Visitor's Views

Once again, I’d like to inject some opposing viewpoints into this blog. I have reached out to my fellow bloggers to see what they had to say. Since the Oakland A's will be visiting Friendly Fenway tonight, I contacted Jim, the fine writer of Tastelikedirt. I asked him to answer a couple questions for me since his was the finest A's blog I’ve seen. He, thankfully, agreed. I asked him the same questions I asked my other visiting fans. I wonder how the answers compare. Here’s what he had to say:

When did you start blogging?

I started the A’s Tastelikedirt blog in January of 2007. I had a few various A’s related websites in prior years, you know, free website templates that you fill in. They were mostly photos I had taken and were not updated with any regularity.

What is the theme/goal of your blog?

It’s a blog about the Oakland A’s. I think the original goal was to keep track of significant things that happened during the season and to use baseball cards as graphics, also to document games that I went to personally and to use photos that I took at the games as graphics. I also started sending baseball cards through the mail for autographs and posting the returned cards and writing about the players cool enough to sign for me TTM.
In 2007 there was only a handful of baseball card blogs, and even fewer A’s blogs. You really had to seek them out. I could read ‘em all each evening. I figured I was filling a niche. Somewhere in, I don’t remember exactly when, the middle of 2008? There was an explosion of baseball cards blogs. Which is awesome. I tried keeping up with them all. Reading them and adding them to my blogroll. There’s so many now I can’t keep up. I see new ones all the time. Surprisingly the number of A’s blogs has not really gone up.

Which A’s are you most confident in?

Catcher Kurt Suzuki is the first one to come to mind, second baseman Mark Ellis…Adam Rosales has done real well as a super utility guy in his first year with the A’s.

Which A’s concern you the most?

Ben Sheets, Jack Cust, Eric Chavez…I’m concerned with the young pitching staff to see what way there all going to go. I’m getting more confident in them though things in the pitching dept are looking mostly pretty good this year. Perfect Game anyone? Oh, the most obvious problem is the Offense. Big concern right there. Even if pitching and defense keeps the A’s around 500 all year and they manage to win the weak AL West, the terrible offense should end their play off run pretty quick…but, you never know.

Which Red Sox player scares you the most?

Well, all their scary players are getting old now aren’t they? My wife gets a kick out of that thing that Papplebon does, where he’s getting ready to pitch and he has his head down and brings it up slowly to reveal the crazy look on his face and bug eyes…HA! That never gets old.
　
Which Red Sox player scares you the least?

Well, a week or two ago that would be Ortiz, hands down. My general knowledge of the Red Sox this year, is that they were built/re-stocked with a focus on pitching and defense and the pitching and defense have not been extraordinary so far this year. Maybe the Red Sox GM wearing disguises to Pearl Jam concerts scares me the most, or is it the least.

What is your prediction for the series?

I’m thinking the A’s take two of three. Is it a three game series? I have not seen the pitching match ups, but Josh Beckett is probably one of the scarier Red Sox to have to face.

What is the first thing that comes to mind when you see “36”?

Oddly enough I think of the guy who played Safety for the Oakland Raiders when the played the Eagles in the Super Bowl. Whatever his name was. Mike Davis? I don’t know.

Since I am far from a professional interviewer, I hope these questions offer some insight into the Visitor’s Section. (If you have a question you wish I had asked, let me know. If I do this again with other visiting teams, maybe I’ll use it.) Thanks again to Jim for helping me out. I wish his A's luck.

At least when they’re playing the Yankees.