Entering a Saturday game against the New York Yankees, closer Jeurys Familia remained unavailable for the New York Mets as trade winds continued to swirl.
The Mets and Oakland A’s were knee-deep in trade discussions for Familia and had begun to review medical records of all players involved in the proposed trade as of Friday night. And shortly after the conclusion of a 7-6 loss to the Yankees on Saturday, the Mets and A’s finalized the deal for Familia.
In exchange for Familia, the A’s are sending minor league infielder William Toffey, right-handed pitcher Bobby Wahl and international bonus pool money to the Mets.
We’ve acquired minor league infielder William Toffey, RHP Bobby Wahl and international bonus pool money from Oakland in exchange for RHP Jeurys Familia. #Mets
The Oakland A’s will make history on Saturday night when hosting nearly 57,000 fans, which will be the largest crowd to ever amasse at the Oakland Coliseum. It will also be the largest single-game crowd for any MLB contest this season, besting the 53,904 fans who showed up for a June 26 game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Chicago Cubs at Dodgers Stadium.
In order to reach the near-57,000 mark, the A’s will open up Mount Davis for the first time in 13 years, allowing for an additional 8,190 fans.
The exact attendance is expected to be 56,782, which is slightly more than the 55,989 fans who attended a game against the San Francisco Giants in June of 2004.
Walk-up tickets for the Saturday night game will not be available.
Tonight’s Oakland A’s game is sold out. Attendance projected to be largest A’s game in Oakland Coliseum history. pic.twitter.com/ug2twBoOKG
There aren’t a ton of selling points surrounding the Oakland A’s this season, so the team has decided to promote an opposing player.
Ahead of Opening Day in Oakland on Thursday, the A’s sent out a tweet promoting their game with the Angels. They used Japanese player Shohei Ohtani as a selling point, even though he plays for the opposing team.
You know it’s not a great situation when you’re promoting your opponents’ players instead of your own. But there aren’t a ton of household names on the A’s to choose from.
Ohtani is set to make his pitching debut on Sunday. He could make his debut as a batter before then.
The Oakland Athletics have a bit of a rivalry with the San Francisco Giants — so much so, in fact, that they’re introducing a special pricing plan aimed at Giants fans.
The A’s announced Saturday that Giants fans will have to pay $50 to park at the stadium — $20 more than it will cost your average Oakland fan.
There’s a catch, though — if you’re a Giants fan willing to yell “go A’s,” you get the base price.
Assuming it’s serious — and there’s no reason to doubt it is — this is pretty silly. The Giants have their own history of pettiness, but not quite on this level. Anything for some publicity, it seems.
The MLB season may still be a couple of weeks away, but the Oakland Athletics are already getting in some shots at their crosstown rivals.
The meme du jour that has been lighting Twitter on fire this week has been (another) “SpongeBob SquarePants”-themed one. The basic meme template features a logo or likeness Photoshopped onto an image of the Krusty Krab, the town’s most popular restaurant in the TV show. A competing one is also Photoshopped onto an image of The Chum Bucket, a restaurant across the street that nobody in the town ever eats at. The meme is essentially meant to indicate the superiority of one brand to another. Here are a few examples:
Come Friday, the A’s decided to get in on the fun by trolling fellow Bay Area club, the San Francisco Giants, and you can guess where they went with it.
Granted, a bit of fact-checking might quell Oakland’s Twitter fingers — though the A’s finished with a better record than the Giants in 2017, they still went a mere 75-87. They also haven’t won a World Series since 1989, as opposed to three World Series wins for San Francisco in just the last decade alone. But you can probably excuse Oakland’s little bout of topical fun since they have proven to have perhaps the best team Twitter account in the MLB.
The Oakland A’s had their annual dress up day for rookies and, not surprisingly, the outfits were outstanding.
After the A’s defeated the Mariners in their final home of the season, the team’s traded their uniforms for outfits with a wide variety of themes. There was a Babe Ruth, Marvin the Martian, a judge, and more. Take a look below.
Oakland A’s catcher Bruce Maxwell knelt during the national anthem played before Saturday’s A’s-Rangers game in Oakland.
From the @sfchronicle’s Santiago Mejia, here is A’s rookie Bruce Maxwell becoming the first MLB player to take a knee for the anthem: pic.twitter.com/q8QVY9hW15
Maxwell is African-American, and despite kneeling, the San Francisco Chronicle describes him as very patriotic. You can see he held his cap over his heart for the anthem. They say his father was in the Army.
Maxwell appeared to be moved to kneel after being troubled by President Trump’s “son of a b—-” comment Friday night about those who kneel in the NFL. Take a look at what he wrote on Twitter:
Don't be surprised if you start seeing athletes kneeling in other sports now!! Comments like that coming from our president. WOW!
