A good amount of Oakland News, so let’s get to it.
Oakland A’s Slide
First, as this is written, the Oakland Athletics are at 22 wins and 29 losses – three of those came at the hands of the New York Yankees, and then the A’s dropped three more games from the Minnesota Twins. And don’t look now, but the Kansas City Royals and the Texas Rangers are next up. If the A’s don’t recover, and soon, fans will look back on this period as the start of what was a death slump. The Oakland A’s have been shut out nine times in 51 games; the record is 33 by the 1908 St. Louis Cardinals and over a 154-game schedule. So, the A’s have 24 shut outs to notch to tie the record – let’s hope they don’t get there.
What’s the problem? Simple: the Oakland A’s can’t seem to get on base. They have a league-worst .210 batting average. It would seem that small-ball’s the answer – just getting on base is a good start, even if it’s via the bunt.
Blogger VSmoothe Done With Oakland
Someone punting, but not bunting, on Oakland is Blogger VSmoothe, or Echa Schnider, creator of the Oakland blog A Better Oakland. I ran into her last Saturday, while walking along Lake Park and approaching the Oakland Lake Merritt Farmers Market, where she had just come from, and sporting nice new glasses. I asked Echa if she was going to blog any more in the future, or if I could sit and talk with her on video, and she was on the fence about both, but basically said that she was done with Oakland and eyeing a move out of the city.
I think, just reading between the lines of our talk, that at the end of the day, Echa didn’t have family here and Oakland was turning in a direction she didn’t like. It’s safe to say that the way Oakland Mayor Jean Quan handled the Occupy Oakland episode was the last straw for her. Although, to be fair, for Echa, it wasn’t just Mayor Quan’s fault:
Nice show of leadership! MT @TheBayCitizen: CM Brunner: “I don’t think Occupy Oakland will be going away anytime soon.” bayc.it/pGl6/
— V Smoothe (@Vsmoothe) October 26, 2011
As a Downtown Oakland dweller, Echa had to live with the results of the Mayor’s and the City Of Oakland’s hard-then-soft-then-hard approach to Occupy Oakland on a daily basis. But, and again, I do think that if Echa had close family here, it would have made that, and everything else, easier to deal with. It also helps to have gone to school here, as I did, from teenage years and up, at Allendale Elementary, then Bret Harte Junior High (now middle school) and then Skyline High School before returning from Texas-Arlington to go to Cal. Those roots gave me a love for Oakland and for the SF Bay Area region that it exists within that transcends politics and elected officials and corrupt news organizations (not to say that elected officials are always corrupt by association in the sentence). I think if Echa had those roots, she’d look at Oakland differently, but having said that, I do understand where she’s coming from.
B Restaurant Closing Due To Sale
As I noted earlier, B Restaurant in Old Oakland is closing because its owners got a sale offer they couldn’t refuse. Visit and have a family-style dinner Friday night between 6 PM and 9 PM at 499 9th Street.
New Parish Hosts Georgia Anne Muldrow With Dudley Perkins Friday
The New Parish at 519 18th Street at San Pablo Avenue is hosting singer Georgia Anne Muldrow with Dudley Perkins Friday June 8th (next week). Here’s a taste of her singing work:
For tickets, click here: http://www.thenewparish.com/event/116863/
Stay tuned.