Idiots Write About Sports

Saturday’s game against the Blue Jays marked my first visit to the Coliseum since the All-Star Break. The A’s, of course, began their post-break schedule on a 13-game-road trip, and then it was three games against the Red Sox back in Oakland. I decided to sit out the Red Sox series this time around because of a simple mathematical equation:

Phil’s Ambivalence About the A’s This Year + (Phil’s General Antipathy Toward Red Sox Fans in General * Beer) = Likelihood of an Incident Ending in the Phrase “Bail Was Denied”

And I just don’t need that in my life right now.

No, instead, let’s just go to the Toronto game, where the only taunts from opposing fans will be about this country’s health care system and the knuckleheads I encounter are likely to be rooting for the same team as I am. Because my season tickets are in the bleachers and the bleachers in Oakland feature general-admission seating, each game I attend is something of a lottery in terms of how will be sitting in my vicinity. Will it be a knowledgeable, interesting fan? A family out on a weekend outing? Someone visiting from another town? Or a booze-fueled wantwit who decides to pepper the air with obscenity-ladden inanities?

We had an abundance of that last group Saturday. I knew I was in for a long afternoon, and it had nothing to do with Troy Glaus’ grand slam to open up scoring in the first inning. Rather, what clued me that I was in for an afternoon of teeth-gritting was when the young man seated in front of me greeted the arrival of Blue Jays right fielder Alexis Rios by shouting, “Hey Rios — how’s the leg?”

Ah yes. Saturday marked only the second game back for Rios after a month-long stay on the DL for a particularly nasty staph infection. To give you some idea as to the depth of the injury, here’s a report from the Toronto Star earlier this month:

In one of the strangest Jays disablements in recent memory, Rios fouled a ball off his left ankle/shin on June 27 against the Nationals, but finished the game. The next day he sat out with what was diagnosed as a bruise. It was day-to-day.

On June 29, with redness visible around the welt, he was admitted to hospital and given intravenous antibiotics. There he stayed for nine days while doctors were forced twice to operate on the wound, to drain liquid from a staph infection. He was released from Mount Sinai Hospital on July 7, and hobbled to Pittsburgh to join his four all-star teammates and participate in the pre-game ceremonies.

Rios still has a visible limp and estimated he has lost six or seven pounds from his pre-infection playing weight. He is far from being able to play, not yet strong enough to begin exercising the muscles in his left ankle and leg.

It’s also worth noting that when a second player had to go on the DL with an infection, the Blue Jays had to call in local health officials to disinfect the clubhouse.

So, staph infections — very serious, potentially deadly, certainly virulent and scary. Oh, and also a potential source of comedy if you’re a right-field boo bird.

I’m trying to understand just exactly what was going through this heckler’s mind — besides the cool breeze blowing in behind us — when he decided that, of all the things to taunt Alex Rios about, a debilitating health issue should top the list. I mean, once you break out the “how’s the leg?” taunts in the first inning, there’s only one way for this to progress.

Rios — you’ve got a staph infection!

You could have died!

It’s funny because it didn’t happen to me!

You’re weak and susceptible to disease!

Look at me, everyone! I’m funny! I’m funny!

In other words, someone comes out looking bad in that exchange. And it’s not Alexis Rios.

That young man was the Grand Idiot to Whom All Other Idiots Must Pay Homage To, but he was hardly the only dope in attendance Saturday. The row behind us — Lisa described our situation as “the meat of sensibility wedged between two slices of Idiot-Loaf” — featured a gaggle of college buddies planning a road trip to Oregon.

“We’re driving through Ashland,” one of the dudes says to another. “Isn’t there some sort of Shakespeare theater there?”

Why, yes there is — the Oregon Shakespeare Festival is generally regarded as one of the finest regional theater operations in this country. Your correspondent has spent many an enjoyable afternoon and evening watching theatrical productions in Southern Oregon.

“I don’t know,” the other dude replies. “I don’t care about that shit.”

And… we’re done here.

The young gentlemen behind us also repeatedly kicked the back of Lisa’s seat after moving to our section because — get this — the person behind them kept kicking them in the seat. “Of course,” Lisa observed, “how can can you expect someone that dismissive of Shakespeare to have a working knowledge of irony.”

So we moved, down to the left field corner underneath the second-deck overhang. The view wasn’t as good, but the company — a couple of families with their kids, an older couple — was a hell of a lot more pleasant. The A’s taking the lead also helped improve the outlook considerably.

When I re-up my season tickets next year — if I re-up my season tickets next year — I shall probably upgrade from my bleacher seats to something in the the plaza level. It’s double what I pay now, but I figure that since you’ve got assigned seats, you’re sitting with the same folks game after game instead of the rotating band of drunkards I’m dealing with now. And the higher ticket price probably means for a different class of walk-up ticket buyer than what you get in the bleachers.

However, if the A’s really wanted to make some extra cash — and all signs and portents indicate that this is Lew Wolff’s primary goal in life — what they should do is create a service that allows you to carefully vet the people who sit down next to you in the bleachers. Many’s the time I’ve wished that I could hand potential seatmates a written exam that includes a mix of questions on A’s history (“Who did the A’s trade to obtain Ken Holtzman in 1971?”), baseball analysis (“True or False: a pitcher’s win-loss record is the best indicator of how they’ve pitched?”), and basic comportment (“Do you think staph infections are an appropriate subject for heckling?”). If the A’s were to offer such a service, I don’t know what I’d be willing to pay on a per-game basis. $20? $50? I’d be hesitant to put a monetary figure on what the ability to watch games in a chucklehead-free environment means to me.

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