castoffs

Once or twice a month, Wangi Mugenyi parks his secondhand pickup at the city of Seattle surplus warehouse in the Sodo neighborhood, where the city sells its various castoffs, and searches for his next big deal.

Other artifacts the site may cough up — old bricks, cobblestones and rocks, sometimes accompanied by irresistible castoffs retrieved from the transfer station — become part of the improvised mosaics.

While even most die-hard fans can’t name more than a few players on the A’s roster, the collection of youngsters, castoffs and players trying to stay in the big leagues has put together a better record than the Astros, Cardinals, Giants and Reds.

In the fall of 2017, I found myself there along with other journalism castoffs cursing the news gods.

But if Oakland can get decent production from a trio of San Francisco Giants castoffs — pitchers Alex Wood and Ross Stripling and third baseman J.D.