by Amaury Pi Gonzalez

OAKLAND–Billy Beane, General Manager of the Oakland A’s announced that Bob Melvin has been extended with a contract for two more years. This is a brilliant decision by Beane. But then again, my question is: what else could he have done? It would have been the “injustice of the century” in baseball to fire Melvin, since he is just the field manager and he can only manage the talent he is given, and, (often, under this system), taken away from him.

So we can expect the Athletics to re-tool during the winter months, after this 2015 lost season, which more than likely they will finish in the cellar,with the worse record in the American League, hard to believe for a team that just a year ago was considered the best team in baseball. But not hard to believe if you are winning a car race but you take the engine away in the middle of the race. Such is life with the Oakland Athletics. Only God knows what team will the Oakland Athletics field when they open the 2016 season, that would be a discussion for another day.

I do admire Bob Melvin, and he is very well deserved to have received that two year extension. Some say that most people do not get what they deserve; well in this case Bob Melvin did get what he deserved. The Toronto Blue Jays Josh Donaldson will win the American League Most Valuable player this year with the Toronto Blue Jays, all-of-a-sudden Yoenis Cespedes is in the discussion(now with the New York Mets)to win the MVP. I do not believe that Cespedes will win it, but he is definitely in the discussion and we can make a very good case that since he arrived in New York the Mets took off and are looking like a real playoff team. Then there is lefty veteran Scott Kazmir (with the A’s until a couple of months ago) who will probably be pitching in the postseason and is on that very good Houston Astros pitching rotation .

Bob Melvin is one of the best managers in Major League Baseball, not because he has won the award of Manager of the Year twice, in Arizona and in Oakland, but because he is truly a baseball man that is respected by everybody in the game, and players show up to play hard for him all the time. This is no coincidence, he has the ability to get the best out of his players.

We remember another guy with the A’s with that ability, he was inducted into the Hall of Fame at Cooperstown a couple of years ago, his name is former A’s manager Tony LaRussa. And yes, for many of you that say, “wait a minute Amaury Tony LaRussa had the talented players”, you are correct, but he also won the World Series in the National League with the Cardinals and previously with the Athletics in 1989. He is one of only two managers in history to have won World Series managing teams in both leagues, the other one was my all-time-favorite manager, Sparky Anderson who did it in Cincinnati and Detroit. But truth-be-said, a manager needs the players just like jockeys needs good horses to run, Russell Baze won over 10,000 horse races, more than any other jockey in North American, he could not hold that record if the horses were slow.

I applaud the decision by Billy Beane in this case, 100 X 100.

Amaury Pi Gonzalez is the Spanish radio voice for the A’s, the Spanish TV voice for the Angels and does News and Commentary each week at http://www.sportsradioservice.com