Billy Beane

"I could ask the Phillies to keep me on to add to my statistics, but my love for the game won't let me do that." —Mike Schmidt

It’s always refreshing for a Hall-of-Famer like Mike Schmidt to know when the time’s right to hang up the spikes.

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The newest sports movie to hit the pre-production stage, titled Moneyball,  is a story that tracks the Oakland A’s baseball team and its unconventional general manager Billy Beane, played by none other than Brad Pitt.

Bob Geren does not belong with the name Albert Einstein, but he does have something in common with him. That is Einstein's definition of insanity, which is doing the same things over and over again expecting a different result. 

Well, for the Oakland A's and their bullpen, Geren continues to make the same errors in decision making or in some cases the lack of decision making process. Tonight's another perfect example of Geren's insanity. 

The grades are in as we approach the halfway mark of the 2010 season.

What teams have lived up to the hype in the American League West, and which have laid an egg and why?

Here is a team-by-team breakdown recapping the first 81 games (almost), and what to watch for in the second half.

Who will be the movers and shakers in the second half?

As the A’s round out their first successful road trip this season with a 6-4 record, their winning percentage sits at .527 (29-26). This is good enough for a half-game out of first place in the AL West.  That corresponds to a final record of 85-77, which may be enough to take the division. 

This is not a bad season, overall. However, a lot can be done to raise this percentage and give the A’s a legitimate chance at a late playoff appearance, and possibly even greater success.

As the A’s round out their first successful road trip this season with a 6-4 record, their winning percentage sits at .527 (29-26). This is good enough for a half game out of first place in the AL West.  That corresponds to a final record of 85-77, which may be enough to take the division. 

This is not a bad season, overall; however, a lot can be done to raise this percentage and give the A’s a legitimate chance at a late playoff appearance, and possible success.

In "The 209" they call that pitchin'.

The days leading up to Oakland A's pitcher Dallas Braden's perfect game against the Tampa Bay Rays on Sunday—the 19th in MLB history and the first for Oakland since Catfish's 42 years ago—sure had its fair share of talkin'.

The New York Yankees' Alex Rodriguez said he didn't want to extend Braden's "15 minutes" after continued questions and jawing about the controversy regarding the two players' baseball etiquette dust-up (mound dirt-up?) last month.

Last year the Oakland A's made big noise in the acquisition of Matt Holliday. Unfortunately, it also meant that the A's gave up talent to the Colorado Rockies to get him and now that talent is doing so much more than Holliday did in an A's uniform.

This trade by far was the worst decision Beane has ever made for the A's. He gave up Carlos Gonzalez, Greg Smith, and Huston Street to bring Holliday over from the Rockies. Holliday didn't win many fans in Oakland with his lackadaisical play and his slow start to the season.

He eventually was traded on July 24th, 2009 to the St.

Once a proud franchise that spent much of the early part of the last decade as contenders in the American League West, once a franchise that was hailed all across the world of baseball as a club that practiced the once revolutionary method of "Moneyball" under the direction of general manager Billy Beane, once a franchise that fans could count on to challenge the New York Yankees for American League supremacy, the Oakland Athletics are now one of baseball's failing franchises—a downward spiral that has taken place over a mere three seaso

It looks like the Oakland Athletics will retain their main source of power from the past three seasons by bringing back Jack Cust for a one-year, incentive-laden deal. The deal is reportedly similar to the $2.8 million he made last season. 

Cust was targeted by several teams this offseason, but decided to stick with the A's instead. In 2009, the A's slugger had a .240/.356/.417 season, blasted a team-leading 25 homers, and walked 93 times.