Rickey Henderson

On Wednesday, the San Francisco Giants will be taking the field against the Texas Rangers in the 106th edition of baseball's World Series. The players will be trotting out to their respective positions, digging into the batter's box and toeing the pitcher's mound with only one thing on their minds: winning.

The 1980's cannot be thirty years in the past already, can they?

Surely there's been some mistake; say it ain't so, Peter Ueberroth.  Please tell me Cheers and The Cosby Show are still atop the ratings, Bruce Springsteen is still The Boss, and Major League Baseball still has 26 teams, four divisions, no interleague play and no wild card.  Or if you can't say all that, at least pretend for the sake of argument.

The Oakland Athletics have a history of talented and interesting players.

The club was born in Philadelphia in 1901, left for Kansas City in 1955, and finally settled in Oakland in 1968. They are the proud owners of nine world series titles, trailing only the Saint Louis Cardinals (10) and the New York Yankees (27).

37 Athletics are enshrined in the baseball hall of fame and there are certainly more to come.

My criteria for this list includes: statistics, defense, aura, and longevity with the team.

Baseball is an absurd game. And I think that’s why we love it.

I was reminded of this when I happened across The Sandlot as I was skimming through channels the other day. In an odd sort of bummer, I tuned in at the very end, just after the gang has finally defeated Hercules and Smalls and Benny have their meet and greet with James Earl Jones. Alas, I had missed out on all the fun stuff.

The good news is that I was in time for the money shot.

With one of the most exciting times of the baseball season, the trading deadline, behind us, the contenders should begin to take shape within the next month as we move closer to October baseball.

With so much talk of trades the past several weeks, I decided to look back and name what I feel is the best trade, be it deadline, off-season, or otherwise, in the history of each MLB team.

Some decisions were certainly easier than others, with moves like the Lou Brock and Jeff Bagwell trades a no-brainer. However, for other team's it was much harder to settle on a best trade.

To pick four players from the history of baseball is what impossible looks like.

To even start, you would have to define the list. In baseball, the difference between position players and pitchers is enormous.

When Curt Schilling started Game 6 of the 2004 ALCS and beat the Yankees, was their a better baseball player than him on that day?

Probably not but that does not mean I am going to carve his face into a mountain.

Babe Ruth might be the greatest baseball player ever but he played in a different era.

Every spring, there are a handful of questions that each team faces and must resolve before the start of the regular season.

Often these questions revolve around how to set the lineup and many times start with who will be the team's leadoff hitter.

For the teams that had the 10 guys that follow on this list, that was never an issue, as you could pencil them in atop the lineup and count on them to be a catalyst for your team.

I have chosen who i feel are the top 10 leadoff hitters in baseball history.

I love players who have confidence. Give me the guy who thinks he is the best over the guy who is just happy to have a job in the major leagues.

Take Ricky Henderson, for example. A lot of people didn’t like him because they felt he was arrogant. I just thought he was extremely confident in his abilities.

I mean, who doesn’t want a guy who refers to himself in the third person on their team?

If you were looking to pick your greatest ever Athletics lineup, based on single-season offensive performances, where would you start?

For a team with a storied 109-year history, there are options from every era and at every position.

The outfield might be as good a place as any, with a host of Hall of Fame members and All-Stars among their number.

How about the stars from the championship-winning teams that three-peated in the mid 1970s?

"Everyone I know, everywhere I go/People need some reason to believe/I don't know about anyone but me." —Jackson Browne

If the Oakland Athletics' season were compressed into a single game, this would be point that is often affectionately referred to as garbage time. 

Kuip and Foss would be at least three-deep into the Dibs, with the latter undoubtedly regaling the audience with old war stories from his playing days in the '70s, anything to distract viewers from the tedium on the field.