POWER SURGE: A's Offense EXPLODES in Spring Training – Jeff McNeil, Austin Muncy LEAD Charge

0:00It's the Lockdown Podcast Network, your team every day. I'm Aaron Judge. Welcome to MLB The Show 26. The greatest game in baseball is back, whether you're a gamer or a baseball fan. This one is tough to put down. Jump into franchise mode with your favorite team. Build your roster, chase a pennant, and see if you have what it takes to win it all. It's the closest thing to being in the big leagues yourself. Use it MLB The.Show slash Lockdown and use code Lockdown to unlock a pack for diamond dynasty. Internet connection required. Preorder now on PlayStation 5, Xbox and Nintendo Switch, rated E for everyone. MLB The Show 26. Own the show. Water usually wins. It warps in Rott's wood. It pulls it apart bored by board. Unless you build with treks. Treks Marine Gray decking is 100% submersible for docs. To last, it resists Rott warping and decay in salt and fresh water.

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2:04The version of the A's that basically built two dynasties, just none in KC. You are a Lockdown A's, your daily podcast on the athletics part of the Lockdown Podcast Network. Your team every day. Hello, A's fans and welcome to Lockdown A's part of the Lockdown Podcast Network, where it's your team every day. This is the daily podcast. We talk about your West Sacramento A's soon to be lost. Vegas A's formerly the Oakland A's at one point the Kansas City A's then yes, way back when they were the Philadelphia A's. There was no Lockdown Philadelphia A's in case you want to go back to the back episodes. I'm your guest host. My name is Paul Francis Sullivan. Please call me Sully and we are now the number one sports podcasting network here. Follows the Lockdown A's in Twitter or whatever they call it these days. And on Instagram and I'm your pal Sully. I'm a Sully baseball podcast on Instagram and this episode is brought to you by MLB the show.

3:0826 visit MLB the show.com slash locked on and use the code locked on to unlock a pair. A pack for use and diamond dynasty. I'm going to add that out pre order. Now available March 17th on PlayStation 5 Xbox and Nintendo switch ready for everyone. All right. Well, spring training is still chugging along. We got a few more weeks before the season began and the A's who have had they had one day where they got swept with a split squad, the sweep it with a split squad. And today they went over to Cincinnati to good year ballpark and McNeil and company. Well, let's just say the bats were red hot against the Cincinnati Reds. And McNeil wound up going three for three months. He got a key double a servant who has an OPS over a thousand as basically trying to be the reserve catcher.

4:10He drove in another run. Marlow got a big hit. Now to freeze into it, he was one of the few who didn't do anything today and it was a good old fashioned rock. Now the final score was nine to seven. But I think that's a little misleading because the red scored four of the runs in the eighth inning. And that point, the regulars are sitting down turns into basically a minor league. Scrimmage at the end, but the A were up four runs before the reds even came to bat. And that's what made me happy about this. Jack Perkins was pitching for the A's didn't particularly go that great score three runs. They speak the A score three runs before the first out was even recorded. They combined they got four hits. They got a sack fly. There was an error by the reds four runs at the top of the first against louder. The picture for the red louder. The picture for Cincinnati.

5:11And and the bats were alive. Now Jack Perkins didn't exactly do an impersonating of Peyton Martinez in his prime. You know, he went up letting up a couple of runs and next thing, you know, it was a fight. It was four two before you even knew what the heck was happening. Perkins was gave them two and two thirds innings. He let up two runs, but he got himself into a bunch of jams. But in the fourth inning, the A's pulled ahead. Cameron Leary doubled and Jeff McNeill launched a home run and there was six to two. And Luis Medina came in pitch for the A's and Medina gave him a scoreless setting. Chris, he gave him two winnings. Kelsey gave him a scoreless inning. Robless was terrible. He let up a home run, two hits, a walk, not very good outing.

6:12Dallas got a got an out Johnson got the save. But it's for A's fans. For me, the key part of what we saw today was the bats jumped out. McNeill, who is one of the veterans who have been inserted into the team. And met fans love them. They're Jeff McNeill. McNeill's been doing the job. You know, he went three for three, two runs scored, two runs for it in. He's currently batting 368 this spring. His OPS is 1.057. I mean, if they can get, look, obviously they're not going to get that for the entire series, but season, but if they can get McNeill being the solid professional hitter that New York met fans knew he was for all those years. This is going to be, I mean, I'm telling you, it's going to be an interesting year for the A's. Last year, McNeill remember McNeill only played in 122 games last year.

7:17He won him against his 12 homers, and he won him having an OPS of 746. But this is a guy who has been an all star. He's been a batting champion for those of us who still like to look like stuff like that. You know, he's good for, excuse me, double digit home runs every year. You know, a few stolen bases. He doesn't walk as much as you like, but he puts the bat on the ball. And that's something that the A's are just going to, it's just going to help them in the long run. And again, he's a veteran and a former all star who's been there and done that. And so you take a look at the A's, now look at, you know, you look at the record, they're seven and 10. And remember, did they lose their first three or four games? So I guess, you know, things that the ships are, are righted. And I'm, anytime you get to see the A's bats firing in all cylinders, anytime you get to see the, then jumping up and scoring runs against the major league

8:23pitchers, that's what gets me happy and excited about the offense at this point. Now, tomorrow, the A's are going to be playing the white socks. Springs is going to be pitching and my eyeballs are on that game. My eyeballs are on that game because Springs has not looked particularly good so far. And I'd like to be able to see if he can start to give the A's what they need as a starting pitcher. By the way, I want to point this out. The is one reason why I don't really salivate over spring training, win loss records. The giants right now are 13 and three. The white socks who they're going to play tomorrow are 11 and seven. Does anyone think that giants are, I think the giant is going to be okay, but no one thinks them as an elite team and no one thinks of the white socks as a winning team right now.

9:25So just look at the games. Are they hitting, are they hitting major league pitchers? And if the answer is yes, then guess what, things are looking okay. Well, when we come back, I want to, well, I want to answer a viewer question who had a request, especially after I gave a lot of thought to the Philadelphia A's, what about that other spot that they had along the way? The legacy of the Kansas City A's All righty, I am very happy to be talking about our new sponsor, which is MLB the show 26. The greatest game in baseball is back with its newest installment. And baseball fans are going to have a hard time pulling themselves away from this game.

10:29Now my friend Eleanor is a huge baseball fan and a big time gamer. And she told me that MLB the show has been the best gameplay yet. She loves her A's and takes swings as Brent Rooker or her favorite player, Jacob Wilson. But she likes her Jeff McNeil now. And she loves to use franchise mode and take control of the team, including trades and free agency and playing the game makes her lover, beloved A's even more. Eleanor told me she loves hitting doubles in the gap as Jacob Wilson in career mode. If you're a gamer like Eleanor or a big baseball fan like I am or just want to enjoy America's favorite pastime in a new and exciting way, you're going to love MLB the show 26 plays your favorite team and franchise players and see if you have what it takes to win your own world series. Visit MLB the show dot com slash locked on use code locked on to unlock a pack for use in diamond dynasty internet connection is required pre-order now available March 17th

11:33on PlayStation 6 MX box series S and X Nintendo switch it's rated E for everyone and E for Eleanor. Water usually wins it rots wood and tears docs apart unless you build with trex trex marine grade decking is 100% submersible built to resist rod and solid and fresh water. Water has met its match trex decking. Visit trex dot com slash docs. Hey I just want to quickly talk a little bit about the every day or club. If you've been thinking about joining the every day or club now is the time now again you get ad free shows access to a group chat on discord and if you sign up before the NCAA tournament tips off you can get into our every day or club bracket pool on discord and a chance to win locked on merchant should be a lot of fun right now you can use the code march and get your first month free head to locked on a's dot supercast dot com

12:37or tap the link in the show notes all right let me just bring up I got this message on YouTube from captain marvel of all big I don't know what that means maybe you're from all bay and you love captain marvel okay can you give us more of an insight on Kansas City A's history I have I talked about the Philadelphia A's just the other day and I want to talk about the other place the other than probably the least storied version of the A's because there's harkening back to the 1900s and 1910s and 1920s and 1930s the A's went to the world series in each one of those decades and then of course the great team starting with this one right there the 72 A's three straight world series titles the bash brothers the money ball years the more recent the I like to call the Josh Donaldson Sean do little years the you know the years with Olsen and everyone there but in the little stretch there they're

13:41in Kansas City and the Kansas City A's were let's just be fair one of the strangest franchises we ever saw and they were part of I'll say it one of the single biggest scandals in my humble opinion an acts of collusion in the history of baseball a lot has been made of collusion in the 1980s when Peter Uberoff and got the owners together and say hey when players go to free agency don't sign them don't sign any free agents we're going to drive the prices down that's not conspiracy theory they were found guilty of doing that and caused a rift between the owners and the players that led to the cancellation directly to the cancellation in the 1994 world series that's been thought of as the biggest collusion happened in baseball history and probably is for what happened in Kansas City is right

14:44up there in my opinion is it just as bad the Mac family if you read the history of the Philadelphia A's the final couple of decades was just an absolute cluster F with the Mac family which was kind of a baseball answer to King Lear and Connie Mac had a whole bunch of freightos but didn't have many Michaels and wound up selling the team to Arnold Johnson who was a real estate dude from Chicago and moved the A's from Philadelphia to Kansas City now with that Kansas City said hey we got a major league team and they they drew pretty well right away and you saw the Braves grew well when they moved from Boston to Milwaukee and you saw the when the later when the senators moved from Washington to Minneapolis actually

15:45was well it was I can't remember the name of town that there was it was it was where metropolitan stadium was then became the Minnesota twins and they drew very well then initially the Kansas City A's drew quite well very much but right from the beginning people were suspicious of Arnold Johnson who seemed to just move them to Kansas City and had their eye on another market sound familiar fans and Sacramento that he looked at the team is basically the city is basically a holding station for his dream to move the team and become the Los Angeles A's and he couldn't quite work it out and the Dodgers beat him to the punch now Arnold Johnson was a real estate guy he owned lots of big buildings he owned lots of big properties fine and the Kansas City was the

16:45major the top farm team for the New York Yankees when the A's moved there that's nice here is the problem of what happened of the many pieces of real estate and buildings that Arnold Johnson owned one of the buildings was called Yankee Stadium the owner of the A's own essentially owned Yankee Stadium and so with that it for the lack of a better word behoved the A's that the Yankees turned styles were going now the American League at that time was a little bit in flux their leadership was a mess they were they at that time the major there there was organized baseball which was the confederation between the American League and the National League but the National League had their stuff together the American League didn't and it seemed like the only plan that the

17:49American League had to make any money in a profit was to sell out the joint when the Yankees showed up it behoved the American League that the Yankees remained a huge draw people love to root against them this is not a new thing there was a musical at the time called damn Yankees and the Yankees went from 1947 to 1964 and in that stretch they from 47 to 64 they missed the World Series three times they missed in 48 they missed it in 54 they missed in 59 and that's it they dominated it every year Yankees Yankee Yankee they won five World Series in a row at one point and when the Kansas City A's took over and the Yankees no longer had a farm team in Kansas City they still kind of did because whenever a Yankee player was old and broken down Hank Bauer a Don Larson a Billy Martin

18:50they would trade them to Kansas City and Kansas City would send back good young players so Bobby Shantz who was a MVP Hector Lopez who was a terrific basically fourth outfielder who came up big with huge home runs Gleet Boyer the starting third baseman of multiple World Series teams Art Dittmar who was a key pitcher on them Ralph Terry who became the MVP of the 1962 World Series all started with the A's all were on the A's and were shipped to the Yankees so they can continue their dynasty and it cost them broken down players they were acting as a farm team and oh yeah by the way Cleveland had a really good power hitting right fielder who they traded to the Kansas City A's at everyone's grade no no you do that they're gonna trade them to the Yankees and say oh don't worry about that his name was Roger Maris and so you had an MVP and you had

19:53the home run record you had a World Series MVP the 1961 Yankees are considered to be one of the great baseball teams in the history of baseball and ten of the players on that World Series roster they acquired from the A's you could make the argument when Yankee fans bring up 27 World Series ask them anything say hey how's the Dow Jones industrial average the Yankees have 27 titles a whole bunch of them were one and penance were one when the A's were acting as a de facto farm team because of the collusion now eventually Johnson did the worst thing you can do as an owner if you want to maintain power do what he did he died and when he died suddenly the pipeline to the major leagues through the pipeline to Yankee Stadium ended in Kansas City when a fellow named Charlie O'Finley

20:56bought the Kansas City A's and he made a big deal he he burnt a bus he destroyed a bus which had a Yankee logo on say we're no longer just shipping players off there and with that eventually the A the Yankee dynasty died off because they couldn't rely on Kansas City as a farm team by the way Jeff Katz wrote a wonderful book called the Kansas City A's the wrong half of the Yankees I have that in the Kindle right there and I read this book on my Kindle and that's one of the things fascinating things I've read about the history of the Kansas City A's and with that the fortunes of the Yankees started to tumble because the collusion was over but in came Charlie O'Finley who brought a whole new level of insanity and poor Kansas City fans who thought oh finally finally we can have an owner who wants to win here and to make Kansas City a big place and uh no folks

22:02that's not what happened all right let's talk about our friends over at Fandoole shall we now college basketball is nonstop big games tight spreads momentum swings every single night from early tip-offs to late night west coast shootouts there's always action on the board and now Fandoole is giving you a way to turn that energy into a even bigger potential win at a college basketball parlay profit boost you can build any college who parlay you won rivalry games ranked matchups whatever fits you read you can mix spreads totals and make player props to match how you see the slate playing out and then you could apply for the profit boost and instantly bump up the potential payout go safe go bold ride with the team you've been following all season it's your parlay your style and now with more upside to it head to fandoole.com to get started that's fandoole.com fandoole play your game all right let's hear right now from our good

23:08friends over at turbo tax shall we at turbo tax there we are it's tax time but for a lot of us the old way of doing taxes the only it's a lot trying to book an appointment is not the most convenient you're sitting in a waiting room with stacks of papers emailing back and forth wondering if they really got your situation but this year you're getting a major upgrade into a turbo tax now as in personal occasions nationwide you can meet face to face with a real tax expert and your documents get uploaded straight to your turbo tax app on the spot and just like that you're done with turbo tax experts work to get you every dollar you deserve while you get real time notifications as you go about your day it's a relief of walking in and meeting a real person and walking out knowing your taxes are being handled right head to turbo tax dot com slash local to find a local store near you and book your appointment all right um Charlie Finley almost immediately wanted to move the

24:18team and he took he used to say I wanted to get into majorly baseball in the worst way and that's what I did and he didn't see Kansas City as a glamorous place he wasn't from Kansas City he was born and raised in the south but he made his big money uh in insurance in Indiana and was basically based just outside of Chicago and he kicked around every team he kicked the the tires on Dallas is before they had the Rangers on Atlanta before they had the braze and he was this close he wanted to this close to moving him to Louisville and recrystiting him the Kentucky kernels and he made it a nightmare for the good folks in Kansas City who just wanted a normal team now he did all sorts of things to try to get into his going with the team he made less center feel like a petting zoo and he had like animals wandering around there he saw that the right field fence at Yankee Stadium jutted in in a really really unfair way so he rebuilt the right field

25:20fence in Kansas City to be the same length as Yankee Stames eventually told him to tear that down one year he said you know what I'm gonna change uniforms and suddenly the Kansas City A's came out in bright green and yellow uniforms and people thought Charlie Finley was bonkers but then lots of other teams decided to go for colorful uniforms as well but he never wanted to stay there and he kept making the city folks in Kansas City really angry now one thing he insisted when they were trying to build a multipurpose stadium for the chiefs and for the A's was he said I don't want I want my own stadium designed something where there's a football stadium and a baseball stadium in Kansas City and the good folks in Kansas City designed the Truman Center to have both arrowhead stadium and the stadium which would eventually become Coffman Stadium they did that to appease Finley and eventually after flirting with San Diego and flirting with Seattle he decided to move

26:24the team to Oakland in 1968 and you can make a case that he picked the wrong place you could have made the case that the Bay Area never was a two team region and their entire existence of both the Giants and the A's there one of the two teams was always looking for an exit the whole time they were there and you could have made the argument if he moved the team to Dallas Atlanta Louisville or San Diego we wouldn't be thinking about Las Vegas right now now the sad thing is for all the craziness of Charlie Finley he worked as his own de facto general manager and he was really good he put together a team with him in charge with Burke Campaneras and Catfish Hunter and Vita Blue and Raleigh Fingers and Joe Rudy and Sal Bando and Rick Mundey many of those players made their debut as Kansas City A's and if he had just worked it out and said okay I'm not going to move he could have moved the A's eventually into what became Coffman Stadium and put that team

27:30with Reggie Raleigh and Catfish which won the three straight world series and become a staple in Kansas City but nope they did that in Oakland and Kansas City had to wait and eventually they got the royals which were a well-run team but the Kansas City A's that was just a strange strange chapter and a franchise who let's face it its history is already kind of sort of crazy they could have had that great moment of you know Reggie and all of them being heroes in KC but then where would George Brett have landed and what would have happened to the Bash Brothers would they have been in Kansas City I don't know and neither do you but their Kansas City A's existed from the mid fifties until 1967 a little more than a decade it was tumultuous and it propped up two dynasties so there you go there's the best I can do and please please read this it's a terrific book um Kansas City A's the

28:34wrong half of the Yankees well thanks for tuning into locked on A's uh we are going to be doing the show where I go to Sacramento and try to find the unfinished ballpark that's going to be an episode coming up either tomorrow the next day make sure you subscribe and follow the locked on A's so you can get all the latest episodes and follow us at locked on A's on Twitter or whatever they're calling at these days and you can follow me I'm your past salio I'm at salio baseball podcast on Instagram if you have anything you want me to talk about or cover I love A's history I've written read way too much about A's history over the years let me know it and leave a message here on the YouTube channel and if you've never missed an episode the everyday club is built for you get locked on A's add free plus members only discord and more head to locked on A's dot supercast dot com and join the club and for those of you on video we can send you over to the first ever 24-7 national locked on podcast network YouTube channel and on audio make your second listen locked

29:38on MLB which is the show that I host well most of the time all right talking about the A's and their bats red hot against the reds this has been locked on A's I'm yours Paul Francis Sullivan please call me solid water usually wins it rots wood and tears docks apart unless you build with trex trex marine grade decking is 100% submersible built to resist rod and solid and fresh water water has met its match trex decking visit trex dot com slash docks you're juggling a lot but you can still squeeze in a financial plan with the north western mutual financial advisor as your partner it's not only possible it's personalized so if you're tying the knot closing on a house or welcoming a little one you'll be ready for whatever life tosses your way it's the right time to feel less stressed and more certain that's a better way

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