So what was it about Forst that impressed the A's front office?

"Nothing impressed me about Forst at all," DePodesta jokes. "No, in all honesty, this job requires a tremendous amount of passion and dedication. I wanted someone who understood that. This definitely isn't a job for your basic dedicated baseball fan. Since David had been through two seasons of independent ball, he knew what it took to get up and go the ballpark every single day whether you feel up to it or not. You have to want to live it, if you're really going to get the most of the experience."

And the Crimson factor? "The fact that I felt comfortable with Coach Walsh's recommendation and David's Harvard diploma didn't hurt either," DePodesta admits.

Forst began work as Baseball Operations Assistant in January. In this capacity, he performs many of the researching duties that DePodesta had in Cleveland. He also manages a large portion of Oakland's independent statistics base, primarily using a computerized method known as BATS.

"BATS is a program that about eight teams in the majors use now," Forst explains. "A lot of my job is replaying each pitch and charting it on the program. It's pretty important information to have for our research, both for hitters and for pitchers."

For The Love of the Game

The amount of attention that the A's pay to even the most minute aspects of the game should not be surprising considering what the organization has done.

"When I first got here, the first thing I noticed was how many people go into making something like this work," Forst remembers.