At the time of this writing, the Oakland Athletics sit at a distant third in the American League West, 18 games behind the Texas Rangers managed by Ron Washington, once the first-base coach under A's wonderboy Billy Beane. The A's have not had a winning season since making the playoffs in '06, which is to say they are long removed from the summer of 2002 when they were revolutionaries who reinvented baseball by embracing the radical teachings of a pork-and-beans plant security guard who shed the sport of its myths and turned it... More >>>