title: Indian Space Research Organisation

text: The Integrated Space Cell, under the Integrated Defence Staff headquarters of the Ministry of Defence, has been set up to utilise more effectively the country's space-based assets for military purposes and to look into threats to these assets. This command will leverage space technology including satellites. Unlike an aerospace command, where the Air Force controls most of its activities, the Integrated Space Cell envisages cooperation and coordination between the three services as well as civilian agencies dealing with space.


title: Indian Space Research Organisation

text: With 14 satellites, including GSAT-7A for exclusive military use and the rest as dual-use satellites, India has the fourth largest number of satellites active in the sky which includes satellites for the exclusive use of its air force (IAF) and navy. GSAT-7A, an advanced military communications satellite built exclusively for the Air Force, is similar to the Navy's GSAT-7, and GSAT-7A will enhance the IAF's network-centric warfare capabilities by interlinking different ground radar stations, ground airbases and airborne early warning and control (AWACS) aircraft such as the Beriev A-50 Phalcon and DRDO AEW&CS.


title: Indian Space Research Organisation

text: GSAT-7A will also be used by the Army's Aviation Corps for its helicopters and unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) operations. In 2013, ISRO launched GSAT-7 for the exclusive use of the Navy to monitor the Indian Ocean Region (IOR) with the satellite's 'footprint' and real-time input capabilities to Indian warships, submarines and maritime aircraft. To boost the network-centric operations of the IAF, ISRO launched GSAT-7A in December 2018. The RISAT series of radar-imaging earth observation satellites is also meant for Military use. ISRO launched EMISAT on 1 April 2019. EMISAT is a electronic intelligence (ELINT) satellite. It will improve the situational awareness of the Indian Armed Forces by providing information and the location of hostile radars.


title: Indian Space Research Organisation

text: India's satellites and satellite launch vehicles have had military spin-offs. While India's range Prithvi missile is not derived from the Indian space programme, the intermediate range Agni missile is derived from the Indian space programme's SLV-3. In its early years, under Sarabhai and Dhawan, ISRO opposed military applications for its dual-use projects such as the SLV-3. Eventually, the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO)-based missile programme borrowed staff and technology from ISRO. Missile scientist A.P.J. Abdul Kalam (later elected president), who had headed the SLV-3 project at ISRO, took over as missile programme at DRDO. About a dozen scientists accompanied him, helping to design the Agni missile using the SLV-3's solid fuel first stage and a liquid-fuel (Prithvi-missile-derived) second stage. The IRS and INSAT satellites were primarily intended, and used, for civilian-economic applications, but they also offered military spin-offs. In 1996 the Ministry of Defence temporarily blocked the use of IRS-1C by India's environmental and agricultural ministries in order to monitor ballistic missiles near India's borders. In 1997, the Air Force's "Airpower Doctrine" aspired to use space assets for surveillance and battle management.


title: Indian Space Research Organisation

text: Institutions like the Indira Gandhi National Open University and the Indian Institutes of Technology use satellites for educational applications. Between 1975 and 1976, India conducted its largest sociological programme using space technology, reaching 2,400villages through video programming in local languages aimed at educational development via ATS-6 technology developed by NASA. This experiment—named Satellite Instructional Television Experiment (SITE)—conducted large-scale video broadcasts resulting in significant improvement in rural education. Education could reach remote rural areas with the help of the above programs.


title: Indian Space Research Organisation

text: ISRO has applied its technology for telemedicine, directly connecting patients in rural areas to medical professionals in urban locations via satellite. Since high-quality healthcare is not universally available in some of the remote areas of India, patients in those areas are diagnosed and analysed by doctors in urban centers in real time via video conferencing. The patient is then advised on medicine and treatment, and treated by the staff at one of the 'super-specialty hospitals' per instructions from those doctors. Mobile telemedicine vans are also deployed to visit locations in far-flung areas and provide diagnosis and support to patients.


title: Indian Space Research Organisation

text: ISRO has also helped implement India's Biodiversity Information System, completed in October 2002. Nirupa Sen details the program: "Based on intensive field sampling and mapping using satellite remote sensing and geospatial modeling tools, maps have been made of vegetation cover on a 1: 250,000 scale. This has been put together in a web-enabled database that links gene-level information of plant species with spatial information in a BIOSPEC database of the ecological hot spot regions, namely northeastern India, Western Ghats, Western Himalayas and Andaman and Nicobar Islands. This has been made possible with collaboration between the Department of Biotechnology and ISRO."


title: Indian Space Research Organisation

text: The Indian IRS-P5 (CARTOSAT-1) was equipped with high-resolution panchromatic equipment to enable it for cartographic purposes. IRS-P5 (CARTOSAT-1) was followed by a more advanced model named IRS-P6 developed also for agricultural applications. The CARTOSAT-2 project, equipped with single panchromatic camera that supported scene-specific on-spot images, succeeded the CARTOSAT-1 project.


title: Indian Space Research Organisation

text: ISRO's research has been diverted into spin-offs to develop various technologies for other sectors. Examples include bionic limbs for people without limbs, silica aerogel to keep Indian soldiers serving in extremely cold areas warm, distress alert transmitters for accidents, Doppler weather radar and various sensors and machines for inspection work in engineering industries.


title: Indian Space Research Organisation

text: ISRO has signed various formal cooperative arrangements in the form of either Agreements or Memoranda of Understanding (MoU) or Framework Agreements with Afghanistan, Algeria, Argentina, Armenia, Australia, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Bolivia, Brazil, Brunei, Bulgaria, Canada, Chile, China, Egypt, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Indonesia, Israel, Italy, Japan, Kazakhstan, Kuwait, Maldives, Mauritius, Mexico, Mongolia, Morocco, Myanmar, Norway, Peru, Portugal, South Korea, Russia, São Tomé and Príncipe, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, South Africa, Spain, Oman, Sweden, Syria, Tajikistan, Thailand, the Netherlands, Tunisia, Ukraine, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, United States, Uzbekistan, Venezuela and Vietnam. Formal cooperative instruments have been signed with international multilateral bodies including European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF), European Commission, European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites (EUMETSAT), European Space Agency (ESA) and South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC).


title: Indian Space Research Organisation

text: ISRO has two collaborative satellite missions with France's CNES, namely Megha-Tropiques to study water cycle in the tropical atmosphere and SARAL for altimetry. A third mission consisting of an earth observation satellite with a thermal infrared imager, TRISHNA (Thermal infraRed Imaging Satellite for High resolution Natural resource Assessment) is being planned by the two countries.


title: Indian Space Research Organisation

text: Lunar Polar Exploration Mission is a joint Indo-Japanese mission to study the polar surface of the Moon where India is tasked with providing soft landing technologies.


title: Indian Space Research Organisation

text: NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar (NISAR) is a joint Indo-US radar project carrying an L Band and an S Band radar. It will be world's first radar imaging satellite to use dual frequencies.


title: Indian Space Research Organisation

text: In India, electromagnetic spectrum, a scarce resource for wireless communication, is auctioned by the Government of India to telecom companies for use. As an example of its value, in 2010, 20 MHz of 3G spectrum was auctioned for . This part of the spectrum is allocated for terrestrial communication (cell phones). However, in January 2005, Antrix Corporation (commercial arm of ISRO) signed an agreement with Devas Multimedia (a private company formed by former ISRO employees and venture capitalists from the US) for lease of S band transponders (amounting to 70 MHz of spectrum) on two ISRO satellites (GSAT 6 and GSAT 6A) for a price of , to be paid over a period of 12 years. The spectrum used in these satellites (2500 MHz and above) is allocated by the International Telecommunication Union specifically for satellite-based communication in India. Hypothetically, if the spectrum allocation is changed for utilisation for terrestrial transmission and if this 70 MHz of spectrum were sold at the 2010 auction price of the 3G spectrum, its value would have been over . This was a hypothetical situation. However, the Comptroller and Auditor-General considered this hypothetical situation and estimated the difference between the prices as a loss to the Indian Government.


title: Indian Space Research Organisation

text: There were lapses on implementing official procedures. Antrix/ISRO had allocated the capacity of the above two satellites exclusively to Devas Multimedia, while the rules said it should always be non-exclusive. The Cabinet was misinformed in November 2005 that several service providers were interested in using satellite capacity, while the Devas deal was already signed. Also, the Space Commission was not informed when approving the second satellite (its cost was diluted so that Cabinet approval was not needed). ISRO committed to spending of public money on building, launching, and operating two satellites that were leased out for Devas.


title: Indian Space Research Organisation

text: In late 2009, some ISRO insiders exposed information about the Devas-Antrix deal, and the ensuing investigations led to the deal's annulment. G. Madhavan Nair (ISRO Chairperson when the agreement was signed) was barred from holding any post under the Department of Space. Some former scientists were found guilty of "acts of commission" or "acts of omission". Devas and Deutsche Telekom demanded US$2 billion and US$1 billion, respectively, in damages. The Department of Revenue and Ministry of Corporate Affairs began an inquiry into Devas shareholding.


title: Indian Space Research Organisation

text: The Central Bureau of Investigation registered a case against the accused in the Antrix-Devas deal under Section 120-B, besides Section 420 of IPC and Section 13(2) read with 13(1)(d) of PC Act, 1988 in March 2015 against the then executive director of Antrix Corporation, two officials of a USA-based company, a Bangalore-based private multimedia company, and other unknown officials of the Antrix Corporation or the Department of Space.


title: Indian Space Research Organisation

text: Devas Multimedia started arbitration proceedings against Antrix in June 2011. In September 2015, the International Court of Arbitration of the International Chamber of Commerce ruled in favour of Devas, and directed Antrix to pay US$672 million (Rs 44.35 billion) in damages to Devas. Antrix opposed the Devas plea for tribunal award in the Delhi High Court.


title: Indian Space Research Organisation

text: ^'Additional Project Director' "Abhijeet Meshram" Saying About Chandrayan-2 at SHIKHAR DHAWAN SPACE STATION on (18 May 2019)


title: Kirk Hammett

text: Kirk Lee Hammett (born November 18, 1962) is an American musician who has been the lead guitarist and a contributing songwriter for heavy metal band Metallica since 1983. Before joining Metallica, he formed and named the band Exodus. In 2003, Hammett was ranked 11th on "Rolling Stone"<nowiki>'</nowiki>s list of The 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time. In 2009, Hammett was ranked number 15 in Joel McIver's book "The 100 Greatest Metal Guitarists".


title: Kirk Hammett

text: Hammett was born on November 18, 1962, in San Francisco, California, and raised in the town of El Sobrante. He is the son of Teofila "Chefela" (born Oyao) and Dennis L. Hammett (a Merchant Mariner). His mother is of Filipino descent and his father was of English, German, Scottish and Irish ancestry. He attended De Anza High School in Richmond, California. While attending De Anza High School, he met Les Claypool of Primus, and they remain close friends.


title: Kirk Hammett

text: Hammett has a well-known passion for horror movies that stretches back to the late sixties. After spraining his arm in a fight with his sister at the age of five, Hammett's parents placed him in front of the television. It was during this time that he first watched "The Day of the Triffids". After that, Hammett found himself drawn to his brother's Frankenstein figures, and soon began spending his milk money on horror magazines. For the better part of the next decade, Hammett dove deep into the horror scene.


title: Kirk Hammett

text: Hammett began showing an interest in music after listening to his brother Rick's extensive record collection (which included Jimi Hendrix, Led Zeppelin and UFO). He began selling his horror magazines to buy music records, which led him to properly picking up the guitar at the age of fifteen. Hammett's first guitar was (in his own words) a "wholly unglamorous" Montgomery Ward catalog special, which was accompanied by a shoebox (with a 4-inch speaker) for an amp. After purchasing a 1978 Fender Stratocaster copy, Hammett attempted to customize his sound with various guitar parts, before eventually buying a 1974 Gibson Flying V.


title: Kirk Hammett

text: Hammett's musical interests eventually drew him into the fledgling thrash metal genre. In 1979, he formed the band Exodus at the age of sixteen, along with vocalist Paul Baloff, guitarist Tim Agnello, bassist Geoff Andrews, and drummer Tom Hunting. Hammett named Exodus after the Leon Uris novel of the same name, and played on the band's "1982 Demo" and its successor "Die By His Hand" from 1983. Exodus was an influential band in the Bay Area thrash movement.


title: Kirk Hammett

text: In 1983, Metallica traveled to the east coast to record its debut album, "Kill 'Em All". Due to lead guitarist Dave Mustaine's substance abuse and violent tendencies, he was fired shortly after their arrival, and would eventually form the band Megadeth. Hammett received a phone call from Metallica on April 1, and flew out to New York for an audition on April 11, the same day Mustaine was let go. Vocalist/guitarist James Hetfield said: "The first song we played was "Seek and Destroy", and Kirk pulled off this solo, and it was like ... things are going to be alright!". Hammett was instantly asked to join the band.


title: Kirk Hammett

text: Hammett has written a number of riffs for Metallica since "Ride the Lightning" (the band's second album). One of his riffs was used on "Enter Sandman" - which went on to become one of Metallica's most popular songs. It was the first track and the first single on the band's self-titled album (also known as "The Black Album"), and was ranked 399th on "Rolling Stone"s list of The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time. The bridge for "Creeping Death" was originally an Exodus riff that Hammett took with him to Metallica.


title: Kirk Hammett

text: In 1986, during the band's European leg of their tour to support "Master of Puppets", the group had a dispute over sleeping arrangements on their tour bus. The outcome of the dispute was decided by a card draw, which Cliff Burton won by picking the Ace of Spades. Once the draw was completed, Burton looked at Hammett and said "I want your bunk", to which Hammett complied, saying that he might be able to sleep better in the front of the bus anyway. In the early hours of the following morning, Metallica's tour bus slid off the road and overturned in Sweden. Burton was thrown through the window of the bus, which fell on top of Burton and subsequently killed him. Hammett has stated in an interview that he once thought that it easily could have been him who was killed instead, since Burton was sleeping in what was considered to be Hammett's bunk. In Kirk's own words: "You know to this day I just think, it could have been me or it couldn't have been me but ... it’s never left me to this day."


title: Kirk Hammett

text: Between the end of touring (and promoting) the "Black Album" and the start of touring in promotion of "Load", he studied at San Francisco State University, focusing on film and Asian arts. Hammett went through a "blues period" around this time - which had some influence on Metallica's "Load" and "Reload" albums. He also began listening to a lot of jazz music. Hammett described this period of his life as "great education", because he was able to discover where all of his own rock influences had gotten their own guitar licks. However, even though jazz music had a profound effect on his improvisation skills and solos, Hammett felt that he was delving too deep into the genre. Since "Death Magnetic", Hammett has gone back to being "primarily" a metal guitarist, but some of his influences of jazz and blues music still remain.


title: Kirk Hammett

text: Hammett wanted to have guitar solos on Metallica's 2003 album, "St. Anger", but drummer Lars Ulrich and producer Bob Rock thought that the solos did not sound right in the songs. He later admitted himself, "We tried to put in solos but they sounded like an afterthought so we left them out". Recording for "St. Anger" was halted in 2001 so that Metallica frontman James Hetfield could enter rehab for alcohol abuse. Due to tensions within the band (which were well-documented in the Metallica documentary "Some Kind of Monster") at the time, Hammett expressed interest in working on a solo album. According to Hammett, if he ever worked on a solo album, it wouldn't be "super-duty" heavy metal, and may include some classical guitarists. When he was asked about his experiences of recording "St. Anger", Hammett said:


title: Kirk Hammett

text: On April 4, 2009, Hammett, along with Metallica bandmates Lars Ulrich, James Hetfield, and Robert Trujillo and former Metallica bandmates Jason Newsted and the deceased Cliff Burton, were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. In 2009, Hammett provided the foreword to British author Joel McIver's book "To Live Is to Die: The Life and Death of Metallica's Cliff Burton".


title: Kirk Hammett

text: In April 2015, Hammett admitted to losing his phone - which contained 250 new "ideas" for Metallica's upcoming studio release. The incident happened about six months prior to the admission (around November 2014). The phone was not backed up and Hammett can only remember eight out of the 250 "ideas" he had. On the subject, Hammett said:


title: Kirk Hammett

text: In 2016, Hammett provided the foreword to author Greg Prato's book "German Metal Machine: Scorpions in the '70s".


title: Kirk Hammett

text: On February 8, 2022, it was announced that Hammett would release an extended play entitled "Portals". Said to be inspired by "classical music, soundtracks, horror movies and maybe a little Ennio Morricone", the play is his solo debut and was released on April 23, 2022.


title: Kirk Hammett

text: He also appeared on the "Kichigai" EP by punk band Septic Death. He played additional lead guitar on the title track.


title: Kirk Hammett

text: Hammett can be seen in the background in Primus' "John the Fisherman" video fishing off of Les Claypool's boat. Hammett has been friends with Primus bassist and lead vocalist Les Claypool since childhood. Claypool even auditioned for Metallica after the tragic death of Cliff Burton.


title: Kirk Hammett

text: Hammett played guitar on the track "Satan" with Orbital for the "Spawn: The Album" soundtrack released in July 1997.


title: Kirk Hammett

text: Hammett plays a guitar solo on Pansy Division's song "Headbanger" which appears on the EP "For Those About to Suck Cock".


title: Kirk Hammett

text: In 2005, Hammett was featured playing the guitar roles on the Carlos Santana track "Trinity" alongside steel-pedal guitarist Robert Randolph. Santana personally asked Hammett to contribute to his then-upcoming album "All That I Am". Hammett previously worked with Santana in 2001 at a live show benefit in San Francisco. Metallica had also invited Santana into the studio while recording "St. Anger".


title: Kirk Hammett

text: In 2006, Hammett voiced himself on "The Simpsons" ("The Mook, the Chef, the Wife and Her Homer"). He also provided various voices on the Adult Swim show "Metalocalypse", including a two fingered fan ("The Curse of Dethklok"), The Queen of Denmark ("Happy Dethday"), and a Finnish barkeep ("Dethtroll").


title: Kirk Hammett

text: Hammett also appeared as a guest in an episode of "Space Ghost Coast to Coast" titled "Jacksonville", alongside fellow Metallica member James Hetfield.


title: Kirk Hammett

text: He appeared as a guest guitarist on K'Naan's 2006 song "If Rap Gets Jealous" off of the "Troubadour" album.


title: Kirk Hammett

text: After performing a set with Metallica at Bonnaroo in June 2008, Hammett played one song with My Morning Jacket and a couple songs with the annual Superjam collaboration, which also included Les Claypool and members of Gogol Bordello playing primarily Tom Waits songs.


title: Kirk Hammett

text: Hammett is one of the main characters in "", along with the rest of the current line-up of Metallica.


title: Kirk Hammett

text: Hammett has appeared as himself, representing the character Kevin's conscience, in the 2022 American teen comedy-drama Metal Lords.


title: Kirk Hammett

text: On October 1, 2012, Abrams Image published Hammett's first book, "Too Much Horror Business" (a collection of photos detailing Hammett's lifelong love of monster movies and horror memorabilia). Hammett has said that the book is "basically" all of the horror memorabilia he has managed to amass over the last 30 years. In an interview with "Guitar World", Hammett said that he has such a huge horror collection and thought it was the right time to share it with everyone. The 228 page hardcover features more than 300 images of Hammett's horror collection. Among these images are the costumes from the Bela Lugosi movies "White Zombie" and "The Black Cat" (which also starred Boris Karloff), original movie posters (ranging from "Nosferatu" to "Hellraiser"), rare horror-themed toys (including the 'Great Garloo' and 'Frankenstein Tricky Walkers'), movie props (including the 'Dr. Tongue' zombie from George A. Romero's "Day of the Dead"), original Basil Gogos "Famous Monsters" art, and fantasy paintings by Frank Frazetta. In addition to the images from Hammett's horror collection, "Too Much Horror Business" contains three conversations with the guitarist about his childhood, the nature of his horror collection, and the connection between Metallica's music and horror movies. On the book, Hammett has been quoted saying:


title: Kirk Hammett

text: "Kirk Von Hammett's Fear FestEvil" is an annual horror convention created by Kirk Hammett. The first "Fear FestEvil" took place at the Regency Ballroom in San Francisco - over a three-day period (from February 6–8, 2014). Hammett was inspired to create his own horror convention after experiencing the enjoyment of making his "crypt" at the "Orion Music + More" festival. The convention features live music, signings, interactive displays, vending, live talks, and guest appearances. At the 2014 event, guests included Sara Karloff (daughter of actor Boris Karloff), Bela G. Lugosi (son of actor Bela Lugosi), make-up artist Gregory Nicotero (who worked on George A. Romero's "Day of the Dead"), actor Tom Savini (who portrayed "Sex Machine" in From Dusk Till Dawn and worked on many of George A. Romero's movies), Heather Langenkamp (who portrayed Nancy in Wes Craven's "A Nightmare on Elm Street"), Kane Hodder (who portrayed Jason Voorhees in the "Friday the 13th" film series), and Haruo Nakajima (of Godzilla fame). Other guests in attendance included Hammett's former band Exodus, Death Angel, Orchid, Metallica band member Robert Trujillo, Richard Christy, Stephen Perkins, Slash, and Scott Ian. Exodus played on-stage with Carcass on the Friday, whilst Death Division and Orchid played before Death Angel on the Saturday. Hammett joined Exodus and Death Angel on-stage for their encores.


title: Kirk Hammett

text: The second annual "Fear FestEvil" took place between April 10–12, 2015, at the "Rockbar Theater" in San Jose, California. Meshuggah headlined the event, whilst High on Fire, Blues Pills, Agnostic Front, and Asada Messiah also made appearances. Orchid also made a second appearance at the "Fear FestEvil". On April 10, VIPs were able to attend the "Dinner and Murder Mystery" - along with Hammett - at the Winchester Mystery House.


title: Kirk Hammett

text: Hammett has been married twice. His first marriage to Rebecca lasted three years, having ended in 1990, during the recording of "Metallica". Hammett has been married to his second wife Lani since 1998. They have two sons, Angel (b. September 29, 2006) and Vincenzo (b. June 28, 2008). He resides in Sonoma, California and Hawaii.


title: Kirk Hammett

text: In addition to playing guitar and collecting horror memorabilia, Hammett's hobbies include reading comic books and surfing.


title: Kirk Hammett

text: At one point in his life, Hammett spent a "lot of money" on drugs. Hammett has said that he used drugs because he thought they would be fun. During the Damaged Justice tour, he had a cocaine addiction. Hammett eventually pulled out of the addiction because cocaine made him feel depressed, but relapsed during the "Load" era. One of the reasons Hammett said he spent a lot of money on comic books is because he finds them to be a more enjoyable and healthier alternative to drugs. He also smoked heroin a few times, but "didn't like it".


title: Kirk Hammett

text: Although the other members of Metallica do not speak publicly about their politics, Hammett has expressed his disagreement with statements by former president Donald Trump. In an interview with "Billboard" magazine in December 2016 (one month after Trump's election), Hammett said that he was "just waiting to get into a personal Twitter war with (Trump)." In the same interview, Hammett stressed the importance of the fight against global warming, which Trump has claimed is a hoax.


title: Kirk Hammett

text: Hammett is known for consistently taping sections of his right (picking) hand in order to protect his skin from abrasions from his use of palm muting and fast picking techniques over lengthy tour cycles.


title: Kirk Hammett

text: On the 25th anniversary of Metallica's debut album "Kill 'Em All", Hammett appears on the cover of Feb. 2008's "Guitar World" sporting his new custom ESP. This model is the KH20, the 20th anniversary model from ESP.


title: Kirk Hammett

text: In 2014, Hammett purchased the 1959 Les Paul formerly used by Gary Moore and Peter Green; using it on tour when playing a cover of Thin Lizzy's version of "Whiskey in the Jar".


title: Kirk Hammett

text: Throughout Metallica's career, Hammett has used a range of different amplifiers. For the first two albums, he used Marshall amplifiers and cabinets, with occasional effects. For the recording of Metallica's third album, "Master of Puppets" (1986), he and James Hetfield bought a Mesa/Boogie MarkIIC+ amplifier, and used Mesa/Boogie Dual Rectifier heads. Even when he made his move to Randall Amplifiers in 2007, he still used Mesa/Boogie amplifiers in his setup, and still does to this day. He currently uses two rackmounted Dual Rectifier 2-channel heads in tandem with his Randalls.


title: Kirk Hammett

text: In September 2007, Randall Amplifiers announced a partnership with Hammett to design a line of signature amplifiers, heads, combos and preamp modules.


title: Kirk Hammett

text: In December 2011, it was announced by Fortin Amps that they would team up with Randall to start a new line of tube amplifiers based on the Fortin Meathead amplifier. Hammett is currently using a prototype of the amplifier that he used for the Big 4 show at Yankee Stadium and for all of the shows in India and Asia, and was recently sent a second prototype.


title: Kirk Hammett

text: To avoid problems with pedals being damaged during live performances, Hammett keeps his effect pedals in a rack along with his amplifiers. His guitar technician controls them through a pedalboard sidestage. The pedal controller allows him to change between different effect pedals and amplifiers.


title: Kirk Hammett

text: In 2008, Jim Dunlop started working in partnership with Hammett to create a signature Wah-wah pedal, the KH95. Hammett said that the Ibanez Tube Screamer has been an essential part of his sound since he was a teenager, but it was not versatile enough, which started him searching for a better pedal. In 2012, he co-founded KHDK Electronics with sound designer David Karon, hiring Antonin Salva as chief engineer, based in Prague. The company makes guitar pedals in Paducah, Kentucky. They began developing pedals and trying out prototypes. In September 2015, the company launched its first series of pedals, surprising the industry.


title: Oakland Athletics

text: The Oakland Athletics (often referred to as the A's) are an American professional baseball team based in Oakland, California. The Athletics compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) West division. The team plays its home games at the Oakland Coliseum. Throughout their history, the Athletics have won nine World Series championships.


title: Oakland Athletics

text: One of the American League's eight charter franchises, the team was founded in Philadelphia in 1901 as the Philadelphia Athletics. They won three World Series championships in 1910, 1911, and 1913, and back-to-back titles in 1929 and 1930. The team's owner and manager for its first 50 years was Connie Mack and Hall of Fame players included Chief Bender, Frank "Home Run" Baker, Jimmie Foxx, and Lefty Grove. The team left Philadelphia for Kansas City in 1955 and became the Kansas City Athletics before moving to Oakland in 1968. Nicknamed the "Swingin' A's", they won three consecutive World Series in 1972, 1973, and 1974, led by players including Vida Blue, Catfish Hunter, Reggie Jackson, Rollie Fingers, and owner Charlie O. Finley. After being sold by Finley to Walter A. Haas Jr., the team won three consecutive pennants and the 1989 World Series behind the "Bash Brothers", Jose Canseco and Mark McGwire, as well as Hall of Famers Dennis Eckersley, Rickey Henderson and manager Tony La Russa. In 2002, the Athletics set the record for most consecutive wins in a single season with twenty, an event that would go on to be the pioneering step in the application of sabermetrics in baseball. After the Golden State Warriors moved across the Bay to San Francisco in 2019, and the Raiders to Las Vegas in 2020, the Athletics were left as the only Oakland franchise among the five major American professional sports leagues with teams in the San Francisco Bay area.


title: Oakland Athletics

text: The history of the Athletics Major League Baseball franchise spans from 1901 to the present day, having begun in Philadelphia before moving to Kansas City in 1955 and then to its current home in Oakland, California, in 1968. The A's made their Bay Area debut on Wednesday, April 17, 1968, with a 4–1 loss to the Baltimore Orioles at the Coliseum, in front of an opening-night crowd of 50,164.


title: Oakland Athletics

text: The Athletics' name originated in the term "Athletic Club" for local gentlemen's clubs—dates to 1860 when an amateur team, the Athletic (Club) of Philadelphia, was formed. The team later turned professional through 1875, becoming a charter member of the National League in 1876, but were expelled from the N.L. after one season. A later version of the Athletics played in the American Association from 1882 to 1891.


title: Oakland Athletics

text: The familiar blackletter "A" is one of the oldest sports logos still in use. An image in Harper's Weekly with the rival Brooklyn Atlantics shows that the "A" appeared on the original Athletics' uniform as early as 1866.


title: Oakland Athletics

text: After New York Giants manager John McGraw told reporters that Philadelphia manufacturer Benjamin Shibe, who owned the controlling interest in the new team, had a "white elephant on his hands", team manager Connie Mack defiantly adopted the white elephant as the team mascot, and presented McGraw with a stuffed toy elephant at the start of the 1905 World Series. McGraw and Mack had known each other for years, and McGraw accepted it graciously. By 1909, the A's were wearing an elephant logo on their sweaters, and in 1918 it turned up on the regular uniform jersey for the first time.


title: Oakland Athletics

text: In 1963, when the A's were located in Kansas City, then-owner Charlie Finley changed the team mascot from an elephant to a mule, the state animal of Missouri. This is rumored to have been done by Finley in order to appeal to fans from the region who were predominantly Democrats at the time. (The traditional Republican Party symbol is an elephant, while the Democratic Party's symbol is a donkey.) Since 1988, the Athletics' 21st season in Oakland, an illustration of an elephant has adorned the left sleeve of the A's home and road uniforms. Beginning in the mid 1980s, the on-field costumed incarnation of the A's elephant mascot went by the name Harry Elephante, a play on the name of singer Harry Belafonte. In 1997, he took his current form, Stomper, debuting Opening Night on April 2.


title: Oakland Athletics

text: Through the seasons, the Athletics' uniforms have usually paid homage to their amateur forebears to some extent. Until 1954, when the uniforms had "Athletics" spelled out in script across the front, the team's name never appeared on either home or road uniforms. Furthermore, neither "Philadelphia" nor the letter "P" ever appeared on the uniform or cap. The typical Philadelphia uniform had only a script "A" on the left front, and likewise the cap usually had the same "A" on it. In the early days of the American League, the standings listed the club as "Athletic" rather than "Philadelphia", in keeping with the old tradition. Eventually, the city name came to be used for the team, as with the other major league clubs.


title: Oakland Athletics

text: After buying the team in 1960, owner Charles O. Finley introduced new road uniforms with "Kansas City" printed on them, with an interlocking "KC" on the cap. Upon moving to Oakland, the "A" cap emblem was restored, and in 1970 an "apostrophe-s" was added to the cap and uniform emblem to reflect that Finley was in the process of officially changing the team's name to the "A's".


title: Oakland Athletics

text: While in Kansas City, Finley changed the team's colors from their traditional red, white and blue to what he termed "Kelly Green, Wedding Gown White and Fort Knox Gold". It was here that he began experimenting with dramatic uniforms to match these bright colors, such as gold sleeveless tops with green undershirts and gold pants. The innovative uniforms only increased after the team's move to Oakland, which came at the time of the introduction of polyester pullover uniforms. During their dynasty years in the 1970s, the A's had dozens of uniform combinations with jerseys and pants in all three team colors, and in fact did not wear the traditional gray on the road, instead wearing green or gold, which helped to contribute to their nickname of "The Swingin' A's". After the team's sale to the Haas family, the team changed its primary color to a more subdued forest green and began a move back to more traditional uniforms.


title: Oakland Athletics

text: Currently, the team wears home uniforms with "Athletics" spelled out in script writing and road uniforms with "Oakland" spelled out in script writing, with the cap logo consisting of the traditional "A" with "apostrophe-s". The home cap, which was also the team's road cap until 1992, is forest green with a gold bill and white lettering. This design was also the basis of their batting helmet, which is used both at home and on the road. The road cap, which initially debuted in 1993, is all-forest green. The first version had the white "A's" wordmark before it was changed to gold the following season. In 2014, the "A's" wordmark returned to white but added gold trim.


title: Oakland Athletics

text: From 1994 until 2013, the A's wore green alternate jerseys with the word "Athletics" in gold. It was used on both road and home games.


title: Oakland Athletics

text: During the 2000s, the Athletics introduced black as one of their colors. They began wearing a black alternate jersey with "Athletics" written in green. After a brief discontinuance, the A's brought back the black jersey, this time with "Athletics" written in white with gold highlights. The cap paired with this jersey is all-black, initially with the green and white-trimmed "A's" wordmark, before switching to a white and gold-trimmed "A's" wordmark. Commercially popular but rarely chosen as the alternate by players, the black uniform was retired in 2011 in favor of a gold alternate jersey.


title: Oakland Athletics

text: The gold alternate has "A's" in green trimmed in white on the left chest. With the exception of several road games during the 2011 season, the Athletics' gold uniforms were used as the designated home alternates. A green version of their gold alternates was introduced for the 2014 season, serving as a replacement to the previous green alternates. The new green alternates featured the piping, "A's" and lettering in white with gold trim.


title: Oakland Athletics

text: In 2018, as part of the franchise's 50th anniversary since the move to Oakland, the A's wore a kelly green alternate uniform with "Oakland" in white with gold trim, and was paired with an all-kelly green cap. This set was later worn with an alternate kelly green helmet with gold visor. This uniform eventually supplanted the gold alternates by 2019, and in 2022, after the forest green alternate was retired, it became the team's only active alternate uniform.


title: Oakland Athletics

text: The nickname "A's" has long been used interchangeably with "Athletics", dating to the team's early days when headline writers wanted a way to shorten the name. From 1972 through 1980, the team name was officially "Oakland A's", although, during that time, the Commissioner's Trophy, given out annually to the winner of baseball's World Series, still listed the team's name as the "Oakland Athletics" on the gold-plated pennant representing the Oakland franchise. According to Bill Libby's Book, "Charlie O and the Angry A's", owner Charlie O. Finley banned the word "Athletics" from the club's name because he felt that name was too closely associated with former Philadelphia Athletics owner Connie Mack, and he wanted the name "Oakland A's" to become just as closely associated with him. The name also vaguely suggested the name of the old minor league Oakland Oaks, which were alternatively called the "Acorns". New owner Walter Haas restored the official name to "Athletics" in 1981, but retained the nickname "A's" for marketing. At first, the word "Athletics" was restored only to the club's logo, underneath the much larger stylized-"A" that had come to represent the team since the early days. By 1987, however, the word returned, in script lettering, to the front of the team's jerseys.


title: Oakland Athletics

text: Prior to the mid-2010s, the A's had a long-standing tradition of wearing white cleats team-wide (in line with the standard MLB practice that required all uniformed team members to wear a base cleat color), which dates back to the Finley ownership. Since the mid-2010s, however, MLB has gradually relaxed its shoe color rules, and several A's players began wearing cleats in non-white colors, most notably Jed Lowrie's green cleats.


title: Oakland Athletics

text: The Oakland Coliseum—originally known as the Oakland–Alameda County Coliseum, and later named as Network Associates, McAfee, Overstock.com/O.co and RingCentral Coliseum—was built as a multi-purpose facility. Louisiana Superdome officials pursued negotiations with Athletics officials during the 1978–79 baseball offseason about moving the Athletics to their facility in New Orleans. The Athletics were unable to break their lease at the Coliseum, and remained in Oakland.


title: Oakland Athletics

text: After the Oakland Raiders football team moved to Los Angeles in 1982, many improvements were made to what was suddenly a baseball-only facility. The 1994 movie "Angels in the Outfield" was filmed in part at the Coliseum, filling in for rival Anaheim Stadium.


title: Oakland Athletics

text: Then, in 1995, a deal was struck whereby the Raiders would move back to Oakland for the 1995 season. The agreement called for the expansion of the Coliseum to 63,026 seats. The bucolic view of the Oakland foothills that baseball spectators enjoyed was replaced with a jarring view of an outfield grandstand contemptuously referred to as "Mount Davis" after Raiders' owner Al Davis. Because construction was not finished by the start of the 1996 season, the Athletics were forced to play their first six-game homestand at 9,300-seat Cashman Field in Las Vegas.


title: Oakland Athletics

text: Although official capacity was stated to be 43,662 for baseball, seats were sometimes sold in Mount Davis as well, pushing "real" capacity to the area of 60,000. The ready availability of tickets on game day made season tickets a tough sell, while crowds as high as 30,000 often seemed sparse in such a venue. On December 21, 2005, the Athletics announced that seats in the Coliseum's third deck would not be sold for the 2006 season, but would instead be covered with a tarp, and that tickets would no longer be sold in Mount Davis under any circumstances. That effectively reduced capacity to 34,077, making the Coliseum the smallest stadium in Major League Baseball. Beginning in 2008, sections 316–318 (immediately behind home plate) were the only third-deck sections open for A's games, which brought the total capacity to 35,067 until 2017 when new team president Dave Kaval took the tarps off of the upper deck, increasing capacity to 47,170. The Athletics were the last remaining MLB team to share a stadium full-time with an NFL team, a situation that ended when the Raiders moved to Las Vegas in 2020.


title: Oakland Athletics

text: The Athletics' spring training facility is Hohokam Stadium, in Mesa, Arizona. From 1982 to 2014, their spring training facility was Phoenix Municipal Stadium, in Phoenix, Arizona; they also spent time playing in Scottsdale, Arizona.


title: Oakland Athletics

text: Team president Dave Kaval has tried to upgrade the Oakland Coliseum by creating club and premium seating areas and renovating Shibe Park Tavern and various fan areas.


title: Oakland Athletics

text: In 2017, the team created an outdoor plaza in the space between the Coliseum and Oracle Arena. The grassy area is open to all ticketed fans, and it features food trucks, seating and games like corn hole for every Athletics home game. The following year, the team introduced The Treehouse, a area open to all fans with two full-service bars, standing-room and lounge seating, numerous televisions with pre-game and postgame entertainment. The A's Stomping Ground transformed part of the Eastside Club and the area near the right-field flag poles into a fun and interactive space for kids and families. The inside section features a stage and video wall for interactive events, a digital experience that lets youngsters race their favorite Athletics players, replica team dugouts, a simulated hitting and pitching machine, foosball, and a photo booth. The outside area includes play areas, a grassy seating area, drink rails for parents, and picnic tables, a miniature baseball field and spiderweb play area.


title: Oakland Athletics

text: The team added three new premium spaces, including The Terrace, Lounge Seats, and the Coppola Theater Boxes, to the Coliseum for the 2019 season. The new premium seating options offer fans a high-end game day experience with luxury amenities. The team also added two new group spaces - the Budweiser Hero Deck and Golden Road Landing - to the Coliseum.


title: Oakland Athletics

text: In addition, the tarps on the upper deck were removed; a modern version of the beloved mechanical Harvey the Rabbit to deliver the first pitch ball was re-introduced, while the playing surface at the Coliseum was re-named "Rickey Henderson Field." The team hosted the first free game in MLB history for 46,028 fans on April 17, 2018, to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Athletics first game in Oakland. The team tried a new concept within season ticketing in the A's Access plan that involved "general admission access to every home game with a set number of reserved-seat upgrades allotted", which was meant to replace previous attempts at subscription-based services that they tried with Ballpark Pass and Treehouse Pass. On July 21, 2018, the Athletics set a Coliseum record for the largest attendance with a crowd of 56,310 when the team played host to the San Francisco Giants.


title: Oakland Athletics

text: Since the early-2000s, the A's have been in talks with Oakland and other Northern California cities about building a new baseball-only stadium. The team has said it wants to remain in Oakland. On November 28, 2018, the Athletics announced that the team had chosen to build its new 34,000-seat ballpark at the Howard Terminal site at the Port of Oakland. In 2018 the team announced its intent to purchase the Coliseum site and renovate it into a tech and housing hub, preserving Oakland Arena and reducing the Coliseum to a low-rise sports park as San Francisco did with Kezar Stadium.


title: Oakland Athletics

text: On May 11, 2021, the MLB permitted the A's to explore relocation possibilities should the team fail to get a replacement stadium for the aging Coliseum from the city of Oakland. Among the cities and regions in consideration by the team was the Las Vegas Valley area of Nevada, the home of the National Hockey League's Vegas Golden Knights and the National Football League's Las Vegas Raiders with the latter team having left Oakland in 2020 due to being unable to get a football-only stadium in the city. The team previously played six home games at Las Vegas' Cashman Field during the 1996 MLB season when the renovations for the Coliseum were not yet complete. Several days later, the A's started exploring the possibility of relocating to the Las Vegas area and would later organize meetings with local government officials and tour potential sites there led by team owner John Fisher in the next week. After a presentation at a June MLB owners meeting in New York City, team president Dave Kaval said that the A's were considering the Resort Corridor, the Cashman Field site and the Valley cities of Henderson or Summerlin, Nevada as possible locations for a ballpark. Kaval also said that the team was still continuing to explore "parallel paths" in not just Las Vegas but the team's long time home Oakland. Kaval and Fisher would conduct more trips to the area to meet with officials again over the possibility of relocation starting with June 20 and June 21. By then, the A's shortlist for a potential ballpark in Southern Nevada ballooned to over 30 sites according to Kaval.


title: Oakland Athletics

text: In September 2021, Kaval said that the Athletics would finalize the list of possible ballpark sites in Las Vegas by November. In November, the A's launched a survey for fans of the team's Triple-A affiliate the Las Vegas Aviators to determine potential interest for an MLB team in Las Vegas and a new ballpark. The final results of the survey released a month later indicated that most Aviators fans and Las Vegas residents were interested in having an MLB team in the city. In the same month, the A's made an offer for an undisclosed plot of land in the Valley for a $1 billion ballpark to be built there. The Howard Hughes Corp, the owners of the Aviators, offered free land for the Athletics to build a new ballpark. The team previously met with the Howard Hughes Corp in Summerlin weeks ago.


title: Oakland Athletics

text: In April 2022, the A's narrowed down the list to two possibles sites in the Las Vegas Strip. However, the team seemingly lost a potential ballpark site in Tropicana Las Vegas when the resort's non-land assets were sold to the Bally's Corporation and approved by Nevada state regulators later that year. Earlier in December 2021, the A's had submitted a bid to acquire the Tropicana site and redevelop it into a ballpark prior to the Bally's acquisition. The MLB, in reaction to the A's interest in Southern Nevada, decided to remove a relocation fee for the team in the event that they move to the Las Vegas area. In August, A's officials organized two meetings with casino owner and financier Paul Ruffin for the new Las Vegas area ballpark.


title: Oakland Athletics

text: In October 2022, Oakland missed a deadline to reach an agreement on a ballpark in the Howard Terminal with negotiations pushed back to another year. Kaval said that the delay in negotiations would "all but doom our efforts" in keeping the team in Oakland. On October 29, Commissioner of Baseball Rob Manfred said in a SiriusXM interview with host Chris "Mad Dog" Russo that he was "not positive" the A's could remain in Oakland and that the team has made progress in exploring Las Vegas as a viable relocation site.


title: Oakland Athletics

text: In November 2022, a source familiar with the Athletics' negotiations with Las Vegas said that even if the team were to move to the city, the Triple-A Aviators would stay put and temporarily share Las Vegas Ballpark with their MLB affiliate while a new ballpark was under construction. On November 3, Bally's CEO Lee Fenton said that the Tropicana site was "very much in the cards" for the Athletics to build a ballpark should the team relocate from Oakland to Las Vegas. On November 7, Nevada Governor Steve Sisolak said that the state would not use a hotel room tax to finance a Las Vegas area ballpark for the A's like they did with Allegiant Stadium for the Raiders though he did not rule out other ways of publicly financing the ballpark.


title: Oakland Athletics

text: After the city of Oakland failed to make any progress toward a stadium, the A's began contemplating a move to the Warm Springs district of suburban Fremont. Fremont is about south of Oakland; many nearby residents are already a part of the current Athletics fanbase.


title: Oakland Athletics

text: On November 7, 2006, many media sources announced the Athletics would be leaving Oakland as early as 2010 for a new stadium in Fremont, confirmed the next day by the Fremont City Council. The plan was strongly supported by Fremont Mayor Bob Wasserman. The team would have played in what was planned to be called Cisco Field, a 32,000-seat, baseball-only facility. The proposed ballpark would have been part of a larger "ballpark village" which would have included retail and residential development. On February 24, 2009, however, Lew Wolff released an open letter regarding the end of his efforts to relocate the A's to Fremont, citing "real and threatened" delays to the project. The project faced opposition from some in the community who thought the relocation of the A's to Fremont would increase traffic problems in the city and decrease property values near the ballpark site.


title: Oakland Athletics

text: In 2009, the City of San Jose attempted to open negotiations with the team regarding a move to the city. Although parcels of land south of Diridon Station would be acquired by the city as a stadium site, the San Francisco Giants' claim on Santa Clara County as part of their home territory would have to be settled before any agreement could be made.


title: Oakland Athletics

text: By 2010, San Jose was "aggressively wooing" A's owner Lew Wolff, the city as the team's "best option", but Major League Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig said he would wait on a report on whether the team could move to the area, because of the Giants conflict. In September 2010, 75 Silicon Valley CEOs drafted and signed a letter to Bud Selig urging a timely approval of the move to San Jose. In May 2011, San Jose Mayor Chuck Reed sent a letter to Bud Selig asking the commissioner for a timetable of when he might decide whether the A's can pursue this new ballpark, but Selig did not respond.


title: Oakland Athletics

text: Selig addressed the San Jose issue via an online town hall forum held in July 2011, saying, "Well, the latest is, I have a small committee who has really assessed that whole situation, Oakland, San Francisco, and it is complex. You talk about complex situations; they have done a terrific job. I know there are some people who think it's taken too long and I understand that. I'm willing to accept that. But you make decisions like this; I've always said, you'd better be careful. Better to get it done right than to get it done fast. But we'll make a decision that's based on logic and reason at the proper time."


title: Oakland Athletics

text: On June 18, 2013, the City of San Jose filed suit against Selig, seeking the court's ruling that Major League Baseball may not prevent the Oakland A's from moving to San Jose. Wolff criticized the lawsuit, stating he did not believe business disputes should be settled through legal action.


title: Oakland Athletics

text: Most of the city's claims were dismissed in October 2013, but a U.S. District Judge ruled that San Jose could move forward with its count that MLB illegally interfered with an option agreement between the city and the A's for land. On January 15, 2015, a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled unanimously that the claims were barred by baseball's antitrust exemption, established by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1922 and upheld in 1953 and 1972. San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo commented that the city would seek a ruling from the U.S. Supreme Court. On October 5, 2015, the United States Supreme Court rejected San Jose's bid on the Athletics.


title: Oakland Athletics

text: A 2017 plan would have placed a new 35,000 seat A's stadium near Laney College and the Eastlake neighborhood on the current site of the Peralta Community College District's administration buildings. The plan was announced by team president Dave Kaval in September 2017. However, just three months later, college officials abruptly ended the negotiations.


title: Oakland Athletics

text: The Bay Bridge Series is the name of a series of games played between (and the rivalry of) the A's and San Francisco Giants of the National League. The series takes its name from the San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge which links the cities of Oakland and San Francisco. Although competitive, the regional rivalry between the A's and Giants is considered a friendly one with mostly mutual companionship between the fans, as opposed to White Sox–Cubs, or Yankees–Mets games where animosity runs high. Hats displaying both teams on the cap are sold from vendors at the games, and once in a while the teams both dress in original team uniforms from the early era of baseball.


title: Oakland Athletics

text: The series is also occasionally referred to as the "BART Series" for the Bay Area Rapid Transit system that links Oakland to San Francisco. However, the name "BART Series" has never been popular beyond a small selection of history books and national broadcasters and has fallen out of favor. Bay Area locals almost exclusively refer to the rivalry as the "Battle of the Bay".


title: Oakland Athletics

text: Originally, the term described a series of exhibition games played between the two clubs after the conclusion of spring training, immediately prior to the start of the regular season. It was first used to refer to the 1989 World Series in which the Athletics won their most recent championship and the first time the teams had met since they moved to the San Francisco Bay Area (and the first time they had met since the A's also defeated the Giants in the 1913 World Series). Today, it also refers to games played between the teams during the regular season since the commencement of interleague play in 1997. Through the 2021 regular season, the Athletics have won 71 games, and the Giants have won 65 contests.


title: Oakland Athletics

text: Through the 2021 season, the A's also have edges on the Giants in terms of overall postseason appearances (21-13), division titles (17-10) and World Series titles (4-3) since both teams moved to the Bay Area, even though the Giants franchise moved there a decade earlier than the A's did.


title: Oakland Athletics

text: On March 24, 2018, the Oakland A's announced that for the Sunday, March 25, 2018 exhibition game against the San Francisco Giants, A's fans would be charged $30 for parking and Giants fans would be charged $50. However, the A's stated that Giants fans could receive $20 off if they shout "Go A's" at the parking gates.


title: Oakland Athletics

text: In 2018, the Athletics and Giants started battling for a "Bay Bridge" Trophy made from steel taken from the old Bay Bridge, which was taken down after a new bridge was opened in 2013. The A's won the inaugural season with the trophy, allowing them to place their logo atop its Bay Bridge stand.


title: Oakland Athletics

text: The City Series was the name of baseball games played between the Philadelphia Athletics and the Philadelphia Phillies of the National League, that ran from 1903 through 1955. After the A's move to Kansas City in 1955, the City Series rivalry came to an end. Since the introduction of interleague play in 1997, the teams have since faced each other during the regular season (with the first games taking place in 2003) but the rivalry had effectively died in the intervening years since the A's left Philadelphia. In 2014, when the A's faced the Phillies in inter-league play at the Oakland Coliseum, the Athletics didn't bother to mark the historical connection, going so far as to have a Connie Mack promotion the day before the series while the Texas Rangers were in Oakland.


title: Oakland Athletics

text: The first City Series was held in 1883 between the Phillies and the American Association Philadelphia Athletics. When the Athletics first joined the American League, the two teams played each other in a spring and fall series. No City Series was held in 1901 and 1902 due to legal warring between the National League and American League.


title: Oakland Athletics

text: The Athletics have retired six numbers, and honored one additional individual with the letter "A". Walter A. Haas, Jr., owner of the team from 1980 until his death in 1995, was honored by the retirement of the letter "A". Of the six players with retired numbers, five were retired for their play with the Athletics and one, 42, was universally retired by Major League Baseball when they honored the 50th anniversary of Jackie Robinson's breaking the color barrier. No A's player from the Philadelphia era has his number retired by the organization. Though Jackson and Hunter played small portions of their careers in Kansas City, no player that played the majority of his years in the Kansas City era has his number retired either. The A's have retired only the numbers of Hall-of-Famers who played large portions of their careers in Oakland. The Athletics have all of the numbers of the Hall-of-Fame players from the Philadelphia Athletics displayed at their stadium, as well as all of the years that the Philadelphia Athletics won World Championships (1910, 1911, 1913, 1929, and 1930). Dave Stewart was about to have his #34 jersey retired by the Oakland Athletics in 2020, but the ceremony was postponed until further notice, due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Questions were raised if there would be a formal ceremony after no news about a reschedule happened in 2021 before it was announced in April 2022 that Stewart would have his jersey retired on September 11, 2022. Stewart broke the A's tradition in that his number was a re-retirement, as well as his not being in the Hall of Fame.


title: Oakland Athletics

text: On September 5, 2018, the Athletics held a ceremony to induct seven members into the inaugural class of the team's Hall of Fame. Each member was honored with an unveiling of a painting in their likeness and a bright green jacket. Hunter, who died in 1999, was represented by his widow, while Finley, who died in 1996, was represented by his son. If the team ever gets a new stadium, a physical site will be designated for the Hall of Fame, as the Coliseum does not have enough space for a full-fledged exhibit. The next class to be inducted is the class of 2022, which is yet to be determined. In August 2021, it was announced that players Sal Bando, Eric Chavez, Joe Rudi, director of player development Keith Lieppman, and clubhouse manager Steve “Vuc” Vucinich would be part of the class; in November 2021, Ray Fosse, who had died the previous month, was posthumously inducted into the Hall of Fame.


title: Oakland Athletics

text: 17 members of the Athletics organization have been honored with induction into the Bay Area Sports Hall of Fame.


title: Oakland Athletics

text: The Athletics have all of the numbers of the Hall-of-Fame players from the Philadelphia Athletics displayed at their stadium, as well as all of the years that the Philadelphia Athletics won World Championships (1910, 1911, 1913, 1929, and 1930).


title: Oakland Athletics

text: Also, from 1978 to 2003 (except 1983), the Philadelphia Phillies inducted one former Athletic (and one former Phillie) each year into the Philadelphia Baseball Wall of Fame at the then-existing Veterans Stadium. 25 Athletics have been honored. In March 2004, after Veterans Stadium was replaced by the new Citizens Bank Park, the Athletics' plaques were relocated to the Philadelphia Athletics Historical Society in Hatboro, Pennsylvania, and a single plaque listing all of the A's inductees was attached to a statue of Connie Mack that is located across the street from Citizens Bank Park.


title: Oakland Athletics

text: Khris Davis (outfielder/hitter) has been called “the most consistent hitter in baseball history” with his 2014 to 2018 season averages of .244, .247, .247, .247, and .247.


title: Oakland Athletics

text: As of the 2020 season, the Oakland Athletics have had 14 radio homes. The Athletics' flagship radio station is KNEW and the team has a free live 24/7 exclusive A's station branded as "A's Cast" to stream the radio broadcast within the Athletics market and other A's programming via iHeartRadio. Going into the 2020 season, the Athletics had a deal with TuneIn for A's Cast and no flagship radio station in the Bay Area but changed their plans due to the COVID-19 pandemic keeping fans from attending games. The announcing team features Ken Korach and Vince Cotroneo.


title: Oakland Athletics

text: Television coverage is exclusively on NBC Sports California. Some A's games air on an alternate feed of NBCS, called NBCS Plus, if the main channel shows a Sacramento Kings or San Jose Sharks game at the same time. On TV, Glen Kuiper covers play-by-play, and Dallas Braden typically providing color commentary, replacing the late Ray Fosse.


title: Oakland Athletics

text: The 2003 Michael Lewis book "Moneyball" chronicles the 2002 Oakland Athletics season, with a specific focus on Billy Beane's economic approach to managing the organization under significant financial constraints. Beginning in June 2003, the book remained on "The New York Times" Best Seller list for 18 consecutive weeks, peaking at number 2. In 2011, Columbia Pictures released a film adaptation based on Lewis' book, which featured Brad Pitt playing the role of Beane. On September 19, 2011, the U.S. premiere of "Moneyball" was held at the Paramount Theatre in Oakland, which featured a green carpet for attendees to walk, rather than the traditional red carpet.


title: Oakland Athletics

text: The first blog that spawned the full-fledged popular sports blog site "SBNation" was dedicated to the Oakland Athletics.


title: Dallas Mavericks

text: The Dallas Mavericks (often referred to as the Mavs) are an American professional basketball team based in Dallas. The Mavericks compete in the National Basketball Association (NBA) as a member of the Western Conference Southwest Division. The team plays its home games at the American Airlines Center, which it shares with the National Hockey League's Dallas Stars.


title: Dallas Mavericks

text: Throughout the 1980s, the Mavericks were a perennial playoff team, led by All-Stars Rolando Blackman and Mark Aguirre. The team struggled during the 1990s, entering into a period of rebuilding. In 1998, the franchise's fortunes would change drastically with the acquisition of Dirk Nowitzki, who would become the cornerstone of the most successful period in franchise history, leading the team to its first and, as of 2022, only NBA championship in 2011. The Mavericks later entered a rebuilding phase in the tail end of Nowitzki's storied career. They missed the playoffs in three consecutive years from 2017 to 2019, after which Nowitzki retired following his record-breaking 21st season with Dallas. Led by 2019 Rookie of the Year Luka Dončić, the Mavericks returned to the playoffs in 2020 and reached the Western Conference Finals in 2022 for the first time since their 2011 championship.


title: Dallas Mavericks

text: In February 2020, the Mavericks sold out their NBA-record 815th consecutive game, dating back to December 15, 2001. The sellout streak, which includes 67 playoff games, is the longest currently running in North American major league sports.


title: Dallas Mavericks

text: Currently, the Dallas Mavericks are owned by investor Mark Cuban. Since the Mavericks' inaugural 1980–81 season, the Mavericks have won four division titles (1987, 2007, 2010, 2021), two conference championships (2006, 2011), and one NBA championship (2011).


title: Dallas Mavericks

text: In 1978, Californian businessman Garn Eckardt met Dallas lawyer Doug Adkins and mentioned he was trying to raise capital to move an NBA team to Dallas. Asking for a possible partner, Adkins recommended him one of his clients, Home Interiors and Gifts owner Don Carter. Negotiations with Eckardt fell through, but Carter remained interested in the enterprise as a gift to his wife Linda, who played basketball while at Duncanville High School. Simultaneously, Buffalo Braves president and general manager Norm Sonju developed an interest in bringing the NBA to Dallas as he studied possible new locations for the ailing franchise. While the Braves went to California as the San Diego Clippers, Sonju eventually returned to Texas. He was introduced to Carter by Mayor Robert Folsom, one of the owners and team president of the last professional basketball team in the city, the Dallas Chaparrals of the American Basketball Association, which moved to San Antonio in 1973 becoming the San Antonio Spurs. Sonju and Carter tried purchasing both the Milwaukee Bucks and the Kansas City Kings, but disagreement on relocation stalled the negotiations, leading them to instead aim for an expansion team.


title: Dallas Mavericks

text: The league was initially reluctant to expand to Dallas, given Texas had both the Spurs and Houston Rockets. The 1978–79 season was proving unprofitable (18 out of the 22 teams lost money) and unpopular (television ratings fell 26 percent). Still, during the 1979 NBA All-Star Game weekend, NBA commissioner Larry O'Brien announced the league would add two new teams in the 1980–81 season, with teams in Dallas and Minneapolis. Once the potential Minnesota owners backed out, only Dallas remained. (The Minnesota Timberwolves would not join until 1989.) Through negotiations with general counselor and future commissioner David Stern, the expansion fee was settled on $12.5 million. Carter would provide half the amount.


title: Dallas Mavericks

text: At the 1980 NBA All-Star Game, league owners voted to admit the new team, with the team's name coming from the 1957–1962 TV western "Maverick"; the fans chose the title with 4,600 postcards received, beating "Wranglers" and "Express". James Garner, who played the title character, was a member of the ownership group. The University of Texas at Arlington, who also uses the Mavericks nickname, had objections about a shared name but did not attempt any legal action. They joined the Midwest Division of the Western Conference, where they would stay until the league went to six divisions for the 2004–05 season. Dick Motta, who had guided the Washington Bullets to the NBA Championship in 1977–78, was hired as the team's first head coach.


title: Dallas Mavericks

text: The Mavs drafted Kiki VanDeWeghe of UCLA with the 11th pick of the 1980 NBA draft. Still, VanDeWeghe refused to play for the expansion Mavericks and staged a holdout that lasted a month into its inaugural season. VanDeWeghe was traded to the Denver Nuggets, along with a first-round pick, in 1981, in exchange for two future first-round picks that eventually materialized into Rolando Blackman in 1981, and Sam Vincent in 1985.


title: Dallas Mavericks

text: In the Mavericks debut game, taking place in the brand-new Reunion Arena, the Mavericks defeated the Spurs, 103–92. But the Mavs started the season with a 6–40 record on their way to finishing 15–67. However, the Mavericks did make a player acquisition that, while it seemed minor at the time, turned out to play a significant role in the early years of their franchise. Journeyman 6 ft 3 in guard Brad Davis, who played for the Anchorage Northern Knights of the Continental Basketball Association, was tracked down and signed by the Mavericks in December after a scout watched a game with Davis. He had to be convinced to play for the team rather than attend to his studies at the University of Maryland (which he was funding by playing for Anchorage). He would play for the remainder of the season after joining in December. Davis would spend the next twelve years with the Mavericks, and eventually, his number 15 jersey was retired. The Mavericks also marked the first NBA team to have a good debut season, with 7,789 spectators per game.


title: Dallas Mavericks

text: The 1981 NBA Draft brought three players who would become vital parts of the team. The Mavs selected 6'6" forward Mark Aguirre with the first pick, 6'6" guard Rolando Blackman 9th, and 6'7" forward Jay Vincent 24th. By the end of his seven-year Mavs career, Aguirre would average 24.6 points per game. Blackman contributed 19.2 points over his 11-year career in Dallas. But it was Jay Vincent who made the most significant difference for the Mavs in their second season, leading the team in scoring with 21.4 points per game and earning NBA All-Rookie Team honors. The Mavericks improved to 28–54, getting out of the Midwest Division cellar as they finished above the Utah Jazz.


title: Dallas Mavericks

text: In 1982–83, the Mavericks were serious contenders for the first time. At the All-Star break, they were 25–24 and had won 12 of their last 15 games. They could not sustain that momentum and finished seven games behind the Denver Nuggets for the sixth and final playoff spot in the Western Conference. But the Mavs' 38–44 record was a 10-game improvement from the previous season.


title: Dallas Mavericks

text: Mark Aguirre led the 1982–83 Mavericks with 24.4 points per game, finishing sixth in the NBA. Jay Vincent and Rolando Blackman contributed 18.7 and 17.7 points per game, respectively. Brad Davis was 10th in the NBA in assists with 7.2 per game and shot .845 from the free-throw line, 6th in the league. The Mavs drafted Derek Harper with the 11th pick of the 1983 NBA draft. The 6 ft 4 in guard would spend the next decade with the organization, averaging 15 points and 6.1 assists. The Mavericks' in 1983–84 posted a winning record for the first time in franchise history, finishing 43–39 and second in the Midwest Division. The Mavs also earned the first playoff berth in franchise history. Mark Aguirre was named the team's first NBA All-Star, as he finished with an average of 29.5 points per game—second in the league to Utah's Adrian Dantley.


title: Dallas Mavericks

text: Dallas finished with the fourth seed in the Western Conference playoffs, and in their first playoff trip, they defeated the Seattle SuperSonics in five games. The fifth and deciding game of that series was played at Moody Coliseum, as Reunion Arena, then the home court for the Mavericks was hosting a tennis tournament. The Magic Johnson-led Los Angeles Lakers, were next for the Mavs, and the young club fell short, losing four games to one. But a trade the Mavericks made in their inaugural season of 1980 paid off for them in 1984 because they owned Cleveland's first-round pick, which ended up being the fourth pick overall. The Mavs used it to select forward-center Sam Perkins, a former North Carolina Tar Heel, with a surprising range from the three-point line who would average 14.4 points and 8.0 rebounds in six seasons with Dallas.


title: Dallas Mavericks

text: About this time, the Dallas Cowboys, once one of the NFL's elite teams, began a slow decline that eventually saw them fall to 1–15 in 1989. The Mavs were hitting their stride simultaneously and replaced the Cowboys as the Metroplex's most popular team. The 1984–85 team finished a game better than the previous year at 44–38. Mark Aguirre led the team in scoring again with 25.7 ppg, Sam Perkins made the All-Rookie team, and Rolando Blackman represented the Mavericks in the 1985 NBA All-Star Game. The Mavs returned to the playoffs in 1985 but were not as successful as they had been. They won Game 1 in double-overtime against the Portland Trail Blazers in their first-round playoff series, but lost the next three games in a row, ending their season.


title: Dallas Mavericks

text: Dallas had the eighth pick in the 1985 NBA draft—again due to a trade with the Cavaliers—and drafted German-born forward Detlef Schrempf out of Washington. He would show flashes of brilliance in his three-plus seasons with the team, but it was not until he was traded to the Indiana Pacers that he displayed his full potential. The Mavericks also traded center Kurt Nimphius to the Los Angeles Clippers for center James Donaldson, who would play for the Mavericks until halfway through the 1991–92 season. This trade allowed the Mavericks to have a steady hand at the center position lacking throughout the franchise's first five years. In 1988, James Donaldson became the first Dallas Mavericks center in club history to be selected to play in the NBA All-Star Game.


title: Dallas Mavericks

text: Rolando Blackman represented the Mavericks in the 1986 NBA All-Star Game, hosted by Dallas at Reunion Arena. The 1985–86 Mavericks were second in scoring at 115.3 points per game, gaining their third-straight playoff appearance. They defeated Utah three games to one in the first round. In the conference semi-finals, they ran into the Lakers again, and L.A. defeated Dallas in six games. But four of those games were decided by four points or fewer, and Dallas won half of those, leaving Mavericks fans room to hope that they could finally top the Lakers in the following season. The Mavs drafted Michigan center Roy Tarpley with the seventh overall pick, who would become a very talented—but troubled—member of the roster.


title: Dallas Mavericks

text: The 1986–87 Mavericks team had their most successful regular season to date, going 55–27 and winning their first Midwest Division title. But despite the great expectations surrounding the team, they self-destructed in the playoffs. After hammering the Seattle SuperSonics by 22 points in Game 1, the bottom dropped out for the Mavs, as they lost Games 2 and 3 in close fashion before succumbing to Game 4 in Seattle. Following the unexpected early playoff exit, Motta, who had been with the team since its inception, shockingly resigned as head coach. John MacLeod, who had led the Phoenix Suns to nine playoff berths in 11 seasons, including an NBA Finals run in 1976, was hired as his replacement.


title: Dallas Mavericks

text: The 1987–88 NBA season saw the Mavericks dip just a little bit in the regular season—finishing 53–29 and losing their Midwest Division title to the Denver Nuggets—but it was another successful year for the team. Mark Aguirre and James Donaldson both played in the 1988 NBA All-Star Game, the Mavericks rattled off a franchise-best 11-game winning streak, and Rolando Blackman scored his 10,000th career point. Aguirre led the team in scoring for the sixth consecutive year with 25.1 points per game, and Roy Tarpley won the NBA Sixth Man Award with averages of 13.5 points and 11.8 rebounds. The season saw the Mavs' deepest playoff run to date. They dispatched the Houston Rockets in four games and the Nuggets in six, leaving only the defending NBA Champion Lakers between them and their first-ever trip to the NBA Finals. The Mavericks gave the Lakers everything they could handle. Still, in the end, the more experienced Lakers prevailed, defeating Dallas in seven games on the way to eventually winning their second consecutive NBA Championship.


title: Dallas Mavericks

text: Despite all the changes, the Mavs remained in contention. However, their season effectively ended when James Donaldson went down with a ruptured patella tendon on March 10, 1989, and missed the rest of the season. The Mavericks were left understaffed, demoralized, and disheartened as they finished with a 38–44 record. It was their first losing season since 1982–83—which was also the last time they missed the playoffs.


title: Dallas Mavericks

text: The Mavericks returned to the playoffs in 1989–90 with a 47–35 record, but it was another season of off-court chaos. On November 15, only six games into the Mavs' season, Tarpley was arrested for driving while intoxicated and resisting arrest. The team started 5–6, and MacLeod was fired, replaced by assistant coach Richie Adubato. The Mavs finished the season with four straight victories to surge into the playoffs but went down rather meekly to the Portland Trail Blazers in three games. It would be the team's last winning season and playoff appearance until 2001.


title: Dallas Mavericks

text: The team endured numerous changes in 1990, losing Sam Perkins to the Lakers via free agency and suffering injuries to practically their entire 1990–91 starting lineup. The players they managed to acquire—Rodney McCray, Fat Lever, and Alex English—were all in the twilight of their careers. On November 9, it was announced that Fat Lever would have season-ending surgery on his right knee, and that very night, Tarpley suffered a knee injury of his own, which ended his season. The Mavericks' season only got worse from there, and they finished with a record of 28–54, falling behind even the second-year Minnesota Timberwolves and Orlando Magic. In March 1991, Tarpley was charged with suspicion of driving while intoxicated and was suspended again by the NBA.


title: Dallas Mavericks

text: It got even worse in 1991–92. Before the season even began, Tarpley violated the league's substance abuse policy for the third time and was banned from the NBA for life. The former Sixth Man Award winner's fall from grace was complete. The few talented players the Mavericks had remaining to them were lost to injury. Brad Davis' back problems forced him to retire in mid-January, and Fat Lever had knee surgery again on January 29, missing the remainder of the season—hardly worth the cost of losing two first-round draft picks. The team finished with a 22–60 record.


title: Dallas Mavericks

text: In 1992–93, the rebuilding began in earnest, with the Mavs trading Rolando Blackman—who by that point had surpassed Mark Aguirre as the team's all-time leading scorer—to the New York Knicks for a first-round draft pick. Blackman had made four All-Star Game appearances in his Mavericks career. Herb Williams joined the Knicks as a free agent. Fat Lever underwent more surgery and missed the entire 1992–93 season. Derek Harper was the team's only bright spot, leading the team with 18.3 points per game.


title: Dallas Mavericks

text: The Mavericks selected Ohio State guard Jim Jackson with the fourth overall pick of the 1992 NBA draft, but he and owner Donald Carter could not come to terms on a contract for half of his rookie season. Jackson only played 28 games in 1992–93, a season also ruined by trades, a coaching change, and injuries. The Mavericks started 2–27 and fired Adubato on January 13, replacing him with Gar Heard. The Mavericks came dangerously close to setting the all-time worst record in NBA history (at the time, 9–73 by the 1972–73 Philadelphia 76ers). But when Jackson was signed on March 3, the Mavs rallied, closing the season with a 7–14 mark, including two straight wins to end the season and finishing 11–71, the second-worst record in NBA history.


title: Dallas Mavericks

text: Dallas selected Kentucky forward Jamal Mashburn with the fourth overall pick of the 1993 NBA draft and hired Quinn Buckner as head coach. Buckner decided from the start to be a disciplinarian on the model of his college coach, Bobby Knight, who told Buckner that the only way he'd succeed with the Mavs would be to run the team with an iron hand. The mostly young roster did not respond very well to Buckner's stern coaching style and started 1–23. By the end of January, they were 3–40, and it was once again possible that they could tie the 1973 Sixers for the all-time worst record in the league. But 5–9 records in February and April, coupled with Buckner loosening the reins a little bit, helped the Mavs finish 13–69. It was still the worst record in the league by far, but the Mavericks again avoided setting an all-time futility record. However, they did tie the NBA's "single-season" record for consecutive losses at 20 games (since broken).


title: Dallas Mavericks

text: Buckner was fired at the end of the season despite having a five-year contract. However, Carter decided that Buckner had "burned too many bridges" due to his autocratic coaching style. He compiled the worst record for a rookie NBA head coach, a record that only lasted four years until Bill Hanzlik broke it with the Denver Nuggets. The Mavericks brought back Dick Motta, who had led the franchise to some of its most successful seasons. The Mavericks also wound up with the number two pick in the 1994 NBA draft and picked up Cal point guard Jason Kidd, giving them a solid tandem of Jackson, Mashburn, and Kidd, known as "The Three Js."


title: Dallas Mavericks

text: The addition of Jason Kidd infused the Mavericks with new life in 1994–95. Kidd averaged 11.7 points, 5.4 rebounds, and 7.7 assists in his rookie season and led the league in triple-doubles. Roy Tarpley was allowed to return to the league after three years and helped with 12.6 points and 8.2 rebounds per game. The tandem of Jim Jackson and Jamal Mashburn combined as the league's highest-scoring pair of teammates. On separate occasions, Mashburn and Jackson scored 50 points in a game that season. Mashburn contributed 24.1 points per game, fifth in the NBA; Jackson averaged 25.7 points but suffered a severe ankle sprain in February, which caused him to miss the regular season's remainder. Second-year forward Popeye Jones had a great year as well, as he averaged 10.6 rebounds and led the NBA in offensive rebounds.


title: Dallas Mavericks

text: The Mavericks' improvement was dramatic. The team jumped to 36–46, 10th in the Western Conference, and only five games behind the Denver Nuggets for the eighth and final playoff spot. It was the most significant one-year improvement in the team's history and the highest in the NBA. Many expected the Mavericks' improvement to continue with the franchise's first foray into the NBA Playoffs since 1990. But despite a 4–0 start, the 1995–96 season was a disappointment about every conceivable way. For the second time in his career, Roy Tarpley was given a lifelong ban from the NBA for repeated violations of the anti-drug policy—he never played in the NBA again. Jamal Mashburn had season-ending surgery to repair his sore right knee, only 18 games into the Mavericks' schedule.


title: Dallas Mavericks

text: The team's two remaining stars, Jason Kidd and Jim Jackson bickered throughout the season, though neither of them had trouble establishing his stardom. Jackson led the team scoring with 19.6 ppg, made 121 three-pointers, and was the only Mav to start 82 games. Kidd became the first Maverick to be elected a starter in the NBA All-Star Game and finished second in the league in assists and fourth in steals while averaging 16.6 ppg. George McCloud, who averaged 9.6 ppg in his previous year, blew away his career-high scoring average as the Mavs resorted to the outside shot time and again due to their lack of an inside scoring threat. McCloud averaged 18.9 ppg and made 257 three-pointers, equaling the second-highest individual season total in league history.


title: Dallas Mavericks

text: Overall, the Mavericks connected on 735 of their 2,039 three-point attempts, both new league records. The Mavs finished 26–56, fifth in the Midwest Division, and 33 games out of first place. Motta was relieved of his head coaching responsibilities at season's end and replaced by former Bulls assistant coach Jim Cleamons. And Don Carter, the only owner the Mavericks had ever had, sold the team to a group of investors led by H. Ross Perot, Jr.


title: Dallas Mavericks

text: The 1996–97 season was a year of transition for the Mavericks as they re-designed their entire team; 27 different players saw action for that Dallas team, setting an all-time NBA record. By the time the season was over only rookie forward, Samaki Walker, had remained from the opening-day roster. The first big move came in December, as Jason Kidd, Loren Meyer, and Tony Dumas were traded to the Phoenix Suns for guards Michael Finley and Sam Cassell and forward A. C. Green. Cassell would play just one season while Green played three, but Finley, who, after his first half-season in Dallas, went on to average over or near twenty points per game for at least the next seven years of his Mavericks career. He made two visits to the NBA All-Star Game and played in each of the Mavericks games until the 2004–05 season.


title: Dallas Mavericks

text: Don Nelson was hired as Dallas' general manager on February 7. Within a week of his hiring, the Mavericks had released Fred Roberts and Oliver Miller. They then traded Jamal Mashburn to the Miami Heat for forwards Kurt Thomas and Martin Müürsepp and guard Sasha Danilović. Thomas did not play in 1996–97 and only ended up playing in five games as a Maverick before signing as a free agent with the New York Knicks. Danilović played in 13 games for the Mavericks before opting out of his contract and signing with Bucker Bologna. Müürsepp played in 73 games for the Mavericks over the next two years before leaving the NBA.


title: Dallas Mavericks

text: Chris Gatling was the Mavericks' sole representative in the NBA All-Star Game, but he did not last much longer in Dallas. In one of the most massive two-team trades in NBA history, the Mavericks traded Gatling, Jim Jackson, Sam Cassell, George McCloud, and Eric Montross to the New Jersey Nets for 7 ft 6 in center Shawn Bradley, forward Ed O'Bannon, and guards Khalid Reeves and Robert Pack. Nelson claimed the trades were necessary because the situation in the locker room was unacceptable. However, whereas Cassell became a consistent floor leader, and Jackson, Gatling and, McCloud all continued to be substantial contributors to their teams for several more years, only Bradley lasted any time in Dallas. He would spend part of the next eight years putting up modest contributions for Dallas and giving them substantial numbers in blocked shots.


title: Dallas Mavericks

text: Undrafted rookie guard Erick Strickland averaged 10.6 ppg. Along with Finley and Bradley, he was expected to be the core of this new Mavericks team. The constant changes made it impossible to establish any team chemistry in 1996–97, and the Mavericks finished 24–58. But they had acquired some of the pieces that would help them start to turn things around in years to come. In 1997–98, despite a poor record of 20–62, Dallas had a knack for giving some of the NBA's elite teams a hard time to beat the Seattle SuperSonics, New York Knicks, Indiana Pacers, and Chicago Bulls. Against the Bulls, Dallas went on a 17–2 run to force overtime, where they won 104–97. Midway through that season, Nelson fired Cleamons and named himself head coach.


title: Dallas Mavericks

text: In the lockout-shortened 1998–99 season, the Mavericks finished with a lowly 19–31 record, but Michael Finley and Gary Trent put up substantial numbers and led their team to their first winning home record (15–10) since 1989–90. Notable were the acquisitions of power forward Dirk Nowitzki and point guard Steve Nash, two seemingly unspectacular moves that would significantly impact the future. In the following season, the team finally "clicked" and started to win consistently. Led by Finley, the Mavericks earned their first 40-win season since 1989–90. He was much helped by Nowitzki, who finally "arrived" in the NBA and established himself as a potent offensive threat.


title: Dallas Mavericks

text: On January 14, 2000, Ross Perot's group sold the Dallas Mavericks to Internet entrepreneur and season ticket-holder Mark Cuban for $285 million. Cuban immediately set out to revitalize the Mavericks and increase the team's popularity in Dallas and nationwide. His controversial moves (he allowed Dennis Rodman to live in his house for a week before temporarily signing him) and outspoken personality quickly made him a fan favorite in Dallas. They garnered the team much press in the national media. He has also been fined millions of dollars for violating NBA rules.


title: Dallas Mavericks

text: In 2000–01, the Mavericks improved further and finished with a 53–29 record fueled by Nowitzki, Finley, and Nash's offensive triangle. The Mavs made a trade minutes before the trade deadline that sent Hubert Davis, Christian Laettner, Courtney Alexander, Loy Vaught, and Etan Thomas to the Washington Wizards for Juwan Howard, Calvin Booth, and Obinna Ekezie. This move brought in fresh blood that secured the club's first playoff visit in 11 years. Also, Wang Zhizhi became the first Chinese player to play in the NBA, signing with the Mavs in January, along with Eduardo Nájera, bringing Dallas an international cast that included Canada's Nash and Germany's Nowitzki. Nowitzki was named to the All NBA Third Team, becoming the first Maverick receive an All NBA honor. In the playoffs, the Mavericks won in the first round against the Utah Jazz. They advanced to the second round for the first time since 1988. Even though the San Antonio Spurs eliminated them in five games, it marked a sense of optimism for Dallas in earnestly contending for an NBA title. This season was also the last in the old Reunion Arena before moving to the modern American Airlines Center.


title: Dallas Mavericks

text: The 2001–02 season was an excellent season for the Mavericks, with a 57–25 record and many sellout crowds. This season also saw a change in logo and colors, changing from the cowboy hat logo and green to a new horse logo and blue, almost on the same colors of fellow Dallas-based team, the Cowboys. Also, the team gained sleeker uniforms. Another blockbuster trade sent Juwan Howard, Tim Hardaway, and Donnell Harvey to the Denver Nuggets in exchange for Raef LaFrentz, Nick Van Exel, Tariq Abdul-Wahad, and Avery Johnson. The Mavericks also made several attempts to sign the Utah Jazz's star Karl Malone. The Mavericks swept the Kevin Garnett-led Minnesota Timberwolves in the playoffs but lost again in the second round to the Chris Webber-led Sacramento Kings.


title: Dallas Mavericks

text: But it was only in the next season that the Mavericks finally broke through. The team started the 2002–03 season with a 14–0 record, which was one win shy of tying the NBA record set by the 1993–94 Houston Rockets (15–0). The Mavericks finished with a 60–22 record in the regular season, impressing fans and critics with their sparkling offense. Since acquiring the "Big Three" of Nowitzki, Finley, and Nash, the Mavericks were a Western Conference power in waiting. Finally, they led the team to the Conference Finals against the San Antonio Spurs. However, with the series tied 1–1, Dirk Nowitzki, the team's leading scorer, suffered a knee injury in game three that kept him out. This injury further worsened the Mavs' front-court depth problems (both of their backup centers were injured for the entire series), and the Spurs took the series in 6 games.


title: Dallas Mavericks

text: In 2003–04, two blockbuster trades were announced. The Mavericks acquired Antawn Jamison, Danny Fortson, Jiří Welsch, and Chris Mills from Golden State in exchange for Nick Van Exel, Evan Eschmeyer, Popeye Jones, Avery Johnson, and Antoine Rigaudeau. Another high-profile trade sent Raef LaFrentz, Chris Mills, and Jiří Welsch to Boston for Antoine Walker and Tony Delk. Although the team struggled with chemistry, the Mavericks comfortably qualified for the playoffs. With the trio Nowitzki-Finley-Nash and NBA Sixth Man of the Year Jamison, the Mavericks continued their reputation as the NBA's best offensive team. Notable were two rookies, Josh Howard and Marquis Daniels, who made an immediate impact. However, the Mavericks were eliminated quickly in the playoffs, losing in the first round to the Chris Webber-led Sacramento Kings, a better defensive team. The Mavericks management had to re-evaluate their strategy.


title: Dallas Mavericks

text: The 2004–05 season saw trades which (among others) brought in robust center Erick Dampier, combo guard Jason Terry, speedy rookie point guard Devin Harris, scoring machine Jerry Stackhouse, and defensive stalwart Alan Henderson. Although the loss of All-Star Steve Nash via free agency visibly hurt the Mavericks' offense, the new acquisitions strengthened the team defense. The run-and-gun style of former times changed into a more balanced style of play. At the All-Star break, the Mavericks acquired Keith Van Horn for Calvin Booth and Henderson, the latter resigning only days later. Nowitzki added his third consecutive Euroscar during this season as well. On March 19, longtime coach Don Nelson stepped down, and his assistant Avery Johnson succeeded him. Under Johnson's tutelage, the Mavericks' defense became more vigorous, and they quickly qualified for the playoffs with an impressive 58–24 record. The Mavericks defeated the Houston Rockets in Round 1 of the playoffs in 7 games but then lost to the Phoenix Suns 4–2, led by former Maverick star Steve Nash.


title: Dallas Mavericks

text: Before the 2005 NBA draft, the Mavericks had traded all their picks away and were left empty-handed. On August 15, 2005, veteran guard Michael Finley was waived under the new "Allan Houston Rule." Under that rule, the Orlando Magic waived Doug Christie, who then signed with the Mavericks. On August 19, the Mavericks held a press conference announcing they had re-signed Darrell Armstrong and introduced Christie, DeSagana Diop, Rawle Marshall, and Josh Powell as new Mavericks. Christie's playing time was minimal amid a surgically repaired ankle still hampering his play. He was waived on November 25, 2005. At the end of calendar 2005, Nowitzki achieved a rare double by winning both the Euroscar and Mr. Europa, a second prestigious award for the top European player. He additionally was named the inaugural FIBA Europe Player of the Year.


title: Dallas Mavericks

text: Up until the very end of the season, the Mavericks were toe-to-toe with the San Antonio Spurs for the crown of the Southwest Division and the #1 spot in the Western Conference. However, they fell short of the title and had to settle for a fourth seed. Nonetheless, they once again achieved a 60–22 record, with Avery Johnson winning NBA Coach of the Year honors. They swept the Memphis Grizzlies in the playoffs, leading to a titanic series against their state rivals and the reigning NBA champions the San Antonio Spurs. Five out of the seven games were decided in the last minute, including a Game 7 that had to go into overtime, with the Mavs prevailing under the guidance of Dirk Nowitzki and an incredibly deep bench. The Mavericks were able to advance to the Conference Finals against former teammate Steve Nash and the Phoenix Suns. The Mavs' defense and depth enabled them to take the series as they defeated the Phoenix Suns in game 6 of the Western Conference Finals on June 3, 2006, in the US Airways Center in Phoenix, and the Mavs advanced to their first NBA Finals in franchise history.