Idiots Write About Sports

What an A’s-Angels game yesterday. Two stellar pitching performances! A taut, thrilling game! A shocking A’s bunt! A game-deciding error not committed by someone wearing green and gold! A fine afternoon of baseball all around.

And I missed every moment of it.

Circumstances required me to be out and about Saturday afternoon, far away from the warm, loving embrace of my television. (Don’t feel bad on my account — I found a competent new barber, which has been a year-and-a-half-long search in SoCal, I ate lunch at a very good Cuban sandwich place in El Segundo, and I went on a six-mile walk along the shore of the Pacific Ocean. It’s no 1-0 A’s-Angels thriller, but it’s not a bad alternative.) I got back to car just as Angels play-by-play man Rory Marcus was recapping the events of the day and relating Mike Scioscia’s latest attempt at gamesmanship.

(Scioscia claims that Marco Scutaro ran inside the bathpath after laying down the game-deciding bunt — never mind that the Angels manager made his protest before confirming it on the replay and that his pitcher, Scott Shields, said that no such thing happened. If memory serves, in previous seasons, Scioscia has tried to lodge some sort of complaint about Tim Hudson’s delivery and Chad Bradford’s tendency to pitch quickly. My point? It’d be nice to get through an A’s-Angels series without Scioscia trying to find some rulebook loophole to spare him from taking the occasional beating.)

We are getting to the point, early in the season, when it appears that games I watch in their entirety — like Friday night’s affair, for instance — end in A’s losses, while games that I miss entirely — like yesterday’s — lead to triumph for the Good Guys. Obviously, I can only conclude that the reasons for Oakland’s recent struggles are not the inability to hit with runners in scoring position or the alarming lack of power or even a bad start here or there for Barry Zito. The A’s are losing because I tune in for the games.

I am so being rational. Shut up!

We’ll test out the theory today, as I plan on watching, or at least listening to, significant portions of the A’s-Angels series finale. If the A’s win, I’ll know I’m being silly. And if the lose, well, obviously, I’m the guy dooming them. Which will make it very awkward next Saturday when I’m scheduled to watch the A’s in person at Angels Stadium. I’d hate to have to spend the entire game standing in a tunnel, averting my eyes from the field.

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