April 11, 2012; Mandatory Credit: Kelley L Cox-US PRESSWIRE

Joel Peralta to left leading of the top of the 12th. With a pump of the fist, Gomes had been the difference maker despite playing less then half the game. Shortly thereafter when Grant Balfour closed out the game the A’s had a victory in Tampa Bay. Becoming only the second visiting team to do so in 2012.

With his mohawk flowing, and his tattooed muscles bulging Jonny Gomes resembles more biker than baseball player. Upon each home run hit, he circles the bases at a pace only slightly slower than Adam Rosales. That’s fast in A’s terminology, folks. As he crosses home plate, he rips his batting helmet off exposing his gravity defying locks, bashes forearms with the on deck hitter and heads into the dugout making a point to pound fists and high five with each teammate. When relegated to the bench, he is amongst the first to rise to congratulate a teammate offering enthusiasm and encouragement in infinite amounts.

Providing the A’s with an intangible that has been lacking in recent years. Heart. Well, power too but for the sake of the article  let’s focus on heart. Miles and miles of heart. In essence to the A’s, he’s the anti-Matt Holiday. He swings hard, runs hard, and plays hard for a his a team he dreamt of playing for as a child. He signed to play for the A’s willingly, spoke of his love for the organization, and although his play has been split primarily at DH with Seth Smith he has thrilled fans with his moon shot home runs and his full effort play having many fans clamoring for more.

What many fans don’t realize is that all that Jonny Gomes has accomplished in professional baseball so far, and all that he will achieve came some close to never happening. During the winter of 2002, he suffered a heart attack at the young age of 22. The attack was the result of a clogged artery and came out of nowhere.  These kind of things just don’t happen to 22 year olds with a clean bill of health. They don’t happen to professional athletes. They don’t happen to people with 8 % body fat. They don’t happen to athletes who stay clean and pass every steroid and substance test with flying colors. Yet, this happened to Jonny Gomes and it nearly took his life. He ignored the symptoms for 27 hours. Sleeping through the chest pains and tingling feelings in his arms, he only headed to the hospital after briefly losing consciousness after eating dinner with his brother. As doctors ran a myriad of tests, concluding that a pinched coronary artery was the cause of the attack, he was alerted that if he had fallen asleep once more it may have been for the last time. The heart attack, had no lasting physical effects on Gomes. He has received a clean bill of health ever since, and Tampa Bay trainers kept nitroglycerin pills on hand for years after, in case he ever suffered another attack. Thankfully, they never had to be used.

Jonny Gomes plays the game the right way. He doesn’t play for money, or fame. He plays with such energy and determination, that it is spreading to each of his teammates providing an identity and a positive focus on a franchise that so desperately needs it. Perhaps, the A’s have found a player who offers something that can’t be measured as a statistic. Heart. You gotta have heart.

Devin Pangaro can be found ranting and raving about all things green and gold on twitter @devinpangaro, and please follow my fellow Swingin’ A’s scribes @FS_SwinginAs or like us on Facebook

December 14, 2010; Oakland, CA, USA; Oakland Athletics general manager Billy Beane (right) smiles while addressing the media as designated hitter Hideki Matsui (left) looks on during a press conference following Matsui signing with the Athletics at Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum. Mandatory Credit: Kyle Terada-US PRESSWIRE

With the 2012 season officially underway, all eyes—especially mine—will be focused on Billy Beane and the rest of the Athletics’ management as the team enters yet another rebuilding phase.

The Athletics are not expected to compete this year given their demolition of their starting rotation this offseason and because of their unproven offense.

Instead, this season feels destined, really, to be another chapter in Billy Beane’s painfully-penned rebuild.

Oakland has been in this position before, namely back in 2007 when the team sent fan-favorites like Nick Swisher and Dan Haren packing in various trades that landed the A’s plenty of young prospects.

Beane’s inconsistencies in addition to the A’s ever-growing stadium problems have made the team’s rebuilding attempts extremely difficult to watch.

This touchy topic has been covered religiously on this site, especially by our very own Staff Writer Jason Leary, but the A’s rebuilding attempts serve as a reminder that not all clubs succeed in building a winning product. Beane has done a fine job in recent years of acquiring young talent, but holding onto that talent and having the patience with those prospects are another thing.

Perhaps the biggest mistake Beane has made in recent years was the decision to trade for outfielder Matt Holliday prior to the 2009 season. The A’s certainly thought they’d get a lot from Holliday, but for the amount of talent the team gave Colorado in exchange for Holliday and the overall timing of the deal didn’t make complete sense.

For one, the A’s gave up the talented young outfielder Carlos Gonzalez as a way to acquire the older Holliday. In hindsight, that was not a great decision on Beane’s behalf. It should speak volumes of Beane’s abilities to scout young hitting talent.

I just never felt that the A’s gave Gonzalez much of a chance in Oakland. He was shipped out of town essentially for a rent-a-slugger. Holliday, as you’ll all remember, didn’t last in Oakland and was traded by the 2009 trade deadline to St.Louis.

That was the biggest mistake the A’s GM made, in my opinion, anyway, as it disrupted his rebuilding efforts. The A’s were kidding themselves if they thought they could compete in 2009.

Guys like Brett Anderson and Trevor Cahill were barely bursting onto the scene and even with an offense that featured Holliday, Jason Giambi, Orlando Cabrera, and Nomar Garciaparra—all of whom with the exception of Holliday, were old and inexpensive sources of veteran leadership acquired by the A’s—the pitching staff wasn’t up for the task of competing.

I think the A’s learned during the 2009 season that rebuilding is harder than it seems. You have to scout well, draft well, and more importantly know how to develop young talent once you have it in your minor league system. Looking at this season, the A’s have yet again laid out a solid foundation of young pitching.

Pitchers like Jarrod Parker, Brad Peacock, Sonny Gray, and A.J. Cole are just a few of the names the A’s are currently waiting for to emerge onto the big league scene. The A’s turned their focus onto their rebuilding efforts this past winter with the Gio Gonzalez, Trevor Cahill, and Andrew Bailey trades, but their commitment is still relatively unknown.

One minute they’re wheelin’ and dealin’, and then the next minute they’re forking over $14 million to Coco Crisp and $36 million to an unproven outfielder named Yoenis Cespedes. The A’s are trying, I think, to build a winning club, but Beane’s recent attempts may not matter in the end.

The A’s are still waiting around —for three years now—for MLB and Bud Selig to deliver their findings about the Athletics’ stadium situation in Oakland. The team is desperately fighting for a spot in San Jose, a territory that the Giants claim as theirs. San Francisco isn’t budging on those territorial claims and the A’s are stuck in the vortex called O.co Coliseum.

So, citing Beane’s inconsistencies during the last few rebuilding years is only part of the organization’s problem. The A’s do need to have better consistency when it comes to evaluating talent and developing talent, but they also need MLB and Bud Selig to step up to the plate and finally deliver their decision regarding the San Jose mess.

Selig has kept the A’s waiting long enough. These past few years have made Beane’s job a little harder and have definitely put a strain on the ever-thining fan-base. No one likes to lose, but the A’s are not in a position to go out and sign a bunch of free-agent talent.

Instead, the team has been forced to tear down, rebuild, assemble, tear down, and rebuild. Will MLB deliver a decision before the A’s are forced to give up on their new crop of young talent (I’m talking about you, Parker, Peacock, Gray, and Cole)?

It’s become an excruciating process.

Beane can assemble all the young talent he wants. Heck, he can even have the patience to develop all that young talent in a way that produces a few wins here and there. But without a place to play, those wins won’t matter, will they?

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Follow me on twitter @oaklandace75 and for more A’s related analysis, stories, and opinions, follow us on twitter @FS_SwinginAs or like us on Facebook.

The seventh and final game of the series will be played tonight, and after all is said and done, baseball will be crowing a new champion. Texas heads into the game seven after an emotional loss on Thursday night. Emotionally, Texas is, in my opinion, on shaky ground. Game six was theirs, but the Cardinals never backed down and forced a game seven.

Ron Washington, a former member of the A’s organization, will look to put Texas back on track tonight, but it certainly won’t be easy. Texas scored a bunch of runs, like they always seem to do, but it wasn’t enough. What will it take to beat the energized St. Louis Cardinals in game seven? That’s a question the Rangers are probably asking themselves right now.

If you’re a sports fan, you’d better be watching the World Series tonight. If you don’t, then you’re not a sports fan. This series, in my mind, has ascended to new heights in drama, suspense, and thrills. These two teams are battling for baseball’s ultimate prize tonight, and if game seven turns out to be anything like game six, then we’re all in for a real treat. 

Take a look below at a clip from last night’s walk off win. It doesn’t get any better than this…