The A’s will get to host game 7 of the World Series thanks to the valiant play of the American League All-Stars last night in St. Louis. Now all we have to do is make up a twelve game deficit, pass every other team in the league, defeat two rounds of playoff challengers and battle to a draw the best team in the National League.
Hey, how bout those Raiders?
The fact is that the A’s are little more than an asterisk for the remainder of the 2009 baseball season. We will fall off the map altogether when the last decent veteran player is harvested by a pennant contender. Oh, we will serve as a sometimes pain in the ass to the rest of the league, when it comes to playing “spoiler”. Especially looking forward to contenders griping about how A’s opponents are catching a break by playing the Green and Gold when we have a “minor league” lineup out there. As if the Triple A’s could hit less than the ones we’ve been starting all Spring.
Some mid-summer thoughts:
+I’m kind of glad the lone A’s rep, Andrew Bailey didn’t get into the game. I would have hated to have him get slugged around and wreck his confidence and have the rest of the American League hate us.
+I’m kind of glad the lone Giants rep, Tim Lincecum got beaten up. A week of speculation about whether thin Tim should just skip a ten-year career and report directly to the Hall of Fame, needed a bucket of cold water. Watch him stone the Pirates this Friday in his first start after the break, and then cue the fanfare around the time of game 1 of the wild card series.
+Obama so cool. For a guy who’s clearly more basketball than baseball, he does it right. He knows what he knows and doesn’t overreach. I’m going to make him a write-in vote for the 2010 game.
+This is the slowest sports day of the year. Nothing major being played, which means tomorrow’s sports page will be the saddest one of the year. No box scores to read, no game summaries (even today’s has the All-Star game). I used to hate the All-Star break for this reason alone.
+Now we have Ray Ratto to keep us company.
+Some break— Kibby Kleiman
