The Future Begins Now

The future begins now. On this particular afternoon, Jemille Weeks showed up at the coliseum with his mom, dad and sister in tow. He had just signed a contract as our number one draft choice. He took a little batting practice and a few balls in the infield. He had a great career at Miami and everything points to him being on the fast track to coming up to Oakland in the next year or two years.
Rickey Henderson clowns with Carlos, Bob Geren and Tye Waller shortly before the first pitch. It seems like old times again. Ricky always bringing his random hijinx to any situation he's in.

In the A's dugout literally moments before the first pitch, Rickey veered to his right and ended up in the Mariners dugout as Ichiro Suzuki stepped into the batters box. Here he is clowning in the dugout with Adrian Beltre, Raul Ibañez, Miguel Cairo, and Richie Sexson. Ricky is a great raconteur, comedian, future hall-of-famer, all rolled into one. The moment Ricky arrives, the curtain goes up...the movie begins.
Lew Wolff, taking a page from the Bill Veeck...as in Wreck, enjoying the first few innings of the evening game on a very warm night, with fans in the left field bleachers. I reminded him how Veeck used to sit shirtless and drink with the fans in the bleachers on many hot humid days at old Comiskey Park, even going so far as to having a shower with a pull chain on the aisle above the top row just below the exploding scoreboard...so one could cool off on a particularly sultry summer's day. Lew smiled...and I thought I detected a mischievous twinkle in his eye...

A departure - something we rarely do...but these are changing times. On that same evening, Sean Gallagher made his Oakland Athletics debut. Throwing a fastball to Vlad Guerrero. He had a very impressive outing, went seven innings, threw hard and can only bring hope, anticipation and growing optimism for the future of Oakland A's baseball with their young, up and coming prospects.

In the clubhouse pre-game, Carlos Gonzalez goes to Greg's Smith's locker to borrow a pair of Oakleys. Greg has this huge stash of Oakleys in his locker. In the first shot Greg's suggesting a pair, "How bout these?" and Carlos is checking them out.

Carlos sporting them,  "Yeah! How do I look now?!"   Totally uptown, dog!!!
 
Brad Zeigler delivering the pitch that broke the ML Record for starting a career without giving up any earned runs.  This is pretty amazing when you think about it. He's pitched since the end of May and has YET to give up a run, albeit he's a reliever, it's simply incredible.

Two former A's, Ron Washington and Art Howe, in deep discussion during the one game the A's salvaged in the three game series from the Rangers. Gone...but definitely not forgotten...permanent residents in THE COUNTRY of BASEBALL