The Oakland A's sweep the Old School Tournament. Both A's teams win the 2008 Crowns. Awesome coaching by our A's Pro Coaches Babitt, Cadaret & Heredia

The A's Team Hotel Arizona catches fire in the early morning hours of Day 3. See story and video in last paragraph below

The A's Sweep the Old School Wood Bat Tournament. Both Teams win their respective divisions.

I had told Billy Beane, General Manager of the Oakland that we The A's Fantasy Camp alums had just won both divisions of the Old School wood bat tournament Mr. Beane's comment to me was that winning the Old School wood bat Tourney in both divisions was a great way to represent the Athletics, I concurred

Commissioner Mello Renews lucrative Coaching contracts with incentives to Coach Shooty Babitt, Greg Cadaret & Rookie Coach, Gil Heredia. Contract Amounts were not disclosed to the press.

The Oakland A's Federal Division team Skippered by Greg Cadaret and Gil Heredia pictured above in green jerseys take the Federal Division Crown in the Championship game by beating the undefeated Cincinnati Reds team 5-3 Coach Cadaret & Heredia set the team up with the perfect game plan to beat Brad "The Animal" Lesley's High Powered Cincinnati Team. The A's Coaches had everyone in perfect positions for this battle.There were great plays and sound defense by all the A's players. John Amandes made 2 great plays at the plate to get the A's out of a inning unharmed. Gordon Simmons made a awesome running sliding fly ball catch play in left field to shut the Reds down in the 5th.Roger Vartanarin Played awesome center field the entire game while Chris Mumbach The I O U $13.00 Mohawk Man secured down right field most of the game. There was more great fielding coming from the infielders side of this big game. Steve Spaulding played a flawless 3rd base with many great plays. Mike Hilton was the best shortstop on the field bar none. Chris Dorn played a perfect game at 1st base. Mike Mello made a couple of nice plays at 2nd base. I think the A's only had 1 error all game to pin this one down. Coach Cadaret & Herdedia set up the perfect pitcher rotation for this great win. They started Game MVP Glen Poor who threw 4 near perfect innings followed by 1 inning of great middle relief pitching by Mike Murphy who set up the middle of the 6th for "Mr.Wiley Coyote" Fielding Snow. Snow had near perfect accuracy to get this game to the end and preserving the A's Greatest win of the Year. Don Luis showed up with the high powered bat He has had all week and drilled 2 more line drive hits with 2 Rbi's , Doc Dennis Conyers had a nice hit and scored 1 of the games runs. . This game plan was well engineered by The best Coaches of the tournament, a special thanks to Greg Cadaret and Gil Heredia for taking the time to be here with us this week and to Coach us to the Championship. The entire A's team Thanks you both. Were all looking forward to next year as we will be back to defend the Federal Crown.



The Oakland A's American Division Team Skippered by Shooty Babitt pictured above in white jerseys Beat the Defending Champions the Anaheim Angels in a see saw Championship game that fell the A's way at games end. The A's went into this game as the top seed of the Tournament. That didn't matter to Coach Babitt, As Coach Shooty said, todays a new game and any team can win this one, we must put on our game faces and bring on our "A" game today . Coach Babitt engineered his game plan with the understanding that 2 of his top players Calloway & Zimmerman were injured and Amaro had to leave the game early. With that said, This Team pulled together and took the field for the 3 hour battle. The A's took the early lead through the 1st few innings. The Angels came back and took the lead away around the 6th inning. A's Coach Babitt had a Team chat and woke this sleeping A's team up. The A's had a productive 7th & 8th to recapture the lead with hits and heads up base running coming from everywhere. The Game was called on time at the end of the 8th and the A's had won their Championship Crown back here in 2008. The entire A's team would like to express their sincere Thanks to Coach Shooty Babitt for taking time to Coach us this week and guiding us to the Championship victory

The American Division A's Re captured the Championship crown that they lost in 2006 to the Anaheim Angels and took Their Crown back here in 2008.

For the Federal division A's this was their 1st year as a federal division team and they fought back every day of the tournament to be in position to be in the championship game. The Federal A's played sound defense with timely hitting to take the Federal crown.

Athletics Federal Division Champs Stat's

Players ................ AB R RBI H AVG
Amandes, John ...10.. 2... 2.. 2 .200
Conyers, Dennis ..24..7.... 4.. 6 .250
Dorn, Chris .......... 9.. 3 ..1 .....1 .111
Hilton, Mike .......31... 5.. 4 ....8 .258
Luis, Don ...........26 ..10..14.. 13 .500
Mello, Mike ........31... 8 ...4 ....8 .258
Mumbach, Chris .11... 5... 3 ....3 .273
Murphy, Mike ....34... 9... 8 ..10 .294
Poor, Glen.......... 29.. 12.. 10 ...6 .207
Simmons, Gordon 30 13... 7 ..14..467
Snow, Fielding ....15 ...2 ...6 ....6 .400
Spaulding, Steve .27 ...6... 6 ....9 .333
Vartanian, Roger 26 . 12... 7... 10 .385
TEAM ...............303.. 94. 76 ..96 .317


See the local TV news Hotel fire video at the end of this story featuring our own A's Teammates Craig Alexander & Dave Gayner

The Tournament Team Hotel, Hotel Arizona Catches fire in the early morning hours of Day 3. The fire was just outside the door of the room that Don Luis & Mike Mello were rooming in on the 9th floor. The fire was started by some Girls who were visiting some friends at the hotel. These girls were in Tucson filming a Rap Music Video. The Girls have been identified and face serious charges including attempted murder. I was awakened by a faint sound of the poor hall fire alarm not really knowing what it was because you could barely hear it in the room. When I opened the door to the corridoor and scene the hall full of smoke I yelled at Don to wake up and said that the Hotel was on fire. We calmly got dressed and went down the fire exit which was smoke free. All other Teammates and opposing Teams got out safely. 1 Word of advice to all who frequent hotels, always find the secondary fire exit no matter what especially if you have children with you. although the fire exit was right across from our room, the hallways were kind of zig zaggy up there and probably a little more difficult for some of the other Hotel guests to locate.

Click on the youtube video below

YouTube - Hotel Arizona on fire


A word from Dave Jemes as written by Dave to the American Division A's Champs

I have no pictures but you can post this: Jesse Jemes thanks the entire team for the great defense they provided while he was on the mound (boosting confidence and keeping the pitch count lower), to Matt Amaro for working with him to correct a mechanical flaw in his delivery which helped fix his control problems, to Sil and Jane for hosting a BBQ at their house, to Kenny and Shooty for their leading the team and to Sarah, our adopted scorekeeper.

See ya, Dave

Chris Mumbach's in house IOU$ 13.00 Locker room Mohawk Scalping see the - before in between and after pictures posted above. Come back and play again next year so I can pay you the 13 Bucks.