Notes From The Nat

August 6th 2007: Tacoma Rainiers vs Nashville Sounds (AAA)
Four-freaking-AM is too damn early.

Day 4- Saturday August 4, 2007: Oakland Athletics vs Anaheim Angels (MLB)

What do you do when a summer usually selling beer has not come topass?

Sure, there’s always the teaching thing. I like teaching in thesummer - the students are more relaxed, the crybabies usually don’tbother, and since my wife has to work, there’s less likelihood of mygetting into trouble with so much free time.

But since I designed thesummer schedule around the beer schedule, long before events conspiredto terminate that inevitability, I found that I had gaps of time whereI didn’t have anything to do.

When to go was fairly straightforward. Thanks to both the baseballschedule and my connivance, I managed to have the August long weekendoff, with two days before and after as a cushion.

Where to go wastrickier: we could do the NWL, but we’d already done that unpaid in previous seasons (Hi, webcast audience!). ThePCL only has Portland and Tacoma in close vicinity; I’m not spending aweek in Seattle just watching the Mariners.

Every other league - theCal League or the Pioneer League - requires at least 12 hours to getto. Luckily, there’s this thing called "the internet" which, despitehaving an ungodly amount of pornography and gambling opportunities, hadready access to all baseball schedules, making planning a breeze. Abrief look made the decision easy - head to Cali, check out the A’sand the farm system, and see who we could run into along the way.

The plan: (Home team on left)
August 1: Portland* v. Nashville ? 7:05
August 2: Sacramento* v. New Orleans - $1 Feast ? 7:05
August 3: Stockton v. Rancho Cucamonga ?Lunch Box Night? 7:05
August 4: Oakland v. LA Angels ? 12:55 ? A’s belt buckle
August 5: Oakland v. LA Angels ? 12:55
               Sacramento* v. Memphis ? 6:05 ? US Bank Kids Day
August 6: Tacoma v. Nashville ? 7:05
August 7: Everett* v. Tri-City ? 12:05 ? Golf Umbrella (1^st 1000)

All that was left was to get underway. God bless the 90 cent dollar!

Day one: How did I get here?

Day two: Being an exhibitionist.

Opening day, Oakland Athletics vs New York Yankees, 2006.

The ongoing rains had once again ceased just long enough to start aballgame as I walked across the parking lot to the McAfee Coliseum,eager to get into the stadium in time for batting practice.Unfortunately, however, it was not to be. Instead I was greeted by alineup of folks wanting to be the first ones into the stadium for the2006 season.

Standing in puddles, listening to some old crones behind me talkingabout how they wouldn’t go to A’s games if they moved to Fremont. Iasked where they lived and they said Hayward. When I pointed out thatHayward was about halfway between Oakland and Fremont, they repeatedthe mantra, "We won’t go to see games in Fremont," without actuallyaddressing my point.

A few minutes later, the same people began talking loudly about howpeople "should leave Bonds alone because he never tested postive." Thatwas a little irritating, especially coming from Oakland fans, but whenthey started saying things like "That guy we used to have… What’s hisname? Jeremy? Jeremy used them too and nobody boos him…", I began torealize I was actually listening to the ramblings of crazy people.

Of course, that didn’t stop me from pointing out the bleeding obviousto them - that Bonds took a year off with a ‘knee injury’ rather thanactually be tested during a time when a positive test would seem himpublicly named as a user, so the ‘he never tested positive’ BS doesn’tstand up to scrutiny.

To that they replied, "Well steroids don’t help hand/eye coordination,"to which I pointed out that steroids don’t need to help hand/eyecoordination, since they’re supposed to give you added strength so thatwhen your hand/eye combo works the way it should, a long flyball outinstead becomes a home run.

To that, they then blinked a lot and changed the subject. "It’s magnetic schedule day today…"

Okay then. I was soon free of the crazy people, as the gates had openedand the first 50 people in line were racing each other, sprinting to bethe first people inside. That’s kind of pointless, because ten feetfrom the gate were the security checkpoints where you get searched fornasty, eville weapons such as ‘outside food’.

Once past them, the race was on again… for another ten feet, beforethey hit the turnstiles. Really, it was all a bit of an anti-climax.Which just about sums up the day.
Someearly highlights of the opening day include a video tribute to the lateBill King (which the Yankees fans talked loudly all the way through),the unveiling of the Holy Toledo logo over King’s old spot in the pressbox, and the traditional moment of silence (which a single A’s fanended by yelling "YANKEES SUCK!"). Another video tribute to the‘Swingin’ A’s’, they of the back to back to back World Series wins inthe 70’s, was pretty stirring, and the presentation of Eric Chavez’fifth straight gold glove and Huston Street’s Rookie of the Year awardreally had the crowd worked up. It all promised so much… and thenBarry Zito started to pitch.

I guess it makes sense, in a Murphy’s Law kind of way, that the game Icame out to see would end up being the shortest outing of Barry Zito’slifetime; 1 1/3 innings where he gave up seven earned runs, including agrand slam to Alex Rodriguez. It never got much better from there, withSaarloos giving up four runs over a couple more innings, the new kidShane Halsey surrendered a couple in his 1.1 innings, Jay Witasickfollowed suit with two more, with only Kiko Calero managing to keep hisERA at zero.

With the bats, the A’s sucked pretty squarely, but there were somehighlights in the game, even though the A’s ended up losing 15-2… andit rained.

Firstly, as I said, Calero didn’t give up a run. That’s new, at leastit is so far this spring. Shame we were already down by 14 runs when ithappened, but still…

Another highlight was the fan who threw back the ball Hidecki Matsuihit into the bleachers, though the poor guy did get escorted out of thestadium after doing so, in one of the lamest actions I’ve ever seen asecurity guard undertake at a ball game. I mean, it’s not like the guyhad 12,000 people yelling "THROW IT BACK! THROW IT BACK!" or anything,is it?

Also on the highlight reel, Jason Kendall hit the ball out of theinfield. In fact, it almost looked like he was finally going to goyard, before the ball dropped short for a deep center field out.

An ongoing highlight (and I as glad to finally see them in person) wasthe left field bleachers drum crew. They gve the stadium the kind ofcharacter it really needs, and I enjoy that their presence pisses offaway fans. The A’s should really make them part of the Game Day Staff.

The biggest highlight for A’s fans was when Frank Thomas led off the2nd inning with a mighty homerun - the second he’s hit in the two gamesI saw him play during this trip. The Big Hurt took the Big Unit long,and the crowd went nuts, even though I’m quite sure nobody presentthought we were a chance of winning at the time, being as we were down7-1 by the 2nd inning.

The Big Unit is, whatever the doubters may say, still filthy. Not onlydoes he touch 97mph, but his height means that the ball is headeddownwards when it crosses the plate, and no matter how old he gets,that’s still the case. Johnson tossed 7 innings of one run ball, andbut for the Thomas dinger, he looked in control from the outset.

With the bat, the Yankees were all kinds of nasty, and you’d expectthem to be with the lineup they brought out. Damon, Jeter, Sheffield,A-Rod, Giambi, Matsui, Posada, Williams, Cano - it’s like the Yankeesfan sitting next to me said after the second inning, "It’s almostcheating having a lineup this good. I almost feel bad about it."

Damon didn’t look overly impressive early, but eventually managed 3-7(give a guy enough chances and he’ll eventually find his groove).Sheffield was no threat, but he didn’t need to be, being as A-Rod wasright behind him, hitting grand slams and going 3-5 with 5 RBIs. GiambiK’ed a few times, got booed, got hit by a pitch, walked, singled -nothing to fear with him, at least not without BALCO behind him, butHideki Matsui, that guy is just plain nasty.

4 at bats, 4 hits, one walk, one home run, 4 RBIs, 2 runs - the guy isthe best #6 in the game, and perhaps the best pure hitter in the game.

For Oakland, nobody looked like a pure hitter at all. Mark Kotsay went2-3, which was nice, but ahead of him Mark Ellis was trying to beSlugger Joe (and instead only managing to be Flyball Joe), and afterhim Crosby and Chavez blanked miserably. Milton Bradley went 2-4, whichis a decent outing considering he’s in new surrounds and havin everystep watched by the media, but these are small victories amongst anabsolute barrage of failures.

Oakland is traditionally a high walk team. The A’s philosophy hasalways been to be patient at the plate and get on base, but tonightthey didn’t manage a single solitary walk across nine innings.

I should give a shout out to the Snack Pack while I’m writing this. Icall them the Snack Pack because they’re a group of three girls whoseemed intent on sampling every single piece of food sold at theballpark. Between yells of "I need a ***** churro" and "Hey, maltguy!", they put away hot dogs, garlic fries, nachos, and what theydidn’t eat, they asked others about for future reference. But hey, atleast their presence allowed me to not have to sit next to Yankees fanson both sides.

That said, the Yankees sitting to my left were nice guys. We talkedabout the plays, the players, other games, we joked about how, ifGiambi was still roiding, he might end up pulling a ‘Natural’ lighttower homerun, and how there’s be a Senate Committee waiting for him athome plate with a set of handcuffs if he did. They were good people,unlike 95% of the Yankees fans at the ballpark who seemed intent onproving the stereotype as real.

Helpful tip to Yankees fans looking to stir up opponents - yelling"Give me your payroll! We eat payrolls like yours for breakfast!" isnot funny. In fact, it kind of proves you’re a jackass if the bestthing you can say about your team is they have a lot of money. Iresponded to that guy with a yell of "I’ll give you our payroll is yougive me your depth… oh, you don’t have any? What are you spending allthat money on?"

The Yankees were, no doubt about it, awesome tonight. They killed usfrom the outset. But they won’t keep killing all season long. If youlook at their depth, it’s non existent. Two or three injuries (and youknow they’ll come with so many steroid abusers on one team), andthey’re in real trouble. And their bullpen is shaky at best, ready tofall apart at worst. And they’re old.

But hey, they kicked the shit out of us. And then it rained. And thenthe concierge forgot to come give me a ride back to the hotel. And nowI’m typing this on an old laptop, soon to get on a plane back toSeattle, followed by a four hour bus ride to Vancouver. And I’m out ofclean underwear. And I missed my kid getting his first two teeth.

Still, there’s always next year.

Day one: How did I get here? 

Welcome to the Coliseum. My first time, so I thought I’d go early andtake it all in. On a normal day, that might have meant indulging in theatmosphere, wandering through the crowds, haggling with scalpers for aticket… but today’s game was an exhibition, so nobody much botheredto show up, let alone show up early.

Which is bizarre to me, since we haven’t had a chance to see the A’splay in Oakland for several months, and all the stars are in town readyto enoy one of their final tune-ups of the year.

Added to which, good seats are easy to get (I paid $30, but I wasseated RIGHT behind home plate - barely 50 feet from where the actionhappens), the weather had turned from rain into beautiful sun, andopening day was sold out. Why wouldn’t you turn up to a day like that?

Anyways, the Coliseum is huge, and though it’s clear when you’resitting there that you’re in a football stadium, the new tarps on theupper deck really give the place a baseball atmosphere. The remindersof A’s history are writ large - The World Series winning years arethere, as are the retired numbers of Rollie Fingers, Catfish Hunter,Reggie Jackson and Dennis Eckersly, and as you’re rolling up to theballpark, the stylized ‘Athletics’ can be seen for miles.

Some complain that the closing of the upper deck took their favoritespot away and that it’s just a money grab designed to make ticketsscarce, and thus worth more. I call bullshit on that - the crowd ismore intimate, the seats more filled, and you can still get tickets foras little as $10 in the bleachers, and other seats that used to cost$18 are now just $14. There are few places you can enjoy the MajorLeague experience for that price, period.

My first stop was the A’s store - of course - and as I looked over theshirts (very cool to see ‘Thomas’ on the back of a stack of A’sshirts), I wondered which one I should buy. My first inclination was toget a Zito shirt, but just as I was looking for an XL, a guy wearing aJT Snow Giants shirt walked past the window and it dawned on me… Idon’t wanna be THAT guy.

You know the type, the guy that has a name on his back that plays forsomeone else. They guy wearing the ‘Hudson’ Oakland shirt or the‘Nomar’ Red Sox jersey. Heck, I’m sure someone, somewhere, has aTerrence Long Athletics jersey in the back of their closet.

And let’s face it, Zito will be either a free agent in 2007, or he’llbe playing for someone who could pay him what he’s worth. I can’t seehim sticking around in Oakland, so I went with #40 - Rich Harden. Who,now that I think of it, should have been my first choice, being as he’sa British Columbia guy and all, and played for the Vancouver Canadians at one point.

I walked out to my seat, and bam, the explosion hit me. If you’ve neverwalked into a major league ballpark, you’ve not experienced theexplosion. It’s what happens when you walk through the cold, darktunnels of the concourse, then walk up a couple of stairs, and BAM,you’re hit with the green, green grass, the picture perfect dirt of thediamond, and the sheer enormity of a big, beautiful ballpark.

The Coliseum has less bam than, say, Wrigley Field or Safeco Field, butthere’s definite bammage. And that bammage increases by a factor of tenwhen Frank Thomas walks by you in an A’s shirt.
Thegame didn’t start as it should have, with Esteban Loaiza giving up asolo dinger to right in the 1st inning, which caused several jerkyGiants fans in front of me to start jumping up and down, high-fiving,and turning to taunt the A’s fans, most of which just looked at themlike they had two heads. They didn’t have much to celebrate after thatpoint, however, as Giants phenom (that means he’s less than 32 yearsold) Matt Cain got lit up by the A’s offense.

CF Mark Kotsay drew a four-pitch walk to open things up, which broughtformer Vancouver Canadian Nick Swisher to the plate, and Swish did notkeep the home fans waiting, cranking a long bomb out of the park withmuch style and much strength. Maybe it’s just me, but Swisher lookslike he bulked a little in the off-season, which hasn’t slowed hisconversational abilities any.

Bobby Crosby followed that with a double down the 3rd base line, whichbrought up Eric Chavez. And Chah-vez cuh-ranked. A’s up 4-1.

The Giants offense didn’t get through the line-up until the 3rd inning,with the normally strike-happy Loaiza seemingly content with flyballsand pop flies. At the other end, Cain was notching up K’s at a fastrate, but any Giant fan that would be relishing in that was missing avery important point; The reason cain was getting K’s was because hewas hanging fastballs out over the plate. That’s fine if the hittermisses, but if he doesn’t, you get what Frank Thomas got in the 4thinning, where the ball was simply tattooed into left field and kept ongoing until it hit seats.

Loaiza, meanwhile, was working his way though a strong outing. Pop,fly, pop, pop, fly, grounder, fly, grounder, fly, fly, fly, fly… ifnot for his opening K on Randy Winn, you’d think Loaiza was throwingsoftballs. And, in fact, a lot of the time he was. 72mph pitches, 76mphpitches, the occasional high 80’s drifter, nothing looked unhittable,yet very little was hit.

Cain, meanwhile, was racking up K’s as Oakland hitters smalled bloodenough to swing away rather than look for the walk. Cain will be a goodpitcher if he can get something to go ‘unstraight’ once in a while. Butif he’s at all reliant on his bullpen, he’s going to be in trouble.

Jeff Fassero, who is older than the Golden Gate Bridge, gave up a 4-0walk to Crosby, then a run scoring double to Chavez, then a run scoringsingle up the middle to Bobby Kilety, who never looked comfortable atthe plate all day. After the game, A’s coach Ken Macha would announceKielty was going to Triple A for a week to allow Oakland to carry anextra pitcher in case of predicted rain, but if what I saw of Kieltyhas been carrying through the spring, he looks like he’s in a terriblefunk right now, and may well be in the minors for longer than heexpects.

Loaiza got himself out of a 2-on, 1-out situation in the 6th, and infact looked so good that even when he was taken out to give CaptainKirk Saarloos a run, he threw another 25 or so pitches in the bullpenjust to get a good workout.

The bottom of the 7th, for A’s fans, was great fun. A double for Kotsayto the right center field wall, a double down the 1st base line forSwisher driving in a run, a double past Bonds to the center left fieldwall for Antonio Perez, then another double for super-sub John Baker…3 runs scored, 10-1 A’s.

The Giants fans were not quiet, however, for any time Barry Bonds cameup to bat, they insisted on responding to the A’s fans’ boos (and theywere some LOUD boos) with middle fingers, genuflecting bows, and thesame old excuses we’ve heard and ridiculed many times. My altercationwith one particularly dumb ass Giants fan was outlined yesterday, andthough some have said I was too hard on the guy, you really had to bethere to know how inordinately stupid some of these guys are.

Not every Giants fan is a dumb ass, however, as I heard several of themactually boo their man. I have to say, if Mark McGwire showed up at theColiseum, I’d boo him with everything I have, ditto Giambi, dittoCanseco, so when I mock a Giants fan for bowing to Bonds like he’s God,it’s because making excuses for Bonds is just about the least classymove I can imagine if you actually care about the game of baseball.It’s like spitting on the Babe Ruth plaque at Yankee Stadium, or saying"what’s the big deal about Bill King" - it just demonstrats an utterlack of class at every level.

Anyways, Bonds blew all day. He blew at the plate, he blew in thefield, he blew just walking out to his spot in the outfield. And I’llsay this - he didn’t show anything more than a light jog at any pointthrough the entire game. He hit the ball, he was halfway to the dugoutbefore it was caught. He got grounders into left, he jogged after themthen fumbled the ball, then tossed softly to third. He lollygagged outinto the field so slowly he actually delayed the game twice. Not onetime did I see him sprint. Not once.

And that tells you what Barry Bonds thinks of the game of baseball.

The only other notable thing in the game was how bad Armando Benitezwas in closing for the Giants. He gave up a 4-0 walk to Kielty (whichKielty looked very relieved by), then singles to Scutaro and Melhuse toload the bases, when who should come out to take a swing?

Richie ‘AA’ Robnett.

Robnett is highly respected by the A’s, and was in town and available,so they brought him out for the game, and when the A’s were 10-2 infront, I guess they figured it might be worth it to give the kid aswing.

Vancouver fans will remember Robnett as having the body of an adonis,to the point where the Canadians had no pants that would actually fithim, leading to him having to spend a game standing up, to keep thepants from splitting.

To make do, the team cut the sides of his pants and sewed a strip offabric onto each leg, to widen them to the point where he couldactually get them on and bend over once ina while. And that’s what hewore for the rest of the season.

Since then, he’s become better known as a kid with huge power and noplate patience, so when Benitez got him in an 0-2 situation, I wasworried. But that’s when something weird happened - Richie Robnett grewup.

Inside and low, Robnett leaves it.
Next pitch high, Robnett leaves it.
Nibble at the corner, Robnett watches it called a ball.

And the 3-2 pitch, Robnett saw it, centred in on it, and slammed itdeep into center field. Going… going… going… drops just at thefoot of the wall and bounces out for a 2-run scoring ground rule double.

2004 Vancouver Canadians represent!

Interesting thing to note - a pair of Giants ‘fans’ that were seatednext to me showed up in the top of the 6th inning, apparently convincedthe rain wouldn’t turn up after all, sat for half an inning to seeBonds ground out, then left to get food. They turned up again in thetop of the 8th, as Bonds was on deck, talked about how people are justjealous of his success with this whole steroid thing, then booed whenthe guy hitting in front of him grounded out, thus robbing them of achance of seeing Bonds this inning.

They begrudgingly sat for the 9th, then as soon as Bonds flew out, onesaid to the other "we can go at any time," and they duly left.

$30 per ticket and they watched barely an inning and a half. And you wonder why I hate Giants fans. Oakland wins 14-3.

Next morning, I decide to go have breakfast in the hotel cafe, andfigured ‘why bother cleaning myself up, it’s only breakfast’. Hair allover the place, wrinkled shirt on, and I’m greeted with dozens of thehottest women you’ve ever seen. Not just hot women, these were thekinds of women where you find yourself muttering things like "you havegot to be f…" just a little too loud.

Turns out I was right in the middle of the tryouts for the Oakland Raiderettes.

Now, I’m all for looking, but this was just too much to handle in mysleep deprived, not looking smooth state. I immersed nyself in an awfulbreakfast, sneaking the occasional glance out the window at kicks sohigh I feel like I’m now intimately acquainted with the standard ofOakland’s gynaecalogical industry.

I don’t drive. People are often surprised by that, but I’ve alwayslived in cities where you can get a bus or train from your front doorto wherever you need to go, so a license has never really beennecessary. In Sydney, the transit system is so good that they didn’tallow people to drive to any of the 2000 Summer Olympic events. InVancouver, it’s so good that I can get just about anywhere in town frommy front door, within half an hour, without setting foot in a cab.

All of which makes a trip to California a bit daunting. After all, thisis the state where, if you need to get to your bathroom, you get in thecar and drive there. It’s the state that made Arnold Schwarzenegger,who bought the first commercially available Hummer, and has sincebought several more, is Governor. It’s the state where automanufacturers actually bought up most of the transit services in thepre-war days and ran them out of business to encourage people to buycars.

So when I decided next morning to go check out Fremont, the potentialfuture home of the A’s, and zip across to Palo Alto into the bargain,it wasn’t a case of just renting a car and driving, I had to findalternate means.

Now, this is an adventure I always try to take when I’m in a new city.From the interstate, every city looks the same, but when you get offthose big roads and see where people actually live, you see the realcity. I’ve traveled across the US, Japan, and Canada on everything fromthe Greyhound bus to the Bullet Train, and seen things you’d never seefrom 30,000 feet up.

Getting to Fremont was easy - the Bay Area Rapid Transit system (orBART) goes right from the Coliseum to Fremont without missing a beat.And Fremont’s a nice part of the world. It’s not San Jose, but you cansee it from there, and there’s plenty of room to go building newstadiums and a surrounding retail village. If the Athletics do movethere, it’s going to be a little like the situation in Arlington Texas,where most of the people going to the ballpark will be undertaking acommute to do so, and I’m not sure that’s a primo situation, but thestatus quo isn’t either.

From there I took a bus across to Palo Alto (mostly for work reasons),but if you’re ever in the area, I’d recommend stopping by for a look.It’s at the opposite end of the bay from Oakland, and the opposite endof the world in wealth and charm. This is the home of StanfordUniversity, and like most Ivy League cities, there are a lot of folkswho stick around after their studies are over, which brings a lot ofnice neighborhoods, a lot of smiles and nods from people you pass inthe street, a lot of spoiled teenage kids with cellphones, and a lot ofdowntown stores that would be quaint if not for the outrageouslyexpensive labels seen in the front windows.

If you want Palo Alto summed up in a sentence, the local cinema wasn’tshowing Big Momma’s House 2 and Slither, it was showing Meet Me in StLouis and The Bandwagon. Fred Astaire rules, apparently.

A bus from there and I found the CalTrain line - an odd double-deckertransport system where the upper level features a big long hole in thefloor so you can see the people downstairs. What’s really weird aboutthat is the hole is so big, you only have room for one seat on eachside of it. Why on earth anyone would think that’s a good idea isbeyond me, but I’m sure there are plenty of ‘downshirt’ enthusiasts wholooooooooooove sitting upstairs.

Taking the CalTrain to the Millbrae BART station, the landscape soonchanges, and space out country homes become wall-to-wall terrace-stylehousing that looks like rice paddies with roofs. You couldn’t fitanother house in this part of the world without going underground orputting it on stilts - every inch is used. I don’t recall seeing atree, just miles and miles of connected roofs, rolling up and downhills as if the hills aren’t even there.

The BART isn’t great for sightseeing once you’re in town as it headsunderground and you only see the inside of stations, but it’s fast,it’s simple, it’s clean and it’s easy for a foreigner to figure outwhere to go, how to get there, and how to buy a ticket. Other citiesshould take note.

A shuttle back to the hotel and I’d just travled the circumference ofthe entire Bay Area without actually turning an ignition key, and allfor less than $10. Good deal.

Day three: Opening Day against the Yankees… if the rain holds off.

I spent a long time looking for my ‘home team’. Having grown up inAustralia, where baseball is played about as often as ‘throw a rock atthe tied-up dog’, I never had a team to really root for. Most of yougrew up with your favorite teams - either they were local, or your dadrooted for them and you caught on, or some player threw you a ball andthey just stuck in your mind from that point on. But me? No connectionto anyone.

I flirted with a few - I enjoyed the Red Sox for a while, based purelyon the fact that Sam ‘May Day’ Malone from TV’s Cheers had once tossedfor them. I gave the Blue Jays a shot, being as I have some relativesin Toronto, but they never really seemed to stick with me.

Then I traveled to North America, thinking the situation would change,but it did no such thing. I landed on the East Coast and spent a yearin New Jersey, but couldn’t possibly get behind the money-throwingYankees, or the money-stupid Mets. I found myself in Cincinnati for ayear (not by choice), and would regularly spend $3-5 taking field leveltickets off soon-to-be-bankrupted scalpers, only to see the Reds throw9th inning leads away, and watch soon-to-be-Washington GM Jim Bowdenmake some of the most bone-headed trades mankind has seen. Suffice tosay, the Reds didn’t stick.

I lived in Las Vegas, home of the Dodgers AAA-team, who struggled toget 2000 people to a game, let alone 5 into the 3rd base hot tub. Anaffair with a Christian puppeteer took me to Denver Colorado, where thebaseball pinball machine that is Coors Field turned one-handed popflies into base-clearing home runs. Couldn’t get into that, any morethan I could Christian puppetry.

A few months spent in LA, house-sitting for a friend who lived athree-minute walk from Dodger Stadium, was fun, but the home fans whodisappear during the 7th inning stretch in order to beat the trafficcouldn’t have possibly infuriated me more. I couldn’t be one of thoseguys, even if the moment that had turned me onto baseball back inAustralia had been ‘that homerun’, when LA’s Kirk Gibson, barely ableto stand due to injury, had been sent in during the World Series to hita Dennis Eckersly backdoor slider over the right field wall. I wantedto be a Dodger. I tried to be a Dodger. But Dodgers fans wouldn’tattend a Dodger game if there weren’t TV cameras around, and I can’t bea part of that.

So who would I call ‘my team’? The low-A Vancouver Canadiansanswered that question with baseball at its purest, and Billy Beane putan exclamation point on the end by making the C’s part of the Oakland Athletics family.

All of which led to this week, when I finally made the Oakland pilgrimage.
Flyinginto Oakland International Airport, two things strike you when lookingout the window at the city below. The first is ‘yuck’. The second is‘The Coliseum looks awesome.’

Granted, the Coliseum is no generally known as an ‘awesome’ ballpark,but the recent decision to close off the upper deck, put huge green andgold tarps over it all, and highlight the World Series winning yearsand retired numbers with big yellow text, looks amazing. It gives theballpark the appearance of a new stadium from the outside, though theinside is still pretty rickety.

But the first part of my trip wouldn’t take me into the stadium.Instead, it took me through San Francisco on my way up to the NapaValley.

I hate Giants fans with a passion - mostly because they’re proud tohave a guy on their team who is the antithesis of everything greatabout the game of baseball. Yeah, Barry Bonds has a lot of records tohis name, but we all know - and let’s face it, there is NO doubt aboutit - that he cheated to get there.

The excuses for Bonds are many - and they’re all utter rubbish. For example:

1: The book was full of lies - yet nobody has sued the writers for slander or libel.

2: He never tested positive - of course he didn’t, he was ‘injured’ forthe last year, the only year that steroid users have been tested andnamed publicly. Prior to that, negative tests were kept private andused only for ’statistical purposes’. And prior to that, it wasn’t eventested for. They STILL don’t test for human growth hormone, elevatedwhite blood cells, steroid masking agents, or any of the other 300 orso performance enhancing substances that the Olympic Committee testsfor.

3: People are just harassing him because he’s black - riiiight. Whichis why Sammy Sosa and Gary Sheffield are getting such a hard time fromthe press right now… Oh, they’re not? But they’re totally black!

4: Steroids don’t help you hit - Which is true, but they do turn aninning ending flyball to the warning track into a game winning,base-clearing home run. And three of those a year will get you into theplayoffs… and then the World Series…

So we know Bonds is a jagoff. And we know Giants fans who cheer for himregardless of what he did are sad, simple-minded jerks, similar to theBaltimore Ravens fans who cheered Ray "I saw nothing" Lewis after hehelped a murderer stay out of prison. But none of that changes the factthat San Francisco is one incredible city.

We’ve all heard the stories about how San Fran was the home base of thehippy movement, and you can see evidence of that on every street. Thisis a city in which every layer of history can be seen, all at once. Theturn of the century wooden architecture, the depression era steellandmarks, the 60’s era eclectic communities and mom’n'pop stores, andthe 90’s era dotcom wealth is evident everywhere you look. Every streetcorner has character. Every street has class, even when it’s rundownand falling apart. There are parts of this city where the homes arebuilt so close together, using every possible piece of real estate, tothe point where it reminds you of cities in Brazil or Peru.

Steep cliff face? No problem, we’ll just build into it. Side of amountain? We can cram a few thousand terrace houses into that. Need afreeway? Just build it high over the houses, we’ll make do. It’s reallyquite amazing to see.

And the beaches leave the famous Malibu shores to the south for dead. It’s just a shame their baseball team sucks ass.

So work took me up to Petaluma and the incredible Napa Valley early inmy trip. I’ve never been one for rolling hills and moo cows, but I haveto say that the North Bay/Marin County area is some truly beautifulcountryside, made all the more incedible by the fact that it isn’tcovered in condos - especially when you think about what real estatearound the Bay area costs right now.

It was a bit early for the vino, so I did my job (I’m researching foran upcoming book and had to interview some locals), then spent anafternoon sitting under a tree watching clouds, deer and wild turkeyswander by, and then found me way back to Oaktown, refreshed and renewed.

Which is good, because Oakland isn’t a place where you can really chillout. If I was forced to describe Oakland in three words or less, I’dcall it San Fran’s warehouse. It’s bleak - miles and miles of auto bodyshops, crumbling homes, factories, port facilities, with a fewbuildings thrown in downtown to house companies that don’t want to paySan Francisco rent.

It’s really quite the horrid place, though I’m sure there are niceparts I just never got to see. Even the airport is rinkydink - you haveto take a shuttle two miles just to find a car rental desk.

The Coliseum itself is in a part of town dotted by shopping malls,parking lots, airport runways and heavy industry, which makes me wonderwhat sort of mooks must be at work at the Oakland City Council to beunable to find a poket of space to give the A’s a new stadium. Heck,it’s not like you’d have to pay a lot for the land - not unless thelocal Pick-A-Part Yard is doing incredible business. And it’s not likethe A’s want the city to pay for the stadium - they just want a placeto put it.

So heck, if the city of Oakland won’t get off it’s ass to find the teama little land to build on, maybe the move to Fremont is inevitable.

My first night in Oaktown was spent at a venue close to the Coliseum -the Oakland Arena - watching the Golden State Warriors suck against theSacramento Kings.

Now, I’m not a huge basketball freak or anything, but even I know thatwhen your fifth man is Troy Murphy, you’re still looking for a fifthman. The Warriors have sucked for so long that all the trees outsidethe arena lean in towards it. Team ownership understands that even ateam that wins one game in ten will make a profit in the NBA, and sothey spend less money on their players than the local Wal-Mart spendson its greeters.

And it shows. If you took Jason Richardson and Mike Dunleavy out of theline-up, you’d be left with a team that would struggle against theGeorge Washington High second string. I mean, I’ve seen guys miss easyshots before, but when you’re missing DUNKS and dribbling the ballagainst your shoe with nobody close then ten feet away from you, it’stime to try table tennis as a backup.

My seat at the Arena was not one that helped improve my mood on thenight. If I told you I was in the very last row behind one of the nets,wedged into one of the corners of the building, I wouldn’t be givingyou the whole story. No, I wasn’t just in the back row, I was at theend of a half row, sitting on a FOLD-UP CHAIR, precariously balanced ona wedge of concrete that left my feet dangling.

Well, I guess you only get so much for $10. Added to which, it’s theWarriors, which means only about 2/3 of the seats bought areactuallyused, so I was able to shift forward a bit without too much bother.Interesting side note, however, when you get to the cheap seats at theOakland Arena, NOBODY stays in their damn seats. And I mean nobody.

I must have stood up five times to let people in to what I assumed wastheir seat, only for them to sit there for three minutes and thendecide they’d prefer to sit somewhere else. And no, I didn’t have BO,it’s just (and I swear to you, there’s not the slightest bit of racismin my saying this) a black thing.

Black people and white people (and yes, it’s a generalization) have adifferent experience when it coms to watching entertainment. I’ve heardit explained previously that, back in the day, when theater in Americawas segregated into ‘whites only’ theater and ‘colored’ theater, thatthe white folks would sit quietly and watch what was happening beforethem because that was how it was done, whereas the black theateraudiences were more active in the event, cheering, clapping, talking,and really getting into the show. That has progressed, over the years,to a real cultural difference between the two audiences, and you’llnotice it a lot in movies in the US.

At an NBA game, especially in the cheaper seats, it’s writ large. Therewere a group of five guys sitting in front of me that just did not stoptalking throughout. They trash talked, they commented, they broke intosong, they cheered - and to be honest, I really enjoyed being aroundthem. They were so into the game that they seemed ready to sub in atany time. Every point scored got a visceral reaction, and they just didnot stop.

Others around me weren’t so into the game - they’d go get food, changeseats, talk on the phone, catch up with friends, leave, return, leaveagain, return again, and then when the game got into the last twominutes, they’d pay attention. Though, to be fair, that has nothing todo with cultural background and a whole lot more to do with beingteenage morons. And let me tell you, white kids have cornered themarket on that front. People like those are the reason why RobSchneider keeps getting paid to make movies.

So the game concluded, with the Warriors finding several ways to lose,to the point where it almost seemed deliberate in the end, and I wentout to the parking lot to wait for my hotel shuttle with a group ofother people,and while there, a large black man approached us, holdinga fan belt. He explained that his fan belt was shot and that he couldget another one across the street but he was $23 short, and asked if wecould help out.

To be honest, I didn’t really believe his story, but I put my hand inmy pocket and gave him $5, just on the off-chance he wasn’t kidding,but mostly because every other white guy standing around me - peoplestaying in a $200 a night hotel, mind you - nearly ran away in fear."Black man asking for money in Oakland! Run away!!"

It really pissed me off. So I gave him a fiver and said I hoped thatwould help. Nobody else said a word, and in fact they almost all lookedaway in shame. Pretty damn pathetic, because if this guy had been a 45year old white guy from Oklahoma, these folks would likely have notjust helped him out, but they would have paid for a rental vehiclewhile doing so.

But hey, welcome to America.

Day two: Rank exhibitionism.

Day three: The end of the road. 

Apologies for the lack of updates, but I’ve been in California all week on business, which I cleverly planned to coincide with a few Oakland Athletics exhibition games, not to mention Monday’s home opener.

Today I visited the Coliseum for the first time in my life, and it was awesome. In fact, one of the most enjoyable days of baseball I’ve experienced. Richie Robnett appeared late in the game and worked his way out of an 0-2 count to smoosh a 3-2 2-run scoring double off the wall in center field (2004 Vancouver Canadians, represent!), Frank Thomas smacked a ball harder than I think I’ve seen one hit, Nick Swisher (another ex-C) went yard, and just about every player in the lineup didn’t just hit the ball, the hit doubles… and doubles… and doubles.

But the highlight of it all was having the opportunity to scream my fury at Barry ‘Scumbag’ Bonds, who I have to say didn’t one time actually break a jog. Seriously, in the field, at the plate, during warm-ups, he never ran hard once. Didn’t run out flyballs, didn’t steam into first, even just going back out to the outfield from the dugout, several times both teams had to wait for Barry to meander back to his spot. Watching Barry Bonds play is like watching me go to the dentist - if I have to, I will, but I’ll make every excuse in the book to avoid it.

Anyhoo, I was right behind home plate, keeping score, and ripping Bonds a new one at every opportunity. I called him a whore several times (’you screwed us all for money, you piece of dogshit’), and got a sideways glance when I asked him how he could disgrace his father’s memory like he had. That one hurt, I could see it, and the standing ovation of hatred he received at every at bat was a beautiful thing.

I’ll put together a game report after I’ve eaten, but I wanted to get the following conversation documented while it was still fresh in my mind, because it was the most delightful dismantling of a Giants fan I think I’ve ever taken part in. Some San Fran idiot was bowing to Barry like he was God, and I just couldn’t take any more of it, so I decided to get loud.

The transcript is on the full version of the article, linked below.

Me: Hey douchebag, you should be ashamed of yourself. Have you no pride?

Him: Screw you, man. Bonds is awesome. You’re just jealous he’s on our team.

Me: Right. I’m jealous that your best player needs to cheat to win.

Him: He never tested positive! Besides, McGwire took drugs too. So did Giambi.

(Ha! He never tested positive, but McGwire took drugs TOO? Way to destroy your own argument, moron.)

Me: Yeah, and how many McGwire and Giambi shirts do you see around you?

Him: Whatever. You’re just a hater.

(Okay, NOW I’m pissed.)

Me: You know, wearing a shirt with the name ‘Bonds’ on the back is the moral equivalent of driving a Hummer. What you’re admitting to the world is that YOU know you’re an asshole, and WE know you’re an asshole, and you just don’t care. You’re content to be an asshole just as long as you win every now and then. The rules mean nothing, morals mean nothing, ethics mean nothing, all you care about is that your drugged up gorilla, who wouldn’t spit on you if you were on fire by the way, keeps hitting home runs. You’re a joke. A sad joke, and if I were your kid sitting there, I’d be ashamed to call a fawning sycophant like you ‘dad’.

Him: ***** you, don’t bring my kid into it.

Me: Why not? It’s not like you care about the example being set for him. ‘Hey Junior, whenever you’re having troubles in life, just take drugs and everything will be okay. You can be like Barry! And then daddy will love you!’

Him: (cue fake anger) I’ll kill you, *****!

Me: Well if you’re going to try, you better take the cream AND the clear.

(Big laugh, and the Gnats fan has nothing left. He’s a beaten man.)

Him: Just… just shut up. Barry’s going to go yard.

(Ten seconds later, Bonds grounds to first base, and the entire section laughs at the Giants idiot who leaves two innings later).

Man. Mocking Giants fans, Bonds goes 0-fer, A’s win 14-3, I’m right behind home plate, Robnett hits a 2-run double, Swisher goes yard, Thomas crunches one long, double, double, double, double - what a way to pop my Coliseum cherry.

And on Monday, the Yankees go down. Lord have mercy.

Clarification: Someone on another blog decided, after reading this, that my use of the term ‘drugged-up gorilla’ was racist. Allow me to be clear, if I call someone a gorilla, it means they’re a humungous musclehead - they could be black, white, or plaid, it doesn’t matter. Schwarzennegger is a gorilla, and he’s so white, he’s almost see-through. Hulk Hogan is a gorilla. Rosie O’Donnell… you get the idea.

So let there be no mistake, that is a long way from calling someone a ‘monkey’. 

And if you disagree with that, and hearing someone called a ‘gorilla’ instantly makes you think that what is being referred to is a guy’s color, all I can say is that the person exhibiting racism and stereotyping is not me, but you.

Sorry about the week off, but I’m in the midst of a rather largefreelance contract and had to go interviewing people all over hell’shalf-acre (IE: the USA).

In the last week I’ve been in Seattle, San Jose, Austin and Dallas -next week I’m back in Seattle, then down to Petaluma, then the Bay Areafor a few exhibition games and the A’s home opener vs the Yankees, thenhome. And a few weeks after that I’m off again - this time to Florida,Houston, Minnesota and possibly New Jersey.

The moral of this story is, never ever agree to write a book without the client agreeing to cover all travel expenses. Yikes!

There’ll be plenty of updates in the coming days, then a week of quiet,and then we’ll be back into the thick of things as the C’s seasonapproaches.

Stay tuned, and if you’re gonna be in Oaktown on the 3rd ofnext month, drop me a note. You can buy me a beer. Heh.