A’s focus on the present
Team aims for improvement; unfazed by uncertain future
MESA, Ariz. − They are Major League Baseball’s most unwanted.
They play in an aging, dilapidated stadium with an uncertain future beyond this season.
They are that other team in the Bay Area.
They are the Oakland Athletics. The team that once was one of the most powerful in the American League, the team that brought you everyone from Reggie Jackson to Catfish Hunter to Rollie Fingers to Rickey Henderson to Dave Stewart to Mark McGwire and Dennis Eckersley, is now the team that time forgot.
They lost 112 games last season, their most since 1916, and have finished a combined 86 games out of first place the past two years.
The season will be judged a success simply by losing fewer than 100 games.
Their future is 557 miles away across the desert, where the team intends to play in Las Vegas in 2028, knowing there might not be a soul on this year’s team still employed by the A’s when they’re on the Vegas Strip.
Still, there’s a season to be played, and Thursday could be perhaps the last homer opener in the 57-year history of Oakland Coliseum, with two fan groups planning an Opening Night protest between the Cleveland Guardians and A’s.
Yet, no matter how few people bother going to A’s games this season, drawing fewer than 840,000 fans every year since 2019, scouts and talent evaluators will tell you the A’s could be better than envisioned.
They may not be echoing the same refrain as A’s manager Mark Kotsay, who says that a .500 season is possible, but believe the A’s have an improved starting rotation, bullpen and lineup.
“[Kotsay] had a really good first meeting and I really appreciate what he said,” veteran pitcher Ross Stripling said. “Forget last year. Last year sucked. We’re better now. This season is going to be better. We’re going to come to the field expecting to win every day.”
It starts with the culture, thanks in part to the three veterans they brought in from the San Francisco Giants, signing starter Alex Wood, 33, trading for Stripling, 34, and picking up third baseman J.D. Davis, 30, after being released.
“Ultimately you want a group in the clubhouse that sets a culture of its own,” Kotsay says. “Obviously, it’s influenced my side as a manager to un
Bob Nightengale Columnist USA TODAY
the time-outs and on the bench. He was dialed in mentally, and that’s not an easy thing to do, to step in and bury a three. It was a big one.”
He is the most polarizing player still competing in this year’s NCAA men’s tournament: Shannon was suspended by the university in December after being arrested and charged with rape, a suspension that was reversed after six games by a federal judge who ruled that Illinois had violated Shannon’s civil rights. On the advice of his legal counsel, Shannon has not spoken to the media during the tournament.
Against the backdrop of a case that has threatened to engulf Illinois’ first Elite Eight berth since reaching the national championship game in 2005, Shannon has elevated his game to a level that places him among the top players in program history.
He’s scored in double figures in 41 consecutive games. He’s scored at least 20 points 21 times this season, a new Illinois record. Shannon is the first player in program history to score at least 25 points in three tournament games in a row – he had 26 against No. 14 Morehead State and 30 against No. 11 Duquesne – to give him 85 points through three games, the fourth-most by an Illinois player in a single tournament; every other player ranked in the school’s top 10 played at least four tournament games.
On his first basket of the game, Shannon became the first Illinois player to score 700 points in a season. Overall, Shannon has scored 20 or more points in seven games in a row to boost his average to 23.5 points per game, the fourth-best single-season mark in school history,
“He’s amazing,” senior guard Justin Harmon said. “That’s what’s expected from him.”
With him sidelined with foul trouble, Illinois turned to senior forward Coleman Hawkins, the only other player in double figures with 12 points, and continued a surge in defensive production that began following a 77-71 loss to Purdue earlier this month. The Illini have held three opponents in a row under 70 points for the first time since November.
“We have a saying in our program that offense wins games, defense wins championships, and these guys are all mature, old, they’ve been through it and understood,” said Underwood. “Tonight we did that, and we’ll have to continue to do that to keep playing.”
Illinois will continue to lean heavily on Shannon’s hot hand against Connecticut, an opponent with the length and depth to throw waves of elite athletes in his direction and force the Illini to look elsewhere for production. That the offense had to grind out possessions in his absence against the Cyclones speaks to the inherent difficulty behind replacing one of the elite scorers in the country.
Players and coaches looked at the positive: Illinois stepped up when it counted with Shannon a bystander, doing just enough on both ends to keep Iowa State at bay and deliver the program’s biggest postseason win in nearly two decades.
“I loved our resiliency playing through those moments especially without (Shannon) on the court,” Underwood said. “We made plays when we had to down the stretch. We got a couple of stops when we had to.”
But with the defending national champions looming, it’s obvious that the Illini will go only as far as Shannon can carry them. It’s also becoming more and more obvious that no team − not even the big, bad Huskies − will be able to keep the senior All-America pick under wraps.
“He’s just a dog out there,” Guerrier said. “He’s one of the best players in the country. You can’t stop him.”