Bob Melvin Fired, replaced with Daily Link Dump

Effective immediately.

Wait a second.  A.J. Hinch?  Late ’90s catcher-of-the-future A.J. Hinch?  The guy who put up a 328/420/568 minor league line in 1997 and was at one point a top-50 prospect?

Hey, is that Corey Koskie? (September 13, 2000 - Dave Ross/Oakland Tribune, via Flickr, without permission)

Hinch, you will recall, arrived in Oakland in 1998 in the same position-player bumper crop that yielded Eric Chavez, Miguel Tejada, Ben Grieve, Scott Spiezio, and Adam Piatt.  He’s best remembered for being packaged with Grieve and Angel Berroa for Cory Lidle, Johnny Damon, and Mark Ellis.

The incoming and outgoing talent in that trade looks a little silly eight years down the line, huh?

Hinch and Eric Byrnes were teammates on the 2000 squad.  While it’s not that strange to have a manager manage a former teammate – Joe Girardi is doing it in New York and Ozzie Guillen did it in Chicago – what is strange is that Hinch is only two years older than Byrnes.

{edited to remove universal strikethrough pervading the rest of Free Kraut, fsu}

Dear Babs …

Boy, I dunno — Rich Guy’s private letter to Babs “Big” Boxer (originally provided without a clear trail of provenance by Zennie Abraham) sure strikes me as Bybee/Yoo-ish.

Suresure, each individual fact vets out — but the way he concatenates them, collapses timeframes, and raises outmoded issues (unpredictable walkup crowds? I thought the A’s had spent the last 5 or so years addressing that … so that they’re predictably tiny) makes his entire framing pretty specious.

Now, I myself don’t hold a brief for Oakland or Alameda County — personally I’d prefer that the A’s new stadium be sited somewhere within easy walking distance of a BART station within 30-40 minutes of downtown SF, but Crywolffisher has every right to move wherever the heck they want to. And there are obvious economic/regulatory/infrastructure advantages to SJ.

But this Dear Babs letter is a supremely dishonest piece of work.

There’s a game

Cahill pitching, Sweeney moved down in the order.

Cabrera
Suzuki
Giambi 1B
Holliday
Cust DH
Sweeney CF
Crosby 2B
Buck RF
Hannahan 3B

Wordle, labrador, bygone days

[Update]: Sigh. Manny suspended for PEDs. Commence firestorm.

Today’s clash of AL West titans is set for 12:35, so I guess this can serve as a combination DLD, game thread, and postgame woe-fest orgy of jubilation.

Expert analysis (the kind you just don’t get at those mainstream blogs): Brandon McCarthy gives up lots of home runs. Unfortunately, the A’s do not hit home runs.

If you grow weary of throwing errors and strikeouts and Vince Cotroneo musing about how the team really needs someone to “step up and provide a spark”, go decipher some anagrams.

Wordle:

Labrador:

Labrador update:

Labrador update 2:

Labrador update 3:

Bygone days:

Eh, Rampaged Tots

Me go deathtraps

Them got parades

Death game sport

The Port Damages

A tampered ghost

Aghast: dope term

Aorta depth gems

Pasta doth merge

OT: Gathered maps

Greased mathpot

He petted orgasm

Stomper date hag

Argh! Poets mated!

F**K losing. Fank it all.

Giese

Jjjsixsix is awesome. Jennifer is also awesome.

This is:

1 — recommended bleachers attire when Giese is pitching, and/or

2 — the money you could be saving with Gieseco, after it got mugged by that fence-building yokel (w/ apologies to Frank Rizzo)

Baby’s bottle

Your beer baby is weak!

Matt Holliday, circa 1983?

From yesterday’s Braves-Mets tilt.

Sluggerrr sez Go RRRoyals!

SCGHCSBCP

Some
Cuddly
Guys
Hoping
Can
Score
Big
Clown
Porn

Dallas

DLD or Condilump Ink Bar or whatever

The New Ballpark Blog has some stuff (today’s and yesterday’s diaries) that’s news to me. Most things are news to me several days/weeks/millennia after they’ve happened, so I’m sure you already know that stuff.

That’s the only A’s/baseball-related link I’m gonna put, because if I spend more than a few minutes typing, I’ll get DLDblocked again and have to delete. :P~~~

So I’ll leave you with something that illustrates why I have noooo desire to ever perform on-air journalism… I’m absolutely positive this would happen to me:

Battle of the shitty lineups

Suzuki C
Cabrera SS
Giambi 1B
Terrence Long LF
Cust-o-Fab DH
Crosby 3B
Henry Hill RF
Petit 2B
DFAvis CF