Historical footnote: Buster Posey's homer was the first grand slam by a Giant in a playoff game in 23 years. Will Clark's grand slam in 1989 beat the Cubs but is also notable in that it gave rise to the practice of pitchers and catchers speaking through their gloves.

From Will Clark's Wikipedia bio:

Cubs' catcher Joe Girardi went to the mound to discuss with Greg Maddux how to pitch to Clark. From the on-deck circle, Clark watched the conversation and read Greg Maddux's lips saying "fastball high, inside." The first pitch was a fastball high and inside which Clark sent into the street beyond right field for a grand slam. Following this, pitchers began to cover their mouths with their gloves when having conversations on the pitchers mound.

The Amazing A's

American League West Division Champions (Chron photo)

There are weightier issues that deserve our attention, but.....HOW ABOUT THOSE A's!!

Two different versions of the same column [bold added]:

Mark Purdy, Mercury News:

Why do we watch sports? We watch sports because every now and then, when you least expect it, you see something like this.

You see Billy Beane, the A's general manager who was portrayed by Brad Pitt in a movie, being doused with beer like John Belushi in the frat-house-like celebration of the Bay Area's most improbable championship ever. [snip]

"We've had some pretty amazing things here over the years," Beane said. "But as I was watching all of this, I was thinking, 'This is pretty unbelievable. How'd we do that?' "

Tom Verducci, Sports Illustrated:

You may not know it, but you are an Oakland Athletics fan. You are an Athletics fan because you are a baseball fan, and being a baseball fan means you believe desire is worth more than payroll. [snip]

And so because you believe in these truths you must believe in the A's. They are all the best reasons why we live and die with this great game, all wrapped up in green and gold.

The Oakland A's won a championship:

Despite a payroll which is less than half of rivals Texas Rangers and L.A. Angels.

With an all-rookie pitching staff after trading away three All-Star pitchers over the winter.

With rookies who were new to their positions as well as Major League baseball.

After falling 13 games behind the Rangers on June 30th.

While never holding sole possession of first place until the last (162nd) game of the year.

As the saying goes, they could make a movie about this, but no one would believe it.

Stuck in Stockton

Braden celebrates the perfect game with his grandmother.

Oakland Athletics pitcher Dallas Braden, best known for pitching a perfect game on Mother's Day two years ago, has finally had enough of the crime plaguing his bankrupt hometown, Stockton, California.

“Arm yourself or get out,” he told CBS Sacramento. “It’s the wild west. The boys in blue, they’re outgunned.”

Despite Stockton’s lack of glamor, Braden has long lived and commuted to Oakland from his home there. But in recent weeks, the city’s infamous crime problem forced Braden to reconsider. He says his grandmother was robbed and he himself was nearly carjacked by a man who tried to forcibly pull him out of his vehicle. Braden was livid during and after the [anti-violence] meeting, stopping to vent more of his frustration with the media in the video clip above.

The situation is so bad that Stockton’s famous son has decided that he can’t stay there any longer.

“I’m out of here because I’ve been lied to my entire life here, and I hate to see these people get lied to like this,” Braden said. “I’ve already put my home on the market. I’m out.”

Most people who live in Stockton aren't millionaires like Dallas Braden and cannot up and leave. (The inability to move from bad neighborhoods is one of the causes of poverty, argues Megan McArdle.)

Stockton City Manager Bob Deis pleas for understanding. Unlike businesses, Stockton doesn't have the option to liquidate.

Simply dissolving the city and selling all assets to pay creditors isn't an option, since we have to continue providing services to residents. [snip]

We are the 10th-most violent city in America. Rates of violence are increasing by double digits, with our murder rate on track to surpass last year's record of 58 murders. We have the second-lowest police staffing levels in the country for a large city, and often Stockton Police can respond only to "in-progress" crimes. Oakland, a nearby city with similar crime challenges, has 44% more police officers per capita. With high poverty rates and gang activity, we cannot turn our back on public safety due to creditor pressure.

Stockton will require extraordinary leadership to get back on a sound financial footing and still provide basic services to its 300,000 residents. With the flight of prominent residents like Dallas Braden, the task is nigh impossible. © 2012 Stephen Yuen

Suspended Colon

Oakland Athletics pitcher Bartolo Colon has received a 50-game suspension for using synthetic testosterone. The 39-year-old pitcher was in the midst of a successful comeback season with the A's:

The 39-year-old Colon is 10-9 with a 3.43 ERA in 24 starts this season, his first with the A's, and has a 171-122 record in 15 big league seasons. He was due to start Thursday in Tampa.

A two-time All-Star, he won the 2005 AL Cy Young Award after going 21-8 for the Los Angeles Angels.

Five players have been suspended so far this year:

Marlon Byrd, 34, free agent outfielder
Melky Cabrera, 28, Giants outfielder
Bartolo Colon, 39, Athletics pitcher
Freddie Galvis, 22, Phillies infielder
Guillermo Mota, 38, Giants pitcher

It's a five-member sample size, and we can't be definite about who uses performance-enhancing drugs and who doesn't. Nevertheless, the patterns are suspicious. Older athletes, especially those whose statistics have improved recently, are one group who should be scrutinized. And, yes, Bay Area teams, whom three out of the five miscreants play for, seem to be culpable. Coincidence...or are we just trying to escape the obvious?

[Update 8/23 - Bruce Jenkins:

In the wake of Bartolo Colon's 50-game suspension, identical to Cabrera's bust for excessive levels of testosterone, the Bay Area is now viewed as the epicenter for performance-enhancing drugs. Why would anyone doubt that at this point?]

The Big One That Got Away

Los Angeles Angels rookie Mike Trout is tearing up the American League:

Heading into Saturday night's play, Trout was leading the league in average (.347, leaving everyone else in the dust), stolen bases (33) and runs scored (84, in 84 games), while ranking third in on-base percentage (.408), second in slugging percentage (.603), and second in OPS (1.012). He's a legitimate MVP candidate - Rookie of the Year is a dead-solid lock - and he's done all this despite a late start, joining the Angels near the end of April, which leads us to the most remarkable development of all.

Virtually by himself, he transformed the Angels from a sad-sack disaster into perhaps the most feared team in baseball.

22 organizations, including the local teams Giants and A's, had their shot at drafting Mike Trout in 2009 before the Angels picked him at #25 (the Diamondbacks selected two others ahead of him and the Angels also had slot #24).

According to veteran SF Chronicle sportswriter Bruce Jenkins, Mike Trout hasn't been over-hyped. His statistics, depending on what one is measuring, compare with Ty Cobb, Al Kaline, Joe DiMaggio, Rickey Henderson, Frank Robinson, and Mickey Mantle, all of whom are in the Hall of Fame.

On Tuesday Mike Trout turns 21.