Idiots Write About Sports

I have this bad habit when watching A’s games on television that has only gotten more pronounced this season. When Oakland is in the field, I turn off the TV and leave the room — maybe I straighten things up, maybe I do some chores, more than likely I just wind up pacing. And once the half-inning is over, I return to the TV set and resume watching… at least until it’s time for the A’s to take the field again, and the pattern begins anew.

At the very least, I figure my ability to pace around nervously in response to events out of my immediate control will come in handy the next time loved ones are slated for major surgery. And, given the quality of the A’s bullpen this year, I’m more than prepared if the surgeons prove to be particularly untrustworthy.

Anyhow, there I was in the eighth inning of Saturday’s A’s-Angels game, with the A’s clinging to a two-run lead, the Angels due up at bat… and me in the bedroom to see if the bookcases needed dusting. Alas, my plan to live in a three-out cone of silence was thwarted when one of my neighbors began screaming excitedly about Darin Erstad’s two-run double. And that was when I knew the A’s were cooked.

Actually, I probably knew that for about a week.

Which is why I’m not indulging in my other bad sports-related habit this week. Usually, when the A’s or the Red Wings — the only two teams I care about, really — end their seasons without a victory lap, I spend the next seven to 10 days pouting. I definitely don’t watch any of the playoffs that may still be going on the time. I’m through with sports, damnit! Or at least, I am until I come out of my funk and watch the championship round. Nevertheless, as you might imagine given the number of first-round exits tallied up by Oakland in recent seasons, most of the League Champion Series games that occurred between 2000 and 2003 are really just a rumor to me.

Not this year, though. As I type this, I’ve got the TV on in anticipation of the today’s Dodger-Cardinal opener. Whatever residual agony I felt over Oakland’s ouster from the postseason evaporated about 30 seconds after Jeff DaVanon caught Eric Byrnes’ fly ball to end Saturday’s game.

Because let’s face it: the A’s missed the playoffs this season on merit. And the better team won the American League West.

I started saying this the afternoon that Octavio Dotel self-immolated against Texas, and I’ve been saying it ever since: if you can’t protect a two-run lead in the late innings of a must-win game, then your chances for a lengthy post-season run are just about nil.

Don’t get me wrong: I’d much rather be where Angels fans are today, awaiting a first-round thrashing at the hands of the Red Sox. But the realistic portion of my brain knows that the A’s had little to no hope of making any kind of playoff impact. And I’m more than a little relieved that I’ll be able to watch the playoffs this year without having to run into another room every time I see Jim Mecir warming up.

I feel badly for the players, of course. It’s a shame that Mark McLemore — as classy a guy as you could ever hope to have on your team — won’t get to head off into retirement after one last run at a World Series. I wish Jermaine Dye’s Oakland career didn’t end this way. It bothers me that Mulder, Hudson and Zito are going to get fried for the next six months — yeah, they ended the season in poor fashion, but one less blown save here and there, and maybe we’re not having this conversation. And of course, the thought that the Tracy Ringolsbys and Joe Morgans of the world are going to spend the next 11 months giving Oakland the ol’ “I told you so” treatment is enough to make me go into that week-long funk I mentioned earlier.

Worst of all is ever-present apprehension that all A’s fans have to live with — the realization that the window of opportunity for this team to win is always threatening to slam shut. The history of the Athletics franchise, even dating back to the Philadelphia days, is one of short bursts of excellence followed by prolonged periods of rank incompetence. And you never know if this is the season that finally ends the run. That’s something that fans of the Red Sox and the Yankees and other monied teams don’t have to contend with — the understanding that every season with a championship moves you one step closer to rejoining Kansas City and Pittsburgh and Tampa back down in the mire.

Enough of that dime-store fatalism. The A’s played 161 meaningful games this year and went into the last weekend of the season with a chance to make the playoffs. If you offered me that opportunity every season, I’d jump at it — even if it meant I spent half the games loading and unloading the dishwasher.

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