I didn’t even realize how much of an Oakland A fan I was until Wednesday night.

Scrolling through Twitter before bed, I was shocked and angry to see that the Las Vegas baseball team had secretly signed a land use agreement that suggested the A’s were breaking out of years of negotiations with Oakland to build a new stadium had all but withdrawn by the water in the city where they’ve been playing since 1968.

I immediately texted my brother and parents a link with a bunch of angry emojis and surprised myself that I cared so much.

Sure, I’d attended countless A games growing up — a result of being part of a family of die-hard A fans — taking BART to the Colosseum weekend after weekend and even traveling to Phoenix to see them play spring training . My family and I used to pull into the parking lot, cook hot dogs, eat french fries, and listen to music. We bet on who would hit a home run and whoever correctly predicted would get a slushy.

We sang the Who’s “Real Good Looking Boy” which was always played before a game started and which I will always associate with the Coliseum. We took photos with Stomper and got up to sing during the seventh inning, passionately playing the games projected onto the arena marquee between innings: trivia, dot racing, chasing a baseball in the hat shuffle.

We watched Moneyball over and over and marveled that a movie had been made about our hometown baseball team and starred none other than Brad Pitt.

And yes, I still signed the hats and balls of players I once had crushes on, like Eric Byrnes and Huston Street.

Still, I’d always thought I’d done most of those things reluctantly. My family has an infamous photo of me and my brother in the Coliseum as young children: my brother watching the game and I reading a book about the Baby-Sitters Club. That summed up my take on hours of baseball: they were something to be endured, not enjoyed.

Still, I was deeply and personally affected by the A’s callous decision to leave Oakland, showing so little respect for the thousands of fans they have lovingly supported over the years despite their underperforming and incompetent management and ugly stadium with no amenities have.

We loved the A’s unconditionally, but they thought they were too good for us.

The whole episode reminded me of something Barry Zito, A’s former pitcher, said after accepting a $126 million contract with the San Francisco Giants in 2006: “The green and gold… it faded faster than I thought .”

My mother was so angry with Zito’s comment that she sent a reply to the local newspaper, which published it. I didn’t understand then why she was so upset, but now I understand. What the A’s did effectively spat in the face of the city and the people who loved them, who gave them a chance, who were willing to spend hundreds of millions of dollars of their own money to keep them, who valued them even more than usual nobody did.

Her impending departure made me realize that I loved the A’s too.

But not anymore. Now my sweet memories have turned bitter.

Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao said Thursday she was ready to resume negotiations with the A’s if they come forward. But I don’t want her giving the A’s another chance. You do not deserve it. Not after such a betrayal.

The A’s better hope a new fanbase awaits them in Vegas. Because they left behind a city of despised lovers, including me, who will now forever be dying to lose.

Reach Emily Hoeven: emily.hoeven@sfchronicle.com; Twitter: @emily_hoeven

The post Oakland A’s are transferring to Las Vegas. Good luck discovering new followers appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.

SAN FRANCISCO – From car break-ins to shoplifting, much has been said about property crime in San Francisco. For one set of victims, theft doesn’t just come with a cost, it’s making it difficult to work.

“Remodel,” contractor Dan McCann explained as he walked through a home under renovation in Oakland. “Total interior. Addition, front and back.”

From full remodels in the Oakland Hills, to foundation replacements in San Francisco.

“One section at a time,” he said of another project in Haight-Ashbury. “So the house doesn’t fall down.”

McCann is a city native who built his contracting business from scratch, now employing teams of workers on various sites. For all of the complexities that come with running jobs around the bay, his work in San Francisco has presented one particular challenge.

Contractor Dan McCann works on a home in San Francisco. Following multiple thefts, McCann has taken on the task of finding his stolen tools.

CBS

“We usually bring the tools home, but one day we left everything here,” McCann told KPIX 5. “Maybe somebody was staking us out. They broke the lock off, let themselves in. Three jackhammers, a concrete saw. A bunch of smaller items. It came out to about $14,000 worth of equipment.”

“The ladder isn’t on it, no pipe racks,” plumber Tony Campos said of his work van.

Campos is another victim, even though he tries to keep his van as inconspicuous as possible.

Had a couple jobs like Dan’s where we had all of our equipment, all of our plumbing gear, all of our tools stolen,” Campos said of his experience with thieves. “I’ve had one of my cars broken into, in my garage, everything taken from that.”

“This is the third time I’ve been hit pretty big,” McCann added.

The third time convinced him to take on another job, tracking down his stolen property, and he said it wasn’t that hard to find: A resale website and a seller who may not be the thief, but has thousands of items for sale.

“This is the guy who tried to sell me my stuff back,” McCann said, pointing to an online profile. “You can see here, 2,600 items sold on OfferUp. So I met up with him.”

Zeroing in on the saw he recognized, McCann set up a parking lot meeting in which he confronted the seller. They demanded proof of a serial number, which he produced the following day.

“Gave him the serial number the next day,” McCann said. “He told me I made a fake receipt and he wouldn’t meet up with me. Told me to call the cops and have them come deal with it. The cops want me to find him again before they do anything about it. So that what a frustrating thing.”

Police say they cannot comment, as they now have several ongoing investigations into the fencing of stolen property. They encourage everyone to record serial numbers, and put distinct markings on tools in case they do go up for sale. This is a frequent, and costly problem.

“Not only in money and what those tools cost us, but in time,” Campos said of his experiences.

“Missing a day at work, or missing a couple days of work because we have no tools could be a big problem for most of my workers,” McCann said for his crew.

Not one to quit on a job, McCann now has a private investigator working to build a case that he hopes to pass on to police. A mission borne out of frustration.

“These burglaries are devastating to contractors, like myself,” McCann said. “These criminals have made a business off of stealing the livelihood of honest people. Hopefully we can start catching these guys.”

Wilson Walker

Wilson Walker joined KPIX 5 in July 2007. After 10 years producing newscasts, Wilson became a Multimedia Journalist (MMJ) in 2012, meaning he shoots, writes and edits all of his own stories.

The post After a number of thefts, San Francisco contractor takes on discovering stolen instruments appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.

SAN FRANCISCO – From car break-ins to shoplifting, much has been said about property crime in San Francisco. For one set of victims, theft doesn’t just come with a cost, it’s making it difficult to work.

“Remodel,” contractor Dan McCann explained as he walked through a home under renovation in Oakland. “Total interior. Addition, front and back.”

From full remodels in the Oakland Hills, to foundation replacements in San Francisco.

“One section at a time,” he said of another project in Haight-Ashbury. “So the house doesn’t fall down.”

McCann is a city native who built his contracting business from scratch, now employing teams of workers on various sites. For all of the complexities that come with running jobs around the bay, his work in San Francisco has presented one particular challenge.

Contractor Dan McCann works on a home in San Francisco. Following multiple thefts, McCann has taken on the task of finding his stolen tools.

CBS

“We usually bring the tools home, but one day we left everything here,” McCann told KPIX 5. “Maybe somebody was staking us out. They broke the lock off, let themselves in. Three jackhammers, a concrete saw. A bunch of smaller items. It came out to about $14,000 worth of equipment.”

“The ladder isn’t on it, no pipe racks,” plumber Tony Campos said of his work van.

Campos is another victim, even though he tries to keep his van as inconspicuous as possible.

Had a couple jobs like Dan’s where we had all of our equipment, all of our plumbing gear, all of our tools stolen,” Campos said of his experience with thieves. “I’ve had one of my cars broken into, in my garage, everything taken from that.”

“This is the third time I’ve been hit pretty big,” McCann added.

The third time convinced him to take on another job, tracking down his stolen property, and he said it wasn’t that hard to find: A resale website and a seller who may not be the thief, but has thousands of items for sale.

“This is the guy who tried to sell me my stuff back,” McCann said, pointing to an online profile. “You can see here, 2,600 items sold on OfferUp. So I met up with him.”

Zeroing in on the saw he recognized, McCann set up a parking lot meeting in which he confronted the seller. They demanded proof of a serial number, which he produced the following day.

“Gave him the serial number the next day,” McCann said. “He told me I made a fake receipt and he wouldn’t meet up with me. Told me to call the cops and have them come deal with it. The cops want me to find him again before they do anything about it. So that what a frustrating thing.”

Police say they cannot comment, as they now have several ongoing investigations into the fencing of stolen property. They encourage everyone to record serial numbers, and put distinct markings on tools in case they do go up for sale. This is a frequent, and costly problem.

“Not only in money and what those tools cost us, but in time,” Campos said of his experiences.

“Missing a day at work, or missing a couple days of work because we have no tools could be a big problem for most of my workers,” McCann said for his crew.

Not one to quit on a job, McCann now has a private investigator working to build a case that he hopes to pass on to police. A mission borne out of frustration.

“These burglaries are devastating to contractors, like myself,” McCann said. “These criminals have made a business off of stealing the livelihood of honest people. Hopefully we can start catching these guys.”

Wilson Walker

Wilson Walker joined KPIX 5 in July of 2007. His television career started at WSOC-TV in Charlotte, North Carolina in 1999. There, he covered the departure of the Charlotte Hornets, The Rae Carruth case, and the devastating East Coast Ice Storm of 2002. He also spent three years in Sacramento with KCRA, covering California politics, the Hamid & Umer Hyat terrorism trial, and the Sacramento arena debate.

The post After a number of thefts, San Francisco contractor takes on discovering stolen instruments appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.

The San Francisco Giants’ Steven Duggar (left) hits a double home run ahead of the Arizona Diamondbacks … [+] Catcher Carson Kelly during the second innings of a baseball game in San Francisco, Tuesday, June 15, 2021. (AP Photo / Jeff Chiu)

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It seems that every season since Farhan Zaidi became president of the San Francisco Giants, the Giants have received an unexpected boost from a player who seems to come out of nowhere. This season, Steven Duggar is experiencing a career turnaround that truly proves that the new regime has an emphasis on player development and problem solving.

Currently, Duggar is cutting .294 / .345 / .520 and has posted 139 wRC + over 41 games. This was a revelation not only for Giants fans but also for Duggar himself.

For the past two seasons, Duggar was essentially lost at sea as he continued to drop in the 40-man roster, but his quest to tweak his swing is finally paying off in 2021.

Back in the off-season before the 2020 season, the beating Brain Trust of Donnie Ecker and Justin Many in San Francisco began experimenting with Duggar’s facility. The two main tenets of his newly developed swing were a much more upright and narrow setup, paired with an equally upright club.

With the Giants line-up up and down, the vertical racket revolution seems to be in full swing for their offensive, as Buster Posey, Brandon Crawford and Austin Slater are prime examples of players who have either set their rackets up vertically or on their setups have built in a more pronounced barrel tip on their first puffs.

If you can remember Steven Duggar’s first experiments in 2020, he went into a swing overhaul. This overhaul didn’t seem to be paying off as he’d hoped, however. Duggar battled with a .176 / .222 / .235 slash line and a 27 wRC + in a 21-game sample in 2020.

Indeed, despite the lackluster results, this could have been a very good learning experience for Duggar. While his swing changes didn’t bring production to the record, they formed a solid foundation for reverse engineering his old swing.

One misstep with Duggar’s swing overhaul is that sometimes an overhaul is not necessary from a mechanical point of view. However, from a mental standpoint, a swing overhaul may sometimes be required. Despite the bad 2020 numbers, Steven Duggar appears to have benefited from this experiment by learning how his body should move from his setup to launch.

Now Steven Duggar’s setup looks a lot more similar to the beginning of his career than it did until 2020. Some of the main differences in Duggar’s setup now are that he’s less stacked on his back leg and uses a more pronounced kick to get into a hip joint pattern, and – of course – he tilts his club more vertically as he initiates his swing. The vertical club incline allows for easier entry into the zone and can serve as a clue to help a batsman work more from north to south, as opposed to sideways movement from east to west which often causes the batsman to hit the ball turns off.

With more balance, more efficient use of his body and a cleaner racket path that allows for more loft when balls hit, Duggar experiences an amazing career turnaround. While his 2020 swing change doesn’t look like the version of his swing he’s using in 2021, it gave him a foundation for a more efficient move to work from and implement from his older setup.

This season, Steven Duggar is riding in what is sort of an offensive renaissance with the lowest groundball percentage, highest starting angle, and highest average exit speed of his career. Combine this newfound offensive production with his still elitist defensive skills and the San Francisco Giants may have filled a void in their offense and defense without spending an extra penny or prospect.

The post Steven Duggar Is Discovering The Proper System For The San Francisco Giants appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.