Despite hitting a horrendous .228 as a team on the season, the Oakland A’s are currently one of the hottest teams in baseball, thanks to the league’s 4th best pitching staff. The Athletics are 14-2 since July 1 and they just completed a 4-game sweep of the best team in baseball, the New York Yankees. While they still have a 6-game deficit to the Texas Rangers in the AL West Race – and are trailing the resurgent Anaheim Angels by a game for second place – the A’s are at least doing the spirit of Moneyball proud with another inexplicable summer of success.

But screw all that, because it doesn’t hold a candle to what Oakland’s fans accomplished last Thursday before the series opener. Like many teams, the A’s tried to drum up fan support by allowing people to bring their dogs to the game. The response was rather surprising, as the fans ending up breaking a world record for the most dogs at one baseball game.

With the start of the first inning the A’s and their pet-friendly fans set off to embark on a world record for most dogs at a game.

With 718 dogs of all shapes and sizes and many dog owners on hand the Oakland Athletics set the world record at Dog Day for the most dogs in attendance during a sporting event. The number needed was 600; the A’s fans and their ‘best friends’ broke it by a large margin. (Via the Martinez News-Gazette)

And then some baseball happened, but who cares? They had 718 dogs at the Coliseum! Alas, that’s also the source of my great disdain. How do you have 718 dogs and barely anyone takes photos? This is why America is falling behind in everything. Nobody has the ambition to do what’s necessary in photographing 718 dogs anymore.

Thankfully a few people came through with some photos after the jump.

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Manny Ramirez asked the Oakland Athletics to release him from his minor league contract on Friday, and they obliged.

“It looked like he was down there for a while and I think he wanted out,” A’s manager Bob Melvin said. “He wanted an opportunity, if we weren’t going to do something, to go somewhere else. It is what it is. Certainly we wish him the best.”

“Manny believes he has demonstrated that he is ready to return to the major leagues,” Ramirez’s agents, Barry Praver and Scott Shapiro, said in a statement. “However, given that the Oakland Athletics could not give Manny any assurance that they plan to promote him in the immediate future he asked for his release. Manny thanks the A’s for providing him with this opportunity.” (via Chron.com)

As straightforward as that seems, a helpful YouTube upload reveals that desire and opportunity had nothing to do with it — Manny Ramirez, posing under the name “Manny Rodriguez”, was making the Sacramento Rivercats less wholesome and giving them cancer with his dreadlocks. Just like Lance Armstrong The Bike Guy! A local 69-year old fuddy duddy reports:

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Actor Gary Sinise has accomplished a lot in his 35-year film career — he’s shot Lennie Small in the back of the head, gone on a mission to Mars, helped the Apollo astronauts get back to Earth and dropped an atomic bomb on World War II Japan — but he’s most famous for his role as Forrest Gump’s lieutenant Dan Taylor, a depressed amputee who comes from a long line of soldiers with a dubious history of dying in combat.

So it is in “dubious history of dying” spirit I present to you this clip of Sinise throwing out the first pitch at Wednesday’s Texas Rangers/Oakland Athletics game. You know it’s bad when a guy in a horse costume has to console you.

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Back in 2010, we were introduced to a young couple at a Houston Astros game, as they became instant Internet celebrities thanks to every sports blog on the planet and eventually Daniel Tosh. In case your memory is fuzzy from all the meth, Chris Johnson hit a foul ball into the field box along the left field line, and the boyfriend took cover like a frightened toddler as his then-girlfriend was hit by the ball. Needless to say, that relationship didn’t last.

On Sunday, Brandon Inge ousted the “foul ball couple” as the Internet’s favorite fan f*ck-ups when he belted a 3-run home run off rookie Matt Moore in the third inning, and it smacked a Tampa fan right in the gooners. To make matters worse, the ball ricocheted off the Rays fan’s crotch into his lady friend’s face. Really, it’s the feel good video of the summer.

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And some dudes dig it too, don't hate.

He should be your favorite player, too. Two reasons:

1. He knows what The Dugout is and agrees with me about Brian Wilson.

2. He isn’t afraid to call out Kiss Cam homophobia:

After a game in Anaheim, the pitcher tweeted: “They put two guys on the ‘Kiss Cam’ tonight. What hilarity!! (by hilarity I mean offensive homophobia). Enough with this stupid trend.”

McCarthy considers it incongruous for MLB teams to sponsor “It Gets Better” antihate campaigns and not banish this brand of humor.

“The whole thing bugs me on a non-homophobic level, because it’s awkward,” he said. “… I just hate it.”

…

“If there are gay people who are coming to a game and seeing something like that, you can’t assume they’re comfortable with it,” he said. “If you’re even making a small group of people … feel like outcasts, then you’re going against what makes your model successful.”

How awesome is that? That’s the kind of positive human rights stance we need more of from our celebrities — less Lady Gaga-esque “GOD BLESS THE GAYS” pander-rousing from behind a podium and more sane, observant people going, “hey, it’s stupid to treat people like this, let’s stop doing that”. And if we could get rid of the Kiss Cam completely, that’d be a bonus.

Brandon McCarthy, you are awesome no matter how long it takes Oakland to provide some run support and help you stop losing games.

… Moneyball Harder.

Although I guess the idea of Moneyball is that Beane’s system found under-appreciated value in players and was able to build a team using a system nobody else knew about or understood. Moneyball 2‘s plot is just going to be Billy Beane walking into the Washington Nationals front office and saying “give me all your best young players for this one dude because you’re stupid” and Ted Lerner going “DURRRRRR SURE”. And also Jonah Hill will be there.

Via Big League Stew:

ESPN.com’s Keith Law reported via Twitter that the Washington Nationals have acquired [pitcher Gio] Gonzalez from the Oakland Athletics in exchange for four top prospects.

On their way to a future in green and gold are pitchers A.J. Cole, Brad Peacock and Tom Milone, along with catcher Derek Norris. Cole, Peacock and Norris were among the Nationals’ top 10 prospects as rated by Baseball America. And Minor League Ball’s John Sickels had Milone in his Nats top 10, as well.

I guess I’m happy that Nats GM Mike Rizzo has a talking point for his offseason, and nothing the guys who gave Jayson Werth 130 million f**king dollars should come as a surprise. Chances are they’re still going to go after Prince Fielder, too, so maybe they’re going to tie the remaining six prospects together and FedEx them to someone to thin out the competition.

Regardless, Mike Cameron should start learning the words to “The Show”.