(NOTE: This version of the story was written before the trade of Tyler Clippard this afternoon)
The A’s will spend the next couple of nights in Chavez Ravine playing the Dodgers, for whom longtime A’s slugger Mark McGwire is the hitting coach.
When the cameras pan to McGwire, as they surely will, it would be well to think of former Oakland pitcher Scott Kazmir and the situation the 44-56 A’s have themselves in as the clock winds toward the July 31 trade deadline.
Eighteen years ago this week, the A’s traded McGwire to St. Louis for much the same reason Oakland traded Kazmir to Houston five days ago.