By RAY RATTO, San Francisco Chronicle

It seems we always do this when Oakland A's general manager Billy Beane makes a trade: namely, try to figure out why it's a good idea when it seems not to be.

Take this Matt Holliday, for instance. Holliday has the resume and name that the Athletics have lacked, but he also has one other thing, the one thing we haven't thought Beane would be able to seriously tackle:

There is a certain level of logic in the 49ers' whacking of coach Mike Nolan on Monday. Not necessarily enough, mind you, but some.

The results speak for themselves, and apparently beating Seattle on Sunday wouldn't change that. The near-universal clamor for Nolan's head finally had caused John York to face a fact he chose not to consider in the offseason.

Charming Al Davis made one of his rare appearances at Raider Interplanetary Headquarters on Tuesday, which meant that he thought he needed to be charming.

Well, the Oakland Raiders owner was firing a coach after all. Charm is important at times like this.

Oakland general manager Billy Beane's 81st trade almost surely will involve reliever Huston Street, largely because he's the most appealing Athletic left in the shop window. That's how well the general manager has cleaned out his inventory and/or overhead.

San Francisco Giants GM Brian Sabean's 69th deal, on the other hand, might not happen until next year.

One of our most disturbing national fetishes is our newfound fascination with the answer to the question "Is Circumstance X good for Sport Y?" As in, "Is Lakers-Celtics good for the NBA?" or "Is Detroit beating Pittsburgh for the Stanley Cup good for hockey?" or "Is Kimbo Slice good for MMA?"

The NBA is transitioning to a new, dramatically younger A-list, led by Chris Paul, Dwight Howard and LeBron James. So is the NHL, with Alexander Ovechkin, Evgeni Malkin and Sidney Crosby. Even the San Antonio Spurs aren't really old -- just their deeds are.

Myles Brand announced Tuesday that the NCAA has "new information" on the recruitment, purchase and pimping of O.J. Mayo. So do we. It's called cable television, because ESPN made a deal out of it last weekend. It's also called the Internet, because CBSSportsline.com and other sites raised the issue as long ago as two years.

Catching up with things around the sports world:

-- Hi, I'm Matt Walsh, and I have some movies of my Pop Warner team I'd like to show you.

-- Not that this should make you feel any better for him, but Barry Zito's Giants have not only scored nine times in his seven starts, they are hitting a robust .218.

Emil Brown's career arc did not suggest that he had this kind of start in him, nor did it suggest that the Athletics would be all that interested in him to benefit from it. He did possess the A's-ian values of being available, well traveled and inexpensive, true, but he didn't seem to quite fit the Oakland mold.

SAN FRANCISCO -- Cheating is wrong, more or less -- it depends a lot of times on who your lawyer is. Cheating in the NFL is wrong only when you get caught.