AS LONG AS YOU HAVE NOT SEEN VULNERABLE FORMATIONS IN OPPONENTS, YOU HIDE YOUR FORM, PREPARING YOURSELF IN SUCH A WAY AS TO BE INVINCIBLE, IN ORDER TO PRESERVE YOURSELF.
WHEN OPPONENTS HAVE VULNERABLE FORMATIONS, THEN IT IS TIME TO GO OUT TO ATTACK THEM.

- The Art of War -

You can not go against nature
Because when you do go against nature
It's part of nature too

Our little lives get complicated
It's a simple thing, simple as a flower
and that's a complicated thing

My world is your world
People like to hear their names, I'm no exception
Please call my name
Call my name

When you're down -
It's a long way up, when you're up -
It's a long way down

It's all the same thing
NO NEW TALE TO TELL

Here, A's fans is a chance for you to gather yourself, again.

Okay.

Now, let's begin...

There's a lot of information and opinion out there for you to cull over. Right now, I'm going to just put up some links for you to peruse. I think some of you need to read through some information and make up your own minds. Quit letting people like Ray Ratto, the uninformed and bored now that football is all but over in the BayArea, Ray Ratto and the always never had a clue Scott Ostler, make up your mind for you.

If you had to break the trade down into rationale;

• Tim Hudson and Mark Mulder have a history of injury; Mulder in 2000, 2003 and 2004 (what would you call his last 12 starts?) and Hudson in the 2002 ALDS, the 2003 ALDS and for six weeks in 2004.
  
  
• Tim Hudson and Mark Mulder represented about $14 Million in payroll and as much as $21-$24 Million with incentives, options and bonuses over the next two years.
  
  
• The A's could have used Hudson and Mulder and let them go via Free Agency and picked up draft picks - a calculated risk, considering the A's may have only received compensation picks rather than two first round picks.
  
  
• By trading Hudson and Mulder at the peak of their demand (thanks to a genius strategy employed by Beane and David Forst at the Winter Meetings) the A's got three first round picks that have major league experience or are on the verge of being full time major leaguers - thus, nullifying any risk.

It's sometimes easier to understand things when they are pointed out to you rather than reading through all of the quotes and ignorance.

I liek Ray Ratto, by the way. He's one of the few sportswriters willing to spout off and speak his mind. But when you are wrong, you are wrong. And Ratto suggesting the A's would lose 100 games in 2005 is ridiculous. ESPN News promptly pulled his telephone interview segment after one run. A rare good decision by ESPN.

For some of you who are still circling the drain about losing the personalities of Hudson and Mulder (who has already forgotten Justin (Case) Lehr?), get over it.

As sports fans, we root for laundry. We root for the players that are currently wearing our favorite team's uniforms. They dirty up the uniforms on the field and then they have them washed. We root for the laundry, folks.

If you have favorite players in sports or even favorite players on a team, that's your decision. My hope would be that A's fans realize that they root for the A's and not for this A or that A. At the 27th out, the A's win or they lose...or the go into extra innnigs, or maybe the game was called due to rain and then the out total would be different - YOU GET MY POINT.