E-Mail to Bob Rose, Oakland A's Director of PR

Bob-

It's too bad that you made a decision to strip Dale Tafoya of his press credentials, especially seeing as the only thing he was guilty of is telling the truth. For more than a month prior to Bob Geren being stripped of a title and position whose duties he was unable to properly fill, more than 100 fans in the twitter base and other reporters were actively calling for his dismissal. They were all regularly criticizing his decisions and abilities, we and the credentialed reporters were commenting on the poor lineups, decisions on pitching changes, failure to execute in actions with runners on base and not engaging his players OR coaches. Here's an example from my own blog http://bit.ly/iq7WGR

Instead, Geren excelled in ENRAGING both fans and beat reporters... and Monte Poole, Chris Townsend, Lowell Cohn, Ray Ratto, Susan Slusser, Ann Killion, Paul Guiterrez, Henry Wofford, Fernando Vina, Kate Longworth, John Shea and others took plenty of opportunities to voice their concerns about Geren retaining his position and even openly questioned Billy Beane's abilities to be objective with him due to their personal friendship. Yet none of them have been openly chastised or had their credentials stripped- so where is the equity?

I urge you to reconsider Dale Tafoya's 'punishment' for acting within the realm of reason for a reporter and reinstate his press credentials. The only thing he was guilty of was expressing his trained view of what was obvious to hundreds of others and reporting on it as ll of the other beat reporter in print. on the radio and on TV have done.

Respectfully submitted,

Larry Medina
A passionate A's fan since 1968


For those of you who would like to contact Bob about this, brose@oaklandathletics.com or if you want to call, he can be reached at 510-563-2380.