The seven players from the Oakland Athletics’ organization currently playing in this year’s Arizona Fall League have a lot in common.

For openers, all but one of them finished the regular season as members of Oakland’s Double-A Midland (Texas) Rock Hounds.

The one non-Hound is right-handed pitcher Jeff Gray, who was actually all the way up with the big team for “a cup of coffee” at the end of the season.

Otherwise, Jeff spent 2008 as a Sacramento River Cat, where he appeared in 54 games and posted a 4.39 earned-run average.

During his brief stint in Oakland, he pitched 32⁄3 innings, allowing five hits and two runs. Jeff also happens to be the oldest member of this year’s AFLers.

He turned 27 this month.

The youngest of the group is infielder Adrian Cardenas, who celebrated his 21st birthday just last month. Adrian came to the Athletics from the Phillies organization, where he was a compensatory pick between the first and second rounds of the June 2006 amateur draft.

He was traded to the A’s last year in the Joe Blanton deal, moving over from Philadelphia’s Class A Clearwater (Florida) team to the A’s Class A Stockton club. He finished the season in Midland, where he batted .279 with a .392 on-base percentage. He has divided his time this fall between shortstop and second base. With a little more than a week left in the AFL season, Adrian is hitting a respectable .283.

Andrew Carignan and Jared Lansford are both right-handed pitchers from the Rock Hounds’ 2008 staff.

Andrew was in Texas all season and Jared moved over from Stockton at the end of the year.

If Jared’s last name looks familiar to A’s fans, who have been around a while, it should — he’s the son of Oakland’s former star third baseman Carney Lansford.

Jared’s brief time at Midland was probably exceptional enough to earn him an AFL assignment. He pitched 25.2 innings in 15 games, allowing only two runs for a sparkling 0.70 earned-run average. This fall he has appeared in nine games — one inning per — and has allowed five runs for a 5.00 ERA.

Andrew finished the year as the Rock Hounds’ closer, posting a 2.22 earned-run average and being credited with 24 saves.

He seems to be continuing his performance and is currently leading the fall league with six saves in seven attempts. Both Andrew and Jared are 22 years old.

The last of Oakland’s aspiring pitchers is Andrew Bailey. Andrew was selected by the A’s in the sixth round of the June 2006 draft.

He has pretty well made the rounds, spending time in Vancouver, Kane County, Stockton, Midland and Sacramento. In 2007 he was called up at the end of the season from Stockton to Sacramento, where he pitched in only one game — but it was a good one.

He pitched eight innings, allowed just one run and was the winning pitcher. He spent all of last year back down one notch at Midland, where he posted a 4.32 earned-run average with a 5-9 record. He has appeared in nine games this fall, allowing only one run. During those nine games, he has fanned 15 opposing batters while giving up only one base on balls.

Josh Donaldson played his college ball at Auburn and was drafted by the Chicago Cubs in the June 2007 draft. He was traded to the A’s last year in the midseason Rich Harden swap and assigned to Stockton.

He played in 47 games for the Ports, collecting 62 hits — including nine home runs — and finished the season with a .330 batting average.

Thus far this fall he has played in 22 games at first base for the Desert Dogs.

He has continued the hitting with 28 hits in 83 at bats for a .337 batting average, second only to the Dogs’ Eric Young Jr.’s .420.

Last but certainly not least is another 2007 draft selection, Sean Doolittle.

Like most Oakland prospects, Sean has traveled up through the minor league levels with stopovers all along the way.

He has yet, however, to play above Double-A. He played in 137 games in 2008 split between Stockton and Midland. He managed 153 hits on the two clubs, including 22 home runs.

Currently, Sean is third in the league in runs batted in with 26 and also third in home runs with eight. Defensively, he has divided his playing time between the outfield and first base.

I was a little late getting to the fall ballpark this year and probably will not get to see all the aspiring “Green and Gold” in action.

However, they are doing it again. The Phoenix Desert Dogs, which the young A’s share with the Blue Jays, the Diamondbacks, the Rockies and the Twins, are on their way to yet another championship game at the end of this week.

The team is playing well and the A’s are certainly making their contribution. Last Friday, Doolittle was in right field, Donaldson at first and Cardenas at short.

Unhappily, for me at least, the score was a bit one-sided the wrong way, but, it was more than a little fun to spend the afternoon with boys who hopefully one day will be spending lots of afternoons somewhere in the Bay Area.

Just for the record, here’s how Major League Baseball describes these annual games in the desert:

“The Arizona Fall League, known throughout professional baseball as a ‘finishing school’ for Major League Baseball’s elite prospects, is a six-team league, owned and operated by Major League Baseball, that plays six days per week (Monday-Saturday) in five Cactus league stadiums (Mesa, Peoria, Phoenix, Scottsdale, Surprise) in the Phoenix metropolitan area. This year’s schedule concludes with a championship game on Saturday, Nov. 22 at Scottsdale Stadium.”