2/3 Giants Dominican Prospects down the drain. Money well spent.               

Angel Vilallona: Murder
Duanle Jones: Drugs
Rafael Rodriguez: ??? Maybe Arson???

ESPN: Giants Prospect Duanel Jones Busted For Drugs

Golden State of Mind: Larry Ellison Confirms He Is Trying To Buy Warriors

Please oh Mighty Sports God, Save this beloved franchise from the depths it has sunk and return the team to the greatness it deserves.

Sheets
Duchscherer
Anderson
Braden
Gonzalez/Cahill/Mazzero

Will this end with the A’s back in the playoffs? Probably not but it does mean they will be much more competitive. If the offense can score more than 2 runs in a game, I like their chances and could be a sleeper playoff pick.

MLB.Com: Ben Sheets to the A’s

Brett Anderson remains ahead of the curve

Frank Anderson told his son to not throw a breaking ball when he was young. And Anderson would know something about the impact of curveballs and sliders on a youngster, given his experience coaching at Texas Tech, Texas, and now, as the head coach at Oklahoma State.
But when his boy was 14, Anderson took him out in front of the house and said that now that he was bigger and older, it would be OK for him to try a curveball. Just to see how it felt. His son tried a curve, and it broke sharply, perfectly, enough that Anderson instantly knew that his son hadn’t followed his rule against throwing curveballs. “I was just shaking my head,” Frank Anderson recalled over the weekend, chuckling.
His son had clearly developed a feel for throwing a baseball in the many, many days and hours he had spent hanging around the ballpark. When the boy was growing up, a babysitter would bring him over to the ball field at the University of Texas and shut the gate behind him, and the kid — quiet, a boy who seemed to watch everything that went on — would just roam, playing catch with anybody who had the time. Frank Anderson’s locker was cluttered with his kid’s stuff — a left-handed catcher’s mitt, other gloves. After the Andersons moved to Oklahoma State, Greg Evans, an assistant, played catch with him, the two of them playing different types of throwing games. “He was a field rat,” Anderson recalled.

The curve has always been there, but Anderson’s added velocity has made him a potential ace.

So it came to pass that Frank Anderson was in the stands at Fenway Park on July 6, watching the boy who wasn’t supposed to throw curveballs but did anyway, seeing him challenging Red Sox hitters, dominating them. His son — Brett Anderson of the Oakland Athletics — struck out nine and walked two in throwing a shutout, his velocity climbing into the mid-90s.
In the second half of the season, after he began to pitch to both sides of the plate, Brett had days of total dominance. Frank believes that his son’s ability to do regular weight training — which is limited in the minors because of the facilities available — helped him, along with his physical growth. Anderson, after all, doesn’t turn 22 until next week. At the time that Anderson was drafted, his fastball was in the 90-91 mph range, and he was viewed as someone who might be able to work in the middle or the back end of a rotation. But year after year, his velocity has improved, and he has used his fastball with his heightened understanding of pitching.
Over the last three months of the season, Anderson posted month-to-month ERAs of 1.87, 4.66 and 2.28 (and he allowed one run in five innings in an October start, as well).
For the season, Anderson would finish 11-11 with a 4.06 ERA. Early in the year, he had some tough moments, and his dad suggested over the phone that Brett be more aggressive, challenge hitters. The son, a young man of few words, showed his dad, as he had with that curveball, that his understanding of the game he played was further along than his father knew.
“Dad,” Brett Anderson said, “this isn’t like pitching to Ponca City.”

A slice of Cubs History. The atricle is about figuring out the clues to when this game was played.

Bleed Cubbie Blue: Historic Photo

Somebody once told me God doesn’t listen to A’s fans.

Athletics Nation: The Holy Athletics

If this deal went down I do not know how I could still be a Warrior fan. I hate Chris Cohan.

Golden State of Mind: Monta Ellis to Boston for Ray Allen

Brett Favre has revealed to the World that he has actually begun to age backwards and plans to never retire from the NFL.

 ESPN: Farve Says He Will Never Retire

Sean Salisbury Has A Few Things To Get Off His Chest (Redux)

USA Today’s Michael Hiestand has a storyabout Sean Salisbury you should read: “I was ashamed, and I didn’t want to say anything,” says Salisbury, who was an NFL quarterback for eight years and an ESPN NFL analyst for 12. “