You look down, you see up. You look backward, you see forward. But if you reflect on 2007, can you see anything clearly about 2008? The 2007 Oakland Athletics, with all the injuries, are more like a funhouse mirror than a calm pool of rainwater. The results are distorted. After years of relying on great defense, they suddenly turned into one of the worst defensive teams in baseball. Their much-maligned offense actually scored the third-most runs in the AL on the road. The offense just seemed bad overall, because the Oakland Coliseum itself has evolved into the most difficult place to score in the American League, moving farther below the average ballpark in run-scoring than Coors Field is above it.

So as we begin today to reflect back on the 2007 season, through a series of photo outtakes, we do so knowing full well that what we saw was distorted by where and when we saw it. It was an odd year.