But after three days of wild rumors bouncing off every nook, cranny and Christmas light in Opryland, how this deal got done was almost more fascinating than who was in it.

Durazo had been a walking trade rumor for pretty much his entire career anyway. But over the last few days, there was hardly a trade scenario in Nashville that didn't involve him.

At one point or another, the A's had potential deals cooked up with the Giants, Braves, Expos, Blue Jays and Reds that all ended with Durazo winding up in the 510 area code. But finally, on Sunday, the pieces came together.

"We knew a long time ago that (Arizona GM) Joe (Garagiola Jr.) and I didn't have a direct match," Beane said. "So a couple of weeks ago, I said, 'Listen, Joe, give me a list of (pitchers) I can go out and get. And I'll see if I can get them.'"

Beane tried, at various junctures, to trade for Russ Ortiz, Javier Vazquez, Damian Moss and Dessens. He had a four-way deal centering around Dessens that was all but done Friday -- until the Diamondbacks decided they needed some time to see if they could deal for Vazquez on their own.

By Saturday night, this trade seemed to be losing steam. But Beane said: "I never thought it was dead. Me and (Reds GM) Jim (Bowden) and (Blue Jays GM) J.P. (Ricciardi) were on the phone till midnight, trying to keep it alive. I still thought it was possible that Arizona might have other options. But today, Jim did a good job. He was the closer. I went eight. Then Jim finished up the final inning."

Informed about this scouting report, Bowden wasn't ready to be compared to Mariano Rivera quite yet.

"We couldn't close this deal unless four clubs wanted to close it," Bowden said. "Maybe I made the end of it. But this was a total team effort."

Bowden is one of baseball's great deal-makers, but he proudly announced this was the first four-team extravaganza of his career. Nevertheless, he'd been counting on it going down for more than a week.

"The day we signed Jimmy Haynes, I thought it was a done deal," Bowden said. "I knew we couldn't afford him and Dessens, so we had a choice: We could have Dessens or we could have Haynes and Lopez. And this was the way we wanted to go."

In the meantime, Beane and his former trusty assistant, Ricciardi, had their end of the deal figured out a month ago. Back when it looked as if Durazo was going to Colorado for Larry Walker, they had cooked up a side deal in which Toronto would trade second baseman Orlando Hudson to Oakland for Arnold and fellow prospect John-Ford Griffin. Then Oakland was going to trade Hudson to Colorado for Durazo.

That Walker deal then fell through, of course. But Beane and Ricciardi didn't give up. As Beane probed the market for starting pitchers, Ricciardi looked around for teams looking for middle infielders. He was offering either Hudson or Lopez, so he had plenty of options.

So once Bowden hopped on board with Dessens, three rings in this circus were all set. But the Diamondbacks weren't ready to roll yet last week. So everybody headed for the winter meetings and immediately descended into a vat of quicksand.

All around them, nothing was getting done. And with 120 free agents roaming the scorched earth and the Expos threatening to trade everyone except Youppi!, this deal seemed in danger of being swallowed whole by the tidal wave of inactivity.

But Beane and Ricciardi kept plugging. Then they got Bowden back involved. And they wouldn't let up.

"The good thing about Jim," Beane said, "is that he's very energetic. I liked having a guy who was willing to bug them as much as I bugged them. And I bugged them a lot. Ask Joe. He got sick of me. I'd call and say, 'Joe, it's me again.'"

Finally, on Sunday, Garagiola became convinced that he was out of the running for Vazquez. So he turned his attention back to Dessens. And by mid-afternoon, they had themselves a deal.

Not to suggest all this got kind of exhausting or anything. But when Beane was asked why he was so possessed by the chance to get Durazo, he replied: "I forget."

When it all came back to him, though, he couldn't help but wax poetic about a 28-year-old bopper who has piled up 36 homers, 119 RBI and 111 walks in 593 at-bats the last three years.

"When you're a club like ours," Beane said, "and you're looking for a guy to plug into the middle of the lineup with a high on-base percentage and power who doesn't cost a lot of money, it kind of comes down to one guy. That's a player who's hard to find. You have to make all the stars align."

The down side of Durazo is that he has been on the disabled list six times in the last three years. But the always-creative Beane was able to find a bright side to that, too.

"If he didn't spend that time on the DL, we probably never would have gotten him," Beane said, "because he would have hit 45 home runs."

Given Beane's magic touch, Durazo will probably head for Oakland and hit 75 homers next year. But even that won't stop Beane from exploring his next 18-team deal involving enough people to populate an entire Manhattan high-rise.

"I actually had one general manager say to me, 'You've got to put me on your list for one of those four-way deals you're always doing,'" Beane said. "I said, 'OK, you're on the list. I'll get back to you.'"

And it might not take long, either.

Jayson Stark is a senior writer for ESPN.com.