Comments(1)Because Baseball Is Just Too Depressing Right Now
Gotta find your bliss somewhere. Here’s some of mine.
In the wake of a karma-fueled seven-game winning streak (and just after a karma-choking ten-run blowout), the Oakland Athletics have finally found the salve for their open wound at the third base position, while also infusing the team with its biggest LDS presence since Bobby Crosby’s brother took an awkward walk through the locker room while still wearing his missionary tags. From the A’s Twitter feed:
“In Rd 5, we took Steven Parker, a LH-hitting 3B from BYU who hit over .350 w/ 20 HR over his last 2 years, helping our infield org depth.”
While CurveBall City has yet to check the kid’s temple recommend, as a junior at BYU who played at American Fork High he might as well have a CTR insignia tatooed on his forehead (except that Mormons shouldn’t have tatoos, of course).
Needless to say, CurveBall City is thrilled about this pick, and not just because it thinks a religious connection and a ridiculously small amount of free publicity might net it the baseball equivalent of backstage passes come September 2011 or so. The simple truth is that third base in Oakland has been a festering hole for the last few years, filled with nothing more than Jack Hannahan, 1/4 of Nomar Garciaparra and the desiccated corpse of Eric Chavez. If the A’s can manage to plug that hole with a fielder that can hit for both average and power, and who’s paid roughly one-eleventh of what’s been going to Chavez, things can only get better in The House That Al Davis Built and Then Burned to the Ground. The fact that The Chosen Cougar might also give regular, Steve Young-esque firesides at the Oakland Interstake Center is only a bonus.
Here’s hoping he doesn’t get traded to Cleveland for Mark DeRosa and a bag of magic beans. 
UPDATE: Looks like our boy Steve will have himself a buddy in Kane County. From the A’s Twitter feed again:
“In the 23rd we selected Kent Walton, a CF from BYU who was our 42nd rounder last year. He hit .388 w/ 9 HR & 19 SB this season.”
Maybe they can go tracting together.
ANOTHER UPDATE: I swear I wasn’t trying to be prophetic in the first sentence of this post. Again from that helpful A’s Twitter guy:
“In the 42nd round we selected Blake Crosby, brother of our IF Bobby. Blake hit .397 for Sac. State in his SR year this spring.”
At this rate, Kane County won’t be able to field a team come General Conference weekend.
Gotta find your bliss somewhere. Here’s some of mine.
Buster Olney had this to say about Matt Holliday:
Holliday is really respected by talent evaluators as a dangerous hitter, but here’s the deal: He has 49 at-bats and no homers, and in order to cash in as a free agent this fall, he’s got to do a whole lot better in the extra-base hit department. As much as Holliday has done as a hitter in recent years, he must prove to rival executives that he can put up big power numbers outside Coors Field. It’s as simple as that.
I am glad someone else has noticed.
In yet another sign from the baseball gods telling us that we were fools to trade away Nick Swisher, the Swish-Man PITCHED for New York yesterday, tossing a scoreless eighth inning. A scoreless eighth inning that just so happened to be the most dominant Yankee pitching performance of the day.
We’re laughing now, but just wait until 2035 when fans and media alike dub Nick Swisher the greatest Yankee of all time. We’ll curse the day we lost Swish and his 78 MPH cheese.
Details here. This is not exactly the best forum to talk about this. Suffice it to say that this is a tragedy, and that our thoughts and prayers go out to them who knew him better than us.