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A’s Shutout Giants In Bay Bridge Opener

Published

12 years ago

July 8, 2014

Oakland, CA – The A’s have six players heading to the MLB All-Star game, the best record in the Majors and continued their winning ways after opening up the Bay Bridge Series with a 5-0 shutout victory over the San Francisco Giants.

“Recently the starters have been outstanding,” said manager Bob Melvin. “Beat Toronto four games, and held them to four runs, that means your starters are doing the brunt of the work.”

Oakland is coming off a four-game sweep of the Blue Jays. They have won 10 of their last 11 home games and 23 of their last 29. The A’s are 8-1 in interleague play this season and have won 10 of their last 12 home contests against the Giants. Oakland is a season-high 23 games over .500.

“It’s exciting to be apart of the Oakland Athletics right now, how we’re playing, a couple of transactions,” Josh Donaldson said. “You get your cross-town rival in here whose one of the best teams in the NL. It makes it fun to come to the yard when you’ve got that kind of stuff going on.”

After going four scoreless innings the A’s got on the board first. With runners in the corner, Oakland’s offense got going behind Craig Gentry’s leadoff walk. He stole second followed by Coco Crisp’s single. John Jaso grounded out to second scoring in Gentry making it 1-0 in the fifth.

Alberto Callaspo’s two-run single in the sixth extended the A’s lead 3-0. Donaldson who was hit by a pitch leadoff the inning, Stephen Vogt flew out to right field and Jed Lowrie followed with a single putting two on with one out. Callaspo’s hit chased Ryan Vogelsong off the mound.

“We’re throwing a pretty good lineup out there, a lineup that shouldn’t get shutout as much as we have the couple of weeks,” said manager Bruce Bochy.

Vogelsong finished the night with two hit batters, five hits, three runs, two walks and four strikeouts over 5 1/3 innings. Once again he was strong through four frames but lacked run support from the Giants offense. This is has been a problem for Vogelsong over his last few starts.

“It’s honestly a little stunning with the talent we have on this team,” Brandon Belt said. “We’re just not playing well right now. We’ve got to figure out something to pick this up, because we’re better than this.”

Jesse Chavez on the other hand proved he was the pitcher not to be sent down after a blockbuster trade that added two pitchers to their starting rotation. He tossed six innings allowing four hits, two walks and nine strikeouts. Chavez tied his career-high striking out nine. The A’s are now 13-5 in his starting assignments.

“Just finishing with two strikes, where as the last two starts with two strikes I’d leave it over the middle of the plate a little bit, and those would end up begin hits,” said Chavez. “Today my main focus was finishing the at-bat if I got ahead, that was a big key today.”

Two errors by Brandon Crawford proved costly in the seventh. The first error resulted in a double from Jaso and the second advanced both runners. Brandon Moss sacrifice fly scored in Oakland’s next run making it a 4-0 game. And Donaldson’s hand seemed to be OK because he knocked a RBI single up the middle giving the A’s a 5-0 lead.

The Giants have lost 10 of their last 12 games in Oakland. Crawford committed a career-high tying two errors, the last time was Sept 26, 2012 against Arizona. Vogelsong had a streak of 18.2 consecutive scoreless frames in interleague play snapped in the fifth inning.

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The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of April 8 – 14, 2026

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Black Artists in America, Installation Three Wraps at the Dixon Gallery and Gardens

TRI-STATE DEFENDER — With 50+ paintings, sculptures and assemblages, the exhibit features artists like Varnette Honeywood from Los Angeles, whose pieces appeared in Bill Coby’s private collection (before they were auctioned off) and on “The Cosby Show.” Also included are works by Alonzo Davis, another Los Angeles artist who opened one of the first galleries there where Black Artists could exhibit.

Published

2 weeks ago

March 24, 2026

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By Candace A. Gray | Tri-State Defender

The tulips gleefully greet those who enter the gates at the Dixon Gallery & Gardens on an almost spring day. More than 650,000 bulbs of various hues are currently on display. And they are truly breathtaking.

Inside the gallery, and equally as breathtaking, is the “Black Artists in America, From the Bicentennial to September 11” exhibit, which runs through Sunday, March 29. This is the third installment of a three-part series that started years ago and illustrates part of the Black experience through visual arts in the 20th century.

“This story picks up where part two left off,’’ said Kevin Sharp, the Linda W. and S. Herbert Rhea director for the Dixon. “This era is when we really start to see the emergence of these important Black artists’ agency and freedom shine through. They start to say and express what they want to, and it was a really beautiful time.”

With 50+ paintings, sculptures and assemblages, the exhibit features artists like Varnette Honeywood from Los Angeles, whose pieces appeared in Bill Coby’s private collection (before they were auctioned off) and on “The Cosby Show.” Also included are works by Alonzo Davis, another Los Angeles artist who opened one of the first galleries there where Black Artists could exhibit.

“Though [Davis] was from LA, he actually lived in Memphis for a decade,” said Sharp. “He was a dean at Memphis College of Art, and later opened the first gallery in New York owned and operated by black curators.”

Another featured artist is former NFL player, Ernie Barnes. His work is distinctive. Where have you seen one of his most popular paintings, Sugar Shack? On the end scene and credits of the hit show “Good Times.” His piece Saturday Night, Durham, North Carolina, 1974 is in this collection.

Memphis native James Little’s “The War Baby: The Triptych” is among more than 50 works featured in “Black Artists in America, From the Bicentennial to September 11” at the Dixon Gallery & Gardens, the final installment of a three-part series highlighting the impact and evolution of Black artists through 2011.

The exhibit features other artists with Memphis ties, including abstract painter James Little, who was raised in a segregated Memphis and attended Memphis Academy of Art (before it was Memphis College of Art). He later moved to New York, became a teacher and an internationally acclaimed fixture in the art world in 2022 when he was named a Whitney Biennial selected artist at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York.

Other artists like Romare Bearden, who had a Southern experience but lived up North, were featured in all three installments.

“During this period of time, he was a major figure,” said Sharp. “He wrote one of the first books on the history of African American art during a time when there were more Black academics, art teachers, more Black everything!”

Speaking of Black educators, Sharp said the head curator behind this tri-part series and Dixon’s partner in the arts is Earnestine Jenkins, Ph.D., an art history professor at the University of Memphis, who also earned a Master of Arts degree from Memphis State University (now UofM). “We began working with Dr. Jenkins in 2018,” he said.

Sharp explained that it takes a team of curators, registrars, counterparts at other museums, and more, about three years to assemble an exhibit like this. It came together quite seamlessly, he added. Each room conjured up more jaw-dropping “wows” than the one before it. Each piece worked with the others to tell the story of Black people and their collective experience during this time period.

One of the last artists about whom Sharp shared information was Bettye Saar, who will turn 100 years old this year. She’s been working in Los Angeles for 80 years and is finally getting her due. Her medium is collages or assemblages, and an incredible work of hers is on display. She’s married to an artist and has two daughters, also artists.

The exhibit catalogue bears some of these artists’ stories, among other scholarly information.

The exhibit, presented by the Joe Orgill Family Fund for Exhibitions, is culturally and colorfully rich. It is a must see and admission to the Dixon is free.

Visit https://www.dixon.org/ to learn more.

Fun Facts: An original James Little design lives in the flooring of the basketball court at Tom Lee Park, and he makes and mixes his own paint colors.