Oakland Athletics Baseball Team

Given the small-market restraints of a $22-million payroll and the six consecutive losing seasons of a painful rebuilding project, the Oakland Athletics have emerged as the wildest of baseball's wild-card contenders, the longest of longshots. They are the little engine that could, except that the young A's have become a homer-powered diesel refueled by an aggressive series of recent trades.

The Dodgers and Oakland Athletics worked late into the night on Thursday, attempting to close a three-team trade with the Toronto Blue Jays that would send Gary Sheffield to Oakland and bring outfielder Jermaine Dye and closer Billy Koch to Los Angeles, baseball sources said. Dodger General Manager Dan Evans and Oakland GM Billy Beane are expected to resume talks today in an attempt to finalize the blockbuster deal before baseball's winter meetings in Boston next week.

The Angels' spring training move from Palm Springs to Tempe Diablo Stadium in 1993 brought the team closer to the rest of the Cactus League. This spring, the Angels return to Southern California March 28, for the three-game Freeway Series against the Dodgers. The final two games will be at Anaheim Stadium. Here's the schedule for each of the eight Cactus League teams.

The earth shook the last time the San Francisco Giants and the Oakland Athletics met at Candlestick Park and Friday night it rattled again. A 4.5 magnitude earthquake hit the San Francisco Bay area at 7 p.m., rattling buildings downtown and fraying nerves at Candlestick where the first game of the Bay Bridge exhibition series between the Giants and Athletics had just begun. The quake was a frightening reminder of the 7.1 quake that struck Northern California on Oct.

Hurricane Floyd significantly damaged the wild-card pursuit of the Oakland Athletics by forcing a difficult rescheduling of two postponed games in Baltimore. The A's hopes of remaining in Oakland may have been damaged even more severely by what some in the East Bay and elsewhere consider a blatant ambush by Commissioner Bud Selig and major league owners. The decision by owners, meeting in Cooperstown, N.Y., on Wednesday, to table a vote on the $122.

Jose Canseco agreed Monday to a one-year, $2-million contract with the Oakland Athletics, a $400,000 raise over last season but well shy of the huge totals other superstars have received this winter. The right fielder was scheduled to have an arbitration hearing on Wednesday. He wanted $2.2 million and the A's offered $1.6 million, same as last season. Second baseman Mike Gallego also avoided arbitration by agreeing to a two-year, $1,065,000 contract.

Bob Welch can remember clearly the day when doubt overwhelmed him and he feared he would be merely a spectator this season. "Probably about Jan. 27," he said, referring to when he suffered the first of three injuries that sidelined him for long stretches this season. "I hurt myself then and didn't know where it was going to. And the third time I went on the (disabled list). That was pretty bad. The second time wasn't bad.

Charles O. Finley would have yanked this team off the field. Were he still owner of the Oakland Athletics, Finley would not have tolerated one more goof-up in Saturday's 7-5 Game 3 playoff loss to Toronto. Back in the 1970s, Finley would have been threatening to sell the next player who makes a mistake to Baltimore or Tokyo or as far away as possible, so help him Bowie Kuhn. Luckily for the A's, Walter Haas employs them now.

It was a season that began with family and friends talking Mark McGwire out of retirement. It is winding down with McGwire having attained an improbable goal of 50 homers. Overcoming the frustration of another injury and the numbing thought that he couldn't endure the demands of one more rehabilitation, the Oakland Athletics' first baseman has continued to hit home runs at a pace exceeded only by Babe Ruth. He is the the 13th player to hit 50.

The city of Anaheim should follow through on Councilman Irv Pickler's suggestion to ban smoking in the seating areas of the city-owned Anaheim Stadium and the soon-to-open Anaheim Arena. National health studies now leave no doubt that secondhand smoking is harmful to nonsmokers. Banning smoking in the city's public facilities is one way of protecting those who choose wisely not to smoke. If the City Council adopts a no-smoking rule for the stadium and arena, it will put them in good company.