Idiots Write About Sports

The only A’s game from Tampa to find its way to my television this weekend was the Friday night extra-innings loss. (Short summary: Joe Blanton pitched as shaky a five-inning, four-hit outing as you’ll ever come across and the offense squandered repeated opportunities to steal a game we had no business winning). Neither Saturday’s loss nor Sunday’s win were picked up by the MLB Extra Innings package. So that meant I could leave my apartment with a clean conscience and venture out into the world.

On Saturday, we defined the world as “San Luis Obispo.” The wife had to go up there for a freelance gig, so I tagged along. We visited an old-timey cemetary, where the headstones dated back to the 19th century. We stopped at a Central Coast winery to sample their wares and ended up buying three bottle of muscat and a couple of syrahs. (Unfortunately, the lad behind the counter thought “syrah” meant “chardonay,” a fact we discovered only after opening up the box once we got home. This switch-a-roo proved problematic for two reasons, namely that this particular winery’s chardonay tasted like ass with hints of more ass and that the syrah was priced considerably higher than the chardonay. Do I have to tell you that the young man rang us up for the more expensive bottles we did not actually receive? I believe that I do not, any more than I have to tell you how filled with blinding rage I am.) And we capped off the evening with a lovely dinner in Solvang, a city for which the word “quaint” may well have been invented.

But even when you’re cut off from the A’s, you try to avoid staying completely out of the loop. As we drove about the greater Santa Ynez Valley, I would occasionally flick on the radio to try and get a score — no dice. Eventually, as we got back to the 101, we managed to pick up the Angels game on a local station; I figured we’d keep it there until somone on the Anaheim broadcast team opted to fill us in on the score from the game involving the Angels’ hated rivals to the north.

That was in Santa Barbara. Ninety-one miles, several innings, and three affiliates on the Angels radio network later, we finally got our score within sight of the Marina Freeway off-ramp: Tampa Bay 11, Oakland 2.

“Well,” my wife said, in the deathly silence that followed the score report. “That was anti-climatic.”

Sharp lady, my wife.

Based on this highly desciptive vinicultural commentary, I look forward to the premiere of the "Idiots Write about Wine" website. When can I expect it? Robert Parker's got nothing on you, Michaels.

You can expect Idiots Write About Wine just after we finish our next few projects: Idiots Write About Board Games, Idiots Write About Porn, and Idiots Write About Troubling Developments in the Middle East.

Oh, and also once we switch to the 100-hour metric day.

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