Kurt Suzuki was born on October 4, 1983 in Hawaii. He grew up, learned to play baseball, then attended Cal State Fullerton, where he had a pretty successful college career. Some highlights: In 2004, he won the Johnny Bench award (given yearly to the top college catcher), was selected as a 1st team College All-American, and won the inaugural Brooks Wallace award (player of the year award given by the College Baseball Foundation). He also helped Cal State Fullerton win the 2004 College World Series (over Huston Street's Texas Longhorns).

Suzuki was drafted by the A's in 2004. During his time in the minors, he batted .283 with a .380 OBP. He was a Double-A All-Star in 2006, and during that year, he threw out about 40 percent of baserunners, which ain't too shabby. He also played for Team USA. He was called up in June of last year, and became the starting catcher when Jason Kendall was traded to the Cubs. During his time with the A's in 2007, he batted .249 with 7 home runs.

This year, Suzuki started out the pretty well. According to the A's website, he batted .339 over his first 17 games, and took the leadoff spot from a slumping Travis Buck. But now, Kurt seems to be in his own slump, so he's been dropped in the order for the time being. But he's thrown out about 35 percent of baserunners so far this year, which isn't bad. There's still a lot of baseball to be played, so we'll see what happens. Either way, Kurt has definitely been a contributer in the A's surprising start to the season.

Before we meet Mr. Eveland, I would like to say that my other half confused Dana Eveland with Dallas Braden a few minutes ago. That's a perfect example as to why people need to be educated on the members of the potential AL West Champions (No, I haven't been drinking. I just live in hope).

Anyway, on to Dana Eveland. He was born October 29,1983 in Olympia, Washington. He grew up, did some stuff, then attended Hill College in Texas. According to Hill College's website, Dana was encouraged to "Be a Rebel!" but was also encouraged to follow the college's core values of Integrity, Educational Excellence, Student Success, Respect, Enthusiasm, and Collaboration. How can you be a rebel and follow the rules at the same time? I'm guessing Dana spent his time at Hill College as a very confused man.

In 2002, Eveland was drafted by the Brewers. He appeared in 36 games for the Brewers, and his ERA was a lot higher than current gas prices. After the 2006 season, he was sent to the Diamondbacks in the "blockbuster" Doug Davis trade. He appeared in 5 games for Arizona last year, and had an ERA of over 14. Wow...with an ERA like that, it's no wonder that the A's were so interested in him...

Anyway, after last season, Eveland was sent to Oakland in the Dan Haren trade. After a decent Spring training, he was named to the starting rotation. He currently has a 2-1 record with a 1.90 ERA. I'm getting kind of tired and I want to watch the rest of the Spurs-Suns game, so I'll wrap this up by giving the generic response of "If Eveland can continue to pitch like he has so far this season, he'll be a great asset to the A's pitching staff." Although he could definitely stand to walk fewer guys. But in my opinion, he's already more of an asset to the team than Rich Harden, because he's gone more than 2 games without hurting himself. And he follows in the footsteps of other lady-named athletes such as Tracy McGrady, Andrea Bargnani, Kelly Johnson, and fellow Bay Area athletes Dana Stubblefield and Stanford's Brook and Robin Lopez.

You go, girls!