Featured
A’s Rally Back To Beat The Yankees
Oakland, CA – The good thing about a bad start to the season is there’s plenty of baseball left to play to turn things around. The A’s did just that as they rallied back to tie the game before taking the lead in the seventh. Bay Area native CC Sabatiha was the staring Yankees pitcher to kick off the four-game series. He tossed four shutout innings until surrendering two home runs.
“Obviously we’ve been looking for one big hit,” Oakland’s manager Bob Melvin said. “Certainly the way things were going with runners in scoring position, it was a struggle again for a little while, but Lawrie’s hit was huge, to get us back to even.”
The A’s remained patient before exploding on offense to beat New York 5-4. They chipped away at a 3-0 lead the Yankees established early. Billy Burns and Brett Lawrie went yard off Sabathia in the fifth and sixth frames. Oakland had an opportunity to get the offense going in the fourth but Sabathia struck out two batters back-to-back to end the inning after loading the bases.
“Just coming in everyday, knowing we have the ability to not only come back and then go ahead, that’s huge, and we played the game the right way,” said Lawrie. “Ben Zobrist with a great at-bat tonight, that was pretty much the whole game right there.”
The Yankees Brian McCann went 3-for-4 with a solo shot to right field in the second. Alex Rodriguez led off the fourth with a single, Mark Teixeria walked and McCann singled up the middle sending Rodriguez home. Zobrist threw home while Rodriguez alluded Josh Phegley trying to tag him out.
“That was not pretty,” Rodriguez said referring to his tag at home plate. “That looked like Shaquille O’Neal coming off a pick. I’m glad they got it right.”
The initial call was that Rodriguez was out as he tagged the back of home plate, New York challenged the play and the call was overturned, Rodriguez was safe. The Yankees extended their lead 2-0 but weren’t done yet. Rodriguez scored in Brett Gardner in the fifth and tied Barry Bonds for second place on the all time list with his 1,996th career RBI.
“He’s one of the greats and this is kind of special because he’s also a friend,” said Rodriguez when asked about tying Bonds on the all time hit list.
Kendall Graveman made his sixth start after being called back up from Triple-A Nashville last Saturday. He tossed 5 2/3 frames, allowed seven hits, three runs, two walks, four strikeouts and one home run. Graveman allowed his 4th home run this season. That ended 32 consecutive innings without an earned run from an A’s starting pitcher.
“He was in between what we’ve seen in his best but hung in there,” Melvin said of Graveman’s performance. “Particularly McCann got some good swings off him but he held in there just enough. Talking about three runs which isn’t too bad.”
Heading into the sixth Oakland was down 3-1. Lawrie’s two-run shot tied the game 3-3. Sabathia was sent to the mound in the sixth when he put two on with a single to Phegley to leadoff the inning, and a free pass to Mark Canha. David Carpenter replaced the southpaw loading the bases with a single to Marcus Semien and a walk to Zobrist extending the A’s lead 4-3. Butler’s sacrifice fly made it a 5-3 game before Stephen Vogt popped out to third to end the inning.
“It’s tough. They get the runs early and you want to be able to hold that lead and get the ball to the back of our bullpen,” said Sabathia. “I wasn’t able to do that.”
Oakland’s bullpen got vicious and shutdown New York’s offense. This might’ve been the best we’ve seen, the bullpen retired eight batters through both the seventh and eighth frames. Abad retired Didi Gregorius to end the sixth stranding two and Gardner to leadoff the seventh flying out to left field. While Evan Scribner retired the next five batters, striking out two to end the eighth.
The Yankees tried to rally in the ninth when Tyler Clippard walked Gregorius and gave up a single to Gardner putting two on with two outs. But he forced Chase Headley to fly out to center field to end the game. The A’s snapped a 12-game losing streak in one-run games at home that dated back to September 6, 2014. It was the longest such streak in Athletics history.
Activism
Oakland Post: Week of April 30 – May 6, 2025
The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of April 30 – May 6, 2025

To enlarge your view of this issue, use the slider, magnifying glass icon or full page icon in the lower right corner of the browser window.
Activism
Gov. Newsom Approves $170 Million to Fast Track Wildfire Resilience
AB 100 approves major investments in regional conservancies across the state, including over $30 million each for the Sierra Nevada, Santa Monica Mountains, State Coastal, and San Gabriel/Lower LA Rivers and Mountains conservancies. An additional $10 million will support wildfire response and resilience efforts.

By Bo Tefu
California Black Media
With wildfire season approaching, last week Gov. Gavin Newsom signed Assembly Bill (AB) 100, unlocking $170 million to fast-track wildfire prevention and forest management projects — many of which directly protect communities of color, who are often hardest hit by climate-driven disasters.
“With this latest round of funding, we’re continuing to increase the speed and size of forest and vegetation management essential to protecting communities,” said Newsom when he announced the funding on April 14.
“We are leaving no stone unturned — including cutting red tape — in our mission to ensure our neighborhoods are protected from destructive wildfires,” he said.
AB 100 approves major investments in regional conservancies across the state, including over $30 million each for the Sierra Nevada, Santa Monica Mountains, State Coastal, and San Gabriel/Lower LA Rivers and Mountains conservancies. An additional $10 million will support wildfire response and resilience efforts.
Newsom also signed an executive order suspending certain regulations to allow urgent work to move forward faster.
This funding builds on California’s broader Wildfire and Forest Resilience Action Plan, a $2.7 billion effort to reduce fuel loads, increase prescribed burning, and harden communities. The state has also launched new dashboards to keep the public informed and hold agencies accountable.
California has also committed to continue investing $200 million annually through 2028 to expand this effort, ensuring long-term resilience, particularly in vulnerable communities.
Activism
California Rideshare Drivers and Supporters Step Up Push to Unionize
Today in California, over 600,000 rideshare drivers want the ability to form or join unions for the sole purpose of collective bargaining or other mutual aid and protection. It’s a right, and recently at the State Capitol, a large number of people, including some rideshare drivers and others working in the gig economy, reaffirmed that they want to exercise it.

By Antonio Ray Harvey
California Black Media
On July 5, 1935, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed into federal law the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA). Also known as the “Wagner Act,” the law paved the way for employees to have “the right to self-organization, to form, join, or assist labor organizations,” and “to bargain collectively through representatives of their own choosing, according to the legislation’s language.
Today in California, over 600,000 rideshare drivers want the ability to form or join unions for the sole purpose of collective bargaining or other mutual aid and protection. It’s a right, and recently at the State Capitol, a large number of people, including some rideshare drivers and others working in the gig economy, reaffirmed that they want to exercise it.
On April 8, the rideshare drivers held a rally with lawmakers to garner support for Assembly Bill (AB) 1340, the “Transportation Network Company Drivers (TNC) Labor Relations Act.”
Authored by Assemblymembers Buffy Wicks (D-Oakland) and Marc Berman (D-Menlo Park), AB 1340 would allow drivers to create a union and negotiate contracts with industry leaders like Uber and Lyft.
“All work has dignity, and every worker deserves a voice — especially in these uncertain times,” Wicks said at the rally. “AB 1340 empowers drivers with the choice to join a union and negotiate for better wages, benefits, and protections. When workers stand together, they are one of the most powerful forces for justice in California.”
Wicks and Berman were joined by three members of the California Legislative Black Caucus (CLBC): Assemblymembers Tina McKinnor (D-Inglewood), Sade Elhawary (D-Los Angeles), and Isaac Bryan (D-Ladera Heights).
Yvonne Wheeler, president of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor; April Verrett, President of Service Employees International Union (SEIU); Tia Orr, Executive Director of SEIU; and a host of others participated in the demonstration on the grounds of the state capitol.
“This is not a gig. This is your life. This is your job,” Bryan said at the rally. “When we organize and fight for our collective needs, it pulls from the people who have so much that they don’t know what to do with it and puts it in the hands of people who are struggling every single day.”
Existing law, the “Protect App-Based Drivers and Services Act,” created by Proposition (Prop) 22, a ballot initiative, categorizes app-based drivers for companies such as Uber and Lyft as independent contractors.
Prop 22 was approved by voters in the November 2020 statewide general election. Since then, Prop 22 has been in court facing challenges from groups trying to overturn it.
However, last July, Prop 22 was upheld by the California Supreme Court last July.
In a 2024, statement after the ruling, Lyft stated that 80% of the rideshare drivers they surveyed acknowledged that Prop 22 “was good for them” and “median hourly earnings of drivers on the Lyft platform in California were 22% higher in 2023 than in 2019.”
Wicks and Berman crafted AB 1340 to circumvent Prop 22.
“With AB 1340, we are putting power in the hands of hundreds of thousands of workers to raise the bar in their industry and create a model for an equitable and innovative partnership in the tech sector,” Berman said.
-
Activism3 weeks ago
Oakland Post: Week of April 9 – 15, 2025
-
Activism3 weeks ago
Oakland Post: Week of April 16 – 22, 2025
-
#NNPA BlackPress4 weeks ago
Trump Profits, Black America Pays the Price
-
Activism1 week ago
AI Is Reshaping Black Healthcare: Promise, Peril, and the Push for Improved Results in California
-
Activism1 week ago
Barbara Lee Accepts Victory With “Responsibility, Humility and Love”
-
Activism1 week ago
Newsom Fights Back as AmeriCorps Shutdown Threatens Vital Services in Black Communities
-
#NNPA BlackPress4 weeks ago
Harriet Tubman Scrubbed; DEI Dismantled
-
#NNPA BlackPress4 weeks ago
New York Stands Firm Against Trump Administration’s Order to Abandon Diversity in Schools