Well, this is my first post. I feel like it's my first foray into some sort of 12-step program, really, but that may just be okay. Because after twenty-five years of ignoring sports completely, I discovered baseball four years ago. And it has consumed me.

It's been a privileged few years for a novice baseball fan to be living in the bay area. The way it has seemed to me since 2001, your local teams are always in contention for first place in their division, and most likely make it to the playoffs... right? ?? ??

I didn't heed my brother who tried to use his prolific years of Pad-zillas fandom (our family is originally from San Diego) to educate me about how even your heroes can fall. I lived in a pleasant glow, where dropping one game behind first place seemed like a tragedy and the certainty of victory was very intoxicating, indeed.

2005. Well. I don't have to explain to anyone around AN. That sickening feeling in the bottom of my stomach as the team wastes offensive opportunities and rips apart at the seams defensively is hard to deal with. When I watch the away games, and things go horribly awry, I yell and shut off the television. I stomp around my apartment. I pour myself a beer. Two minutes later, I return to the television, flip it on while mumbling under my breath... perhaps... just perhaps... they got out of the f*g inning.

So there is this emotional drama. And it is pretty draining. But it arises, I think, less from the idea that the players themselves are lacking, and more from a sense of disappointment, because I truly believe that these players are capable of so much more.

I haven't arrived at the stage where I can twist stats around to confirm my own gut instincts. I know, too, that I'm not the first fan in baseball history to insist that "this team is so much better than it plays!" I just know that I always turn the television back on, and so I suppose there is some optimism there, some sense of needing to watch no matter how ugly the crash and burn because I believe that eventually things will turn around.

So believing is what I intend to do.

I also intend to:

1. Not grumble about the past. As far as I can tell all the players who have gone are not coming back. Unlike my goldfish who died when I was in fifth grade, these players may well go on to perform great feats of baseball excellence. From what else I can tell, none of those triumphs (or any of their defeats) are going to directly help or hinder the A's, so their performance, to my opinion about our current team, is irrelevant.

I know baseball fans like to crunch numbers. My brother became a pro at Excel because he likes to consider every numerical possibility. I, however, am not like that. So less stress for me, I guess.

2. Be loud and proud at all the games I attend. The fans of Oakland taught me something that I know for sure Giants fans could learn: you don't stop cheering when they're down, because that's when your cheering matters the most.

This weekend, I look forward to making the Boston and Yankees fans uncomfortable with my calm certainty and loud Oakland pride. They will be befuddled, trying to provoke me with "Oakland sucks" taunts.

Yes, the fact of their mere presence will irk me as always, and I will find myself rolling my eyes and saying "If (city) is so f*g great, why in the hell don't you go back there?"

But ultimately, after all of the various noreastern circuses have come and gone, with only memories and wind-tussled hot dog wrappers spinning in their wake, I will still be looking forward to my next A's game, donning my hat and clutching my pompoms, knowing that even if we don't win this time, Bobby Kielty's hair is still way better than that cave man Johnny Damon's. And in the end, that's really all that matters.