The Oakland A’s Gave Miguel Cabrera a Cheap and Problematic Gift

Also in Traina Thoughts: Al Michaels drops savage line; NFL refs strike again; Tom Brady is so intense and more.

1. Picking on the Oakland A’s is such low-hanging fruit, but sometimes the fruit just looks too good to pass up.

Cut to Thursday night when the Detroit Tigers were in town. With Miguel Cabrera set to retire, teams have been giving the future Hall of Famer gifts when he plays his last game in their ballpark.

The A’s kept to their frugal ways but gave Cabrera a bottle of wine.

The Oakland A’s present Miguel Cabrera with his going away gift in his final visit to the bay area. #RepDetroit pic.twitter.com/QIugwVWFuC

— Johnny Kane (@JohnnyKaneBSD) September 22, 2023

Now, a bottle of wine can be very expensive. If you are a fellow Howard Stern fan, you will instantly remember one of the show’s biggest controversies surrounding Robin Quivers ordering an $800 bottle of wine at a dinner that Stern paid for.

The A’s were not that generous with Cabrera. The team sprung for a $90 bottle of vino. 

Maybe it got up to $100 with shipping, but let’s be realistic. There’s no way the A’s paid for expedited shipping. And there’s no way they’re shelling out $140 a year for Amazon Prime. So it was probably ordered weeks ago.

But the cost of the wine is hardly the biggest problem with the “gift.”

In 2010, Cabrera spent three months in an outpatient treatment program for alcoholism.

Nice job, Oakland.

2. What a sneaky savage line by Al Michaels about Giants coach Brian Daboll after New York’s loss in San Francisco last night.

"Daboll gets to walk into his house at 6:30 in the morning with his six kids. Welcome home, pops." pic.twitter.com/ry1YQhlTqh

— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) September 22, 2023

3. The ineptness of NFL refs never ceases to amaze. Trent Williams punched Giants defensive lineman A’Shawn Robinson with an open fist last night. 

A’Shawn Robinson clearly punches first here so if Trent should be ejected, so should Robinson. pic.twitter.com/80LSobgBFL

— Robert Beal Fan Club (@GregoryFan5) September 22, 2023

There was no ejection. This was the reason refs gave after the game: “We ended up looking at the video we had available to us, and we just didn’t see anything that rose to the level of flagrant, which is the standard that we have to apply to disqualify the player,” Anderson said of why Williams got to stay in the game.”

Pool report with referee NFL senior VP of officiating Walt Anderson (conducted by the esteemed ⁦@mattbarrows⁩) on why there was no ejection for Trent Williams’ punch: “It didn’t rise to the level of flagrant.” pic.twitter.com/x4PLEbaaip

— Dan Duggan (@DDuggan21) September 22, 2023

I did enjoy Williams’s comment about the punch after the game, though.

Trent Williams on what happened with his “little right hook” at the end of the first half:

“I don’t remember, that was a long time ago.” 😂 pic.twitter.com/qrox0mZnyP

— KNBR (@KNBR) September 22, 2023

4. This is pretty good stuff from an intense Tom Brady on how he used anger to motivate himself during his career. On a side note, the music in the background is so unnecessary and annoying.

LEGENDARY: Tom Brady’s level of COMPETITIVE DRIVE is something that we will never see again. Just electric, he wanted to and NEEDED to WIN.

“I didn’t have any friends on the other teams”

“My friends are the guys that were in the battle with me”

“For me anger was good. And we… pic.twitter.com/xScFuNyX9D

— MLFootball (@_MLFootball) September 22, 2023

5. Cool behind-the-scenes video here from The Great One on his return to SmackDown last Friday.

Cool look from backstage when my music hits - I’m hyped, focused and locked in, but this stuff makes me smile every damn time I walk thru that curtain;)

You can feel the MANA here.
It’s real.

This crowd eruption is one of the loudest reactions I’ve ever experienced in my… pic.twitter.com/VjYk5xaWzF

— Dwayne Johnson (@TheRock) September 22, 2023

6. This week's SI Media With Jimmy Traina podcast features a conversation with Kevin Clark, who now hosts This Is Football for ESPN and Omaha Productions.

Clark talks about why he recently made the move from The Ringer to ESPN, whether he will continue to write and how sports media has changed since COVID-19.

Other topics covered with Clark include the possible Travis Kelce–Taylor Swift romance, changes he’d like to see networks make for NFL coverage, Bill Belichick’s personality, what we know after two weeks of the NFL season and much more.

Following Clark, Sal Licata from WFAN radio and SNY TV in New York joins me for our weekly “Traina Thoughts” segment. This week, we discuss Week 2 of NFL Sunday Ticket on YouTube, ESPN’s curious assignments for Chris Fowler and Kirk Herbstreit, Sean McVay’s decision to kick a meaningless field goal and upset a lot of bettors and HBO’s canceling Winning Time. Plus, I make an announcement regarding Apple reviews.

You can listen to the podcast below or download it on Apple, Spotify and Google.

You can also watch SI Media With Jimmy Traina on YouTube.

7. RANDOM VIDEO OF THE DAY: In all my years doing Hot Clicks and Traina Thoughts, I’ve never posted a video in the “Random Video of the Day” section that I had already posted two days ago, but it needs to be done today because everyone needs to watch this before Saturday’s Colorado-Oregon game.

Be sure to catch up on past editions of Traina Thoughts and check out SI Media With Jimmy Traina on Apple, Spotify or Google. You can also follow Jimmy on Twitter, Instagram and TikTok.