FanHouse Stomper

"Under The Gun" takes a look at one player from each team who will bear all the pressure for the upcoming '08 season.

The Athletics may be amidst a brand new rebuilding process after trading Dan Haren, Nick Swisher, Mark Kotsay, Stomper, and Billy Beane's first edition of Moneyball signed by Michael Lewis this offseason for all the prospects they can get their hands on, but that doesn't mean there aren't players on the team feeling pressure this season.

If you're Eric Chavez, for instance, you've got a lot to prove to yourself and the Athletics this season. Chavez missed 72 games last season thanks to a whole myriad of injuries. He had three surgeries this offseason alone to repair a torn labrum in his right shoulder, one to fix a bulging disc in his lower back, and then for good measure, he had the labrum in his left shoulder fixed as well.

There have been cadavers who've experienced less intrusion.

Chavez obviously struggled in 2007 while battling these injuries, putting up career lows in batting average (.240), OBP (.306), OPS (.752), and RBI (46) to name a few. HIs 15 home runs were also his lowest total since Eric's first full season in Oakland back in 1999.

Considering that Chavez is Oakland's highest paid player at $9.5 million this season, it's also very possible he won't finish the season as a member of the Athletics. Which means if he does perform well, he may have a way out to a contender come July.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: the A's really do have the coolest mascot in all of sports. When he's not getting hyphy with the fans or winning dance-off competitions, he's traveling across the country to liven up his friends birthday parties. (And it's a good thing, because Raymond's parties look kind of boring -- a pinata? What, is he turning six?)

But there you have it: an elephant beatboxing and a moose dancing -- this is exactly why Al Gore invented the internet.

Seeing as how Huston Street isn't able to pitch right now thanks to his right elbow, he's got a lot of extra time on his hands. On Thursday night he used all that free time to sit in with Glen Kuiper and Ray Fosse in the broadcast booth during Oakland's 3-2 victory over the Mariners.

Street spent about four innings in the booth, and it was quite entertaining. In fact, I recommend FSN Bay Area gets him up there more often. Huston shared a lot of anecdotes and stories about his personal life, including how he proposed to his girlfriend.

The man bought her 1,500 roses. Not fifteen, not fifteen dozen, not even 150. One thousand five hundred roses. That's a lot of damn roses. Street did go on to say that he got sick of having them around the house all the time because of the smell, but said his fiance wouldn't throw them out. She'd get rid of them as they died, but when they were all dead, she made him clean them up.

Ah, married life.

To learn some of the other things Huston shared, follow me after the jump.

That's Stomper, the Oakland A's mascot, getting ambushed by the visiting Kansas City Royals. Stomper is quickly becoming my favorite major league mascot -- perhaps because he's not too cool to mingle with the fans -- but he seems to have his share of enemies, from bad baseball players to that punk Lou the Seal and his henchman Crazy Crab from San Francisco. What gives?