Playing Baseball With Four Leftfielders And Three Second Basemen

AT LEAST GIANTS ARE PLAYING BONDS ON THE ROAD

With all their injuries it’s amazing that the A’s are still just six games under .500. Take for instance last Tuesday. Against Detroit ’s Justin Verlander, coach Bob Geren fielded three second basemen (Marco Scutaro, Donnie Murphy, Mark Ellis) and four leftfielders (Jack Cust, Mark Kotsay, Nick Swisher, Travis Buck). Somehow, the plucky A’s beat the Tigers.

BONDS LOOKING HIS AGE
Those interested in adding Barry Bonds next season, presumably to play DH, should note the “audacity” of some borderline Major League pitchers who have dared to challenge the hobbled future homerun king. Many have been successful as of late in making Bonds look like the 43-year-old that he is.

INGE FOR CHAVEZ, DINARDO
The Tigers’ Brandon Inge may have less power and fielding prowess at third and hit around .250, but I would value his tenacity on my team more than the meandering Eric Chavez…I must have seen three Lenny DiNardo starts in person this season and he’s done of great job for the A’s but I just can’t help thinking that journeyman pitchers of his ilk represented those lean years in Oakland between 1993 and 1998. Remember Doug Johns, Wojciechowski, John Briscoe?

KOTSAY ON HIS WAY OUT?
I wonder if this will be Mark Kotsay’s last season in Oakland because he doesn’t seem very happy lately. He’s been caught lazily throwing the ball back to the infield; including one this week after making a sprinting grab in shallow right-center he tossed the ball underhanded on the run high in the air and way off line of second base.

DE TOCQUEVILLE PLAYING BASEBALL
I’m glad to see the Giants playing Barry Bonds often on this road trip instead of “saving” him for a chance to break Aaron’s mark at AT&T Park . It would be the worst message possibly to the fans of San Francisco, in effect, saying management values this record more than they do about winning ballgames…Like the Frenchmen Alexis de Tocqueville a few hundred years ago taught us it’s sometimes better to see our country through the eyes of foreigners. On the World Soccer Daily podcast, which also airs on Sirius, two Englishmen in L.A. have it right when they talk about Bonds, steroids and baseball. Host Steven Cohen noted that controversy with Bud Selig in attendance when Bonds breaks the mark is “rubbish”. “They keep talking about steroids, but nobody has done anything about it” He notes that FIFA would have at least set a threshold where if you stepped over the line you would be punished, in baseball nothing has been done.