FanNation - The Republic of Sport

What is wrong with us if a over hyped huge ego who has never won anything first has a book dedicated to his genius, now will have a movie made about him?  What has Billy Beane done to deserve such status since his teams never won a AL championship nor made it out of the 1st round of the playoffs when they did qualify.  Now using the same old mantra of small team economics they are no longer competitive, and for this the organziation is portrayed in a movie?

If you wish to consider Oakland and the Bay area to be the epicenter of the Steroid era, then why is no consideration turned to the lack of attention that the A's first office and management turned to their players as they saw incredible improvements.  Here you have a book acclaiming the genius of the man who created stats to to discern the skills of players that others overlooked since they were more than the old 5 tool maxim, but we are to believe that the A's organization did not know that the Giambi brothers, Tejeda and others were using PEDs.  I would bet somewhere in the A's archives you will find the secret stats used to determine what players did in the midst of the PED cycles to help determine lineups and trades.   Notice how the A's records have gotten worse every year since MLB began to test players for PED's.

Sad part is that for all they hype Billy has received, no one ever noticed that they stats never produced under pressure.  Who can forget the collapse against the Yanks & Red Sox when they A's were up 2-0 in a five game series and fell apart, in a game then gave up in the final games.  I will never forget the series against the Red Sox when on two successive plays the A's squandered runs by neglecting to complete the play before the beginning their whining to the umpires over the evil things the Red Sox did to them on the play.  Eric Brynes cries to the ump that Jason Varitek blocked him off the plate when he had no play (which he did) spiking him in the process instead of touching home plate to score a run since the ump had not made a call.  Varitek calmly got the ball and tagged out Eric as he stood crying to the ump of the bad things Jason did.  Then the very next play Miguel Tejada was interfered with by the Red Sox 3b when trying to score from 2nd and gives up on the play to argue with umpire that he should be calling interference and again is tagged out where if he would have finished the play he could have scored.  Needless to say the A's went on to lose that game and the series to the Red Sox.

How conveniant that MLB has been able to focus all the PED attention on the players, while claiming ignorance from their front office knowledge.  For all the money that are awarded in contracts, don't you think the front office of teams are doing some form of due diligence to determine if a player is using or not, or do you believe in the Bud Selig Sgt. Schultz "I know nothing" defense.  Tony LaRussa probably allowed his players to use chemicals in their bodies that he would protest against livestock breeders using to increase the bulk of their animals, then claims he knew nothing about McGwire and Canseco using right under his nose.

Needless to say I will be saving my money and not viewing the homage to Billy the Blowhard movie if and when it is released.