Idiots Write About Sports

Earlier this month, I went to an A’s game against the Chicago White Sox. This was the 6-2 win in which one Oakland run scored on a wild pitch and two more came in when the Sox thoughtfully issued back-to-back walks with the bases loaded. It was also the game that made me think that Chicago’s Major League-best win-loss record is, perhaps, illusory.

The game was on a Friday night, which means it was part of the A’s regularly scheduled giveaway promotion in which one lucky fan takes home a brand new car. That lucky fan wasn’t me.

However, as part of the promotion, the A’s also give away tickets to a future ballgame to the section that cheers the loudest during the glorified Dot Race used to pick the lucky winner of the free car. I didn’t win that, either, since my section did not cheer the loudest. I shoulder the full brunt of the blame here since I did not cheer at all. Sorry. I just have a hard time cheering when I’m told to by a scoreboard or Roy Steele or whoever. I freely admit this is a character flaw.

It turns out the section next to mine cheered the loudest — no sullen losers sitting in that part of the Plaza Infield seats, I guess — and so, they were given the complimentary ducats. Except, owning to the sparse attendance at that game — just 15,293 paying customers — the A’s employees tasked with doling out the tickets soon discovered they had more tickets than winning fans. And so, they handed them out to our section as well.

So to summarize: I received four free tickets to this Monday’s A’s-Indians tilt, and I didn’t even so much as have to clear my throat to win them. The lesson as always, kids: never, ever try.

I’ll be attending, as will my colleague, Curt, and his wife. That leaves us with one extra ticket, which I am offering to the first long-time Idiots Sports Blog reader or barely interested passerby who wants them. Just write an essay that’s no longer than 10,000 words explaining why you deserve the tickets and including several points of baseball archania; we’ll also need three references attesting to your good character plus a credit report and a tissue sample.

Or you could also just ask. That’ll work, too.

So it’s a free ticket to watch a surging baseball team with mostly pleasant company (Curt and his wife) and only one significant downside (yours truly). Act now, and I’ll throw in the free parking pass that came with the tickets, since I’m a public transit-using hippie.

And hey… if it turns out our company is as dull as it’s rumored to be, you can always make like your going for refreshments and then hide in the View-level seats.

One last note about that July 1 A’s-Sox contest. There was one fan seated in my section who, as Jose Contreras, Kevin Walker and Luis Vizcaino were conspiring to walk every Oakland player in the lineup, kept screaming for the A’s to lay down a sacrifice bunt. But not just any sacrifice — a suicide squeeze. With the bases loaded. And two out. And the opposing pitcher struggling to find the strike zone.

Well, you’d certainly have the element of surprise.

Later, that same game, after a one-out Jason Kendall double, that same fan began adamantly demanding that the A’s steal third base… while the left-handed Mark Kotsay was at bat. Sadly, the game ended before he could impress us with other strategical strokes of genius like grooving an 0-2 pitch over the plate, stealing second with your power hitter at the plate, and launching a pre-emptive land war in Asia.

So if you happen to be that fan, you’re not eligible for the extra ticket. Sorry.

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