Dear Sports Gods,
I did everything right. Everything. After my beloved A’s swept Minnesota, I held off on calling my friend Max and taunting him about it. Before the ALCS, I never once mentioned advancing to the World Series. Like Gene Hackman in “Hoosiers” my response was always that we will not be concerned about the next step until we climb the one in front of us. Heck, instead of poking fun at Yankee fans for losing to Detroit…..I took the approach of putting my arm around them and providing encouragement. I heard the words, “don’t worry Steinbrenner will get you some pitching next year” come out of my mouth. It’s not just that though. I did other stuff to help the A’s pull through in this series. Instead of pretending to read my newspaper and ignoring an old lady on the train, I got up and gave her my seat. Five times I was the last person to exit a crowded elevator. I do not understand why you are doing this to us, but it is just inhumane at this point.
This is complete bullshit. In terms of gross injustices done to a fan base I would say that if the Detroit Tigers hold on and beat the Oakland A’s it would be the worst thing you’ve done since you granted permission for the Tampa Bay Lightning to defeat the Philadelphia Flyers 2-1 in Game 7 of the Eastern Conference finals on May 22, 2004. And don’t bring up that Tigers fans had to sit and watch their team lose 119 games because we all know that isn’t true. 97.8% of them were basking in the Detroit Piston glow and didn’t give a flying f*ck that their baseball team was sucking wind. You don’t believe me? I come armed with facts. Approximately 1,368,245 people attended Tigers games that year. Out of fourteen American League teams they ranked thirteenth in attendance in 2003.
I must appeal because A’s fans have been taking it on the chin since 1989 and it is just cruel at this point (let the record show, I’m being generous with the 1989 start date because it excludes the Kirk Gibson home run). First, let’s take a brief stroll through the list of players Oakland fans have been forced to waive goodbye to. Mark McGwire, Jose Canseco, Rickey Henderson, Dave Stewart, Jason Giambi, Miguel Tejada, Tim Hudson, Mark Mulder, Johnny Damon and Jermaine Dye. I know….I know……that is just our lot as a small-market team, but still. We have forgiven you for the fact that none of us can ever buy a replica jersey with our favorite player’s name on the back. Secondly, we endured an 0-9 stretch in elimination games. What was that for? Did we ask to be kicked in the balls nine straight times? You were almost daring us to quit on our team, but we wouldn’t do it. Not only did we lose key playoff games, we did it in a fashion that was the roughly the equivalent of having to watch an unshaven, Frenchman make out in the middle of a bar with a girl whom you had a crush on. Zito losing a 1-0 game that he pitched a one-hitter in. The Jeter flip play, which has been replayed 9,245,832 times since it originally happened. Finally, Mr. and Mrs. Sports Gods you took Bill King from us this season. You took the voice of my childhood. If you won’t come to our aid now and swing the tide in Detroit then quite frankly you need to look yourself in the mirror and wonder if you truly care about the people who care about sports.
This ALCS should have been about three things. The validation of Billy Beane’s genius. The emergence of the ultimate small-market team. And the waiving of goodbye to the greatest radio voice that sports has ever known. The return of Jim Leyland should not outweigh this. He got his World Series in 1997. That’s less than ten years ago. We all know that Rule No. 767 of the sports bylaws state that if you win a Championship or make an NCAA Final Four within a ten year stretch that anything more than that is gravy. Sprinkle in that Detroit has had an NBA Championship, multiple NHL titles and currently has an undefeated University of Michigan football team and an outstanding argument can be made that they do not need this championship.
Mr. and Mrs. Sports Gods, you need to look down upon Comerica Park for Game Three and ask the question, “do the Tigers and their fans deserve a World Series moment right now?” Maybe down the road after some rough losses, the answer will be yes. However to award them a trip to the Fall Classic now, without having had to deal with any tough playoff losses or free agent pain just isn’t right. Give the Oakland A’s a Game Three victory. Give Billy and Bill four wins out of the next five. Give this often overlooked baseball outpost with a glorious past that includes nine World Series Titles a chance at a tenth. Provide us life on Friday.
Thank you,
Trevor
If you have any questions or comments, feel free to contact me at [email protected].
10 replies on “Our Plea…..”
if it’s any consolation you’re knocking out of the park with this column… great stuff.
But I know that doesn’t help.
I feel for you. That Flyers loss almost made me quit on them. And by almost I mean I can barely watch them anymore.
Still got 5 games to go….
Thank you The Flyers getting beat by the Lightning was an absolute travesty I had forgotten about until last night’s show. The Sports Gods failed big-time on that one.
As a nation, A’s fans deserve this more than Tigers fans. If Steve Lyons or Thom Brennaman make another comment about the great Tiger fans and how they deserve a contender or how great Detroit use to be as a baseball town, I’m going to puke. They drew 1.3 million people just three years ago. Over 81 games that’s embarrassing. That town only became fans of baseball this season. The Oakland A’s fans have had to stick in there during a lot of rough bouts. If the Sports Gods fail us now, it would be an outright crime.
I echo vin’s sentiments AMAZING column. I read it last week and wanted to say something, but in an effort to help maintain your karmic equilibrium, I thought it best to not go near the A’s or any coverage of them thereof.
I’m sorry about that loss. I’m not really watching baseball so much anymore, since tbaseball season is over as far I know. But yeah, at least know that this piece was fantastic. I have a tough time reading about baseball when the Yankees are no longer a part of it, and this is one I really enjoyed.
A’s Thank you YankTank.
You know what is funny. This morning I finally got up the heart to check my Reality Fan Forum inbox. In it were 11 e-mails from various A’s fans. I’ve met none of these people other than replying to an e-mail after they have read an article I wrote on the team. Since we’re a nation, I’ve always kept contact and let them know when I write something A’s related. All of them wrote essentially the same thing. The Magglio walk-off doesn’t even register as a stomach punch when you’ve already sat through the Kirk Gibson walk-off and the Jeter flip play. It’s comical that this is the case………yet this is the case.
Mainly though the A’s have a lot to look forward to next year. They won 93 games this season and made the ALCS and not once all year did they play with a full deck. At one point or another the A’s had Rich Harden, Milton Bradley, Frank Thomas, Bobby Crosby, Esteban Loaiza, Huston Street, Justin Duchsherer, Joe Kennedy, and Mark Ellis out with injuries. If the A’s stay healthy they can easily win 95-100 games next season, just with what they have coming back.
I know Zito is leaving and I wish him all the best. He will always be appreciated in Oakland. That being said this postseason was a microcosm of his entire career. Zito can be brilliant one day and mediocre the next. I loved him in Oakland, but cutting the cord with another remnant of the teams that went 0 for 9 in elimination games might not be a bad thing. I like Shane Komine and I hope he gets every crack in the world at Zito’s spot in the rotation. From what I saw he is the kind of hard thrower that wins in the postseason.
All in all, it was a great season in Oakland. Hopefully next year we can get over the hump.
you staying away didn’t help I believe Trevor has crawled into a neverending bottle of Yuengling and is sports free for the next week or so.
Sports-Free I couldn’t stomach watching the 49ers yesterday because of the A’s loss. I just needed a break from my teams. I tossed on “Swingers” at 4:00 and didn’t regret skipping out on my 49ers. Today, I am purchasing another college basketball preview issue and I’m going to start getting ready for basketball. By next Sunday, I think I’ll be able to settle in again and watch one of my teams do battle. Since it’ll be the 49ers and they are playing the Bears, I can ease back into it by assuming the 49ers are going to lose 49-0 and being encouraged if they keep it close.
Macha What’s with the firing of Ken Macha, Trevor? Did you see this coming? Getting swept in the ALCS is unacceptable in Oaktown?
You know what Trevor.. You took the wrong approach…you should’ve sent picture messages to all your yankee fan friends with you wearing A’s gear and giving them the finger..you should’ve told that old lady when she sweeps the twins she can have your seat and you should’ve farted in that elevator. The A’s would be celebrating the pennant by now.
it appears good karma died with the rat that scott mellanby killed in the locker room many years ago. It seems that most of sports went to shit right after the Florida Panthers went to the Stanley Cup Finals by beating traditional powers Boston, Philly and Pittsburgh, all the while the biggest bandwagon fans in sports history threw plastic rats on the ice.
Macha My thoughts on Ken Macha are this. Somebody had to be blamed for Oakland failing to get to the World Series and for the team’s collective no-show against Detroit. You had a fan base that is hovering between disappointed and angry paired with an owner and GM who feel like the team on paper was good enough to win the Series. The only three A’s players not under a contract for next season are Barry Zito, Frank Thomas, and Jay Payton so shaking up the team and bringing in new blood wasn’t an option. Therefore the only move you could really make was firing the manager. It sends the signal you want to send to the team, which is that their performance in the ALCS was both embarrassing and unacceptable.
You are going to hear some stuff about how certain A’s players didn’t like Macha. I think that is more a P.R. deflection than anything. If the A’s hadn’t lost to the Tigers, Macha would have kept his job.
This is the biggest managerial hire of Billy Beane’s tenure and is probably his most important. Especially because of the flack he is already getting from the national media. It’ll be interesting to see which way he goes. Conventional wisdom would say Ron Washington or Bob Geren, however I wouldn’t be completely taken offguard if he tried to shake things up and bring in somebody with fire (i.e. a Bobby Valentine or Joe Girardi).
Fan Approach I was talking to a few of my friends back home in the Bay Area and they were joking about that. We’re worried that if we take that approach we may fall into a full-fledged curse which I’m not sure is a risk that we are willing to take. If I have to wait fifty years until the next A’s World title, I may take a leap off the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge.