Oakland Athletics

Long drives home and sleepless nights have become a part of Mark McGwire's life now that the former home run champion is the Dodgers' hitting coach. But McGwire said his job is everything he hoped it would be when he left the St. Louis Cardinals to accept it. His off-season home in Irvine has become his year-round home, which allowed him to catch his two sons' recent Little League game. The Dodgers' training facilities might be the best in baseball. As for the Dodgers' low-scoring offense, McGwire believes it's only a matter of time before it is "devastating.

Long drives home and sleepless nights have become a part of Mark McGwire's life now that the former home run champion is the Dodgers' hitting coach. But McGwire said his job is everything he hoped it would be when he left the St. Louis Cardinals to accept it. His off-season home in Irvine has become his year-round home, which allowed him to catch his two sons' recent Little League game. The Dodgers' training facilities might be the best in baseball. As for the Dodgers' low-scoring offense, McGwire believes it's only a matter of time before it is "devastating.

AT THE PLATE: Veteran utilityman Jerry Hairston Jr., who started the day with a .174 average, homered and doubled. Hairston said he was never concerned about his slow start. "Especially coming off hip surgery, I wanted to make sure I was healthy and ready for the season," Hairston said. ON THE MOUND: Chris Capuano started in place of Chad Billingsley, who was scratched with a bruised finger on his pitching hand. Capuano had his best performance of the spring, holding the Athletics to a run and five hits over 52/3 innings.

OAKLAND -- A strong scent of desperation was in the air Wednesday in the Oakland Coliseum, where Angels Manager Mike Scioscia, his bullpen options limited by injury and ineffectiveness, went to extreme lengths to win a game Scioscia left starter C.J. Wilson in long enough to throw 123 pitches, a decision the left-hander rewarded by rebounding from a 36-pitch first inning to give up two runs and six hits in 61/3 innings and escape...

  The pesky Oakland Athletics come at you in waves, with their parade of young and talented starting pitchers, their endless stream of dominant relievers and their deep pool of no-name position players who do so many little things - and plenty of big things - right. The Angels, despite outspending the A's, $148 million to $60 million, and sporting a superstar-filled roster led by Mike Trout, Albert Pujols and Josh Hamilton, have been no match so far this season.

Former Chatsworth High standout Joel Wolfe, a junior outfielder from UCLA, has signed a contract with the Oakland Athletics. Wolfe, a third-round selection of the Athletics in the recent amateur baseball draft, signed a contract earlier this week and reported to the team's short-season Class-A affiliate in Medford, Ore., a member of the Northwest League. Once Wolfe made up his mind to accept the offer, it wasn't long before he was in uniform.

Oakland A's center fielder Dave Henderson has discovered the easiest fitness program imaginable. Says Henderson: "I just use a simple formula: hereditary genes." That's Henderson's way of saying, "I don't have to get fit. I'm never out of shape." He doesn't run, and he doesn't lift weights. He doesn't get fat, and he doesn't get flabby. They may be baseball's world champions, but most of the A's didn't inherit genes like Henderson's.

Five pitches. What has taken the Dodger 170 games to create may have dissolved Tuesday night in 5 pitches. Five fastballs. That's all it took for the Oakland Athletics to safely flee, without a scratch, a Dodger bases-loaded, none-out tempest in the sixth inning. Five strikes. That's all the Dodgers will be seeing this morning as they read accounts of their 2-1 loss to the A's in Game 3 of the World Series Tuesday, a loss that cut their edge to 2 games to 1.

Rickey Henderson didn't win the most valuable player trophy, which tells you all you need to know about how thoroughly the Oakland Athletics handled the San Francisco Giants in this World Series. Henderson batted .474 during the four-game sweep of the Giants. He stole three bases and scored four runs. He had 17 total bases.

Tony La Russa, manager of the Oakland Athletics, benched baseball's top money player--on the basis of salary, anyway--before Game 4 of the World Series Saturday. Jose Canseco and his $23.5-million contract were replaced in right field by Willie McGee as La Russa cited Canseco's lingering physical problems. Canseco got the word in a pregame meeting with La Russa, who said Canseco didn't ask out of the lineup but didn't argue when told he was coming out. "I kind of agreed with it," Canseco said.

  The pesky Oakland Athletics come at you in waves, with their parade of young and talented starting pitchers, their endless stream of dominant relievers and their deep pool of no-name position players who do so many little things - and plenty of big things - right. The Angels, despite outspending the A's, $148 million to $60 million, and sporting a superstar-filled roster led by Mike Trout, Albert Pujols and Josh Hamilton, have been no match so far this season.

PHOENIX - Yasiel Puig is ready to play in the major leagues. That was the opinion offered Tuesday by fellow Cuban defector Yoenis Cespedes, who finished second in American League rookie-of-the-year balloting last season while leading the Oakland Athletics to a division title. "To me and to anyone who's seen what he's done, he's ready," Cespedes said. Puig is batting .500 for the Dodgers in the Cactus League. The 22-year-old outfielder was four for four in the Dodgers' 7-1 victory over the A's, including a two-run home run in the first inning that cleared Cespedes' head in left field.

AT THE PLATE: Veteran utilityman Jerry Hairston Jr., who started the day with a .174 average, homered and doubled. Hairston said he was never concerned about his slow start. "Especially coming off hip surgery, I wanted to make sure I was healthy and ready for the season," Hairston said. ON THE MOUND: Chris Capuano started in place of Chad Billingsley, who was scratched with a bruised finger on his pitching hand. Capuano had his best performance of the spring, holding the Athletics to a run and five hits over 52/3 innings.

If the Oakland Athletics reach the American League championship series, the tarps that cover the third deck of their stadium will be removed, Commissioner Bud Selig said Thursday. "If they advance, they are going to take them off," Selig said. The A's play host to the Detroit Tigers on Thursday night, in the fifth and final game of the American League division series. The winner advances to the ALCS. The A's won Tuesday and Wednesday, with the tarps on and sold-out crowds of 36,067 each night.

OAKLAND — The Oakland Athletics didn't look or sound on Monday like a team on the verge of elimination. Players on this low-budget, platoon-happy team talked about how they had overcome worse situations on their way to the best-of-five American League division series, in which they trail the Detroit Tigers, two games to none. On the eve of a potential elimination game in their home stadium, the Athletics smiled, even laughed, as they recalled recent glories. But the smiles disappeared and the laughter was muted when they were asked about "The Kiss.

Bartolo Colon, who won the American League Cy Young Award with the Angels in 2005, was suspended 50 games on Wednesday after failing a drug test. Colon, now with the Oakland Athletics, tested positive for testosterone, according to a statement from Major League Baseball. He becomes the second key player within a week to be suspended for that substance, following outfielder Melky Cabrera of the San Francisco Giants. "I apologize to the fans, to my teammates and to the Oakland A's," Colon said in a statement issued by the Major League Baseball Players Assn.

The World Series of 1990 came to an untimely end at 8:15 p.m. PDT Saturday night. The Oakland Athletics, you might say, died in their sleep. The Oakland "dynasty" went the way of all such--the Hapsburgs, Hohenzollerns, Romanoffs and the rest of the royal families. You might say the crowned heads rolled--except there is some doubt these guys were real royalty. They weren't dragged to their doom, they went meekly enough to the slaughter.

The Oakland Athletics acquired Stephen Drew from the Arizona Diamondbacks in exchange for a shortstop prospect. Drew missed the team's first 73 games of the season with an ankle injury that he suffered in July of last year. In June, Ken Kendrick, managing partner of the Diamondbacks, criticized Drew's commitment to the team during a radio interview. "I'm going to be real candid and say I think Stephen and his representatives are more focused on where Stephen's going to be a year from now than going out and supporting the team that's paying his salary," Kendrick said during the interview.

OAKLAND - The Angels are dealing with their most demanding 10-game stretch of the regular season. In hindsight, this trip to face American League West leader Texas, Central front-runner Chicago and wild-card contender Oakland could be counted as their breaking point or a defining stretch that hardened them for fiercer battle. Sending Jered Weaver to the mound Monday was a boost to those who foresee the latter. "We need to step up again, and that's what I'm excited about - how we keep doing that," outfielder Torii Hunter said, hours before delivering a two-run single on a two-strike, two-out pitch in the seventh inning that iced a 4-0 victory at Oakland Alameda County Coliseum.