The Last

Every game you go to could be your last, but you never think things like that, because while life is short we've got tickets for so many more games, so many more months, so play ball and put such thoughts aside, for a while.

Tonight, I went to the Coliseum for what should be the last time in my life.

What follows is a memory of tonight and the last 6 years, for the team that made me care about baseball again. It's my way of saying thanks to them. Hope you like it.

On Friday, I resigned from my job of 5.5 years. The first 4.5 were great, the last year wasn't, and the new job should be much more like the early days.  My new job starts in two weeks in NYC, close enough to my (and the A's) ancestral home of Philadelphia, where most of our relatives live, and where the housing prices are not Stock Raving Mad. So we're leaving.

* * * * *

In February 2000, I moved to the Bay Area; in April, we had our first child. By late summer, we had taken her to a game or two on a lark, and I had started to notice how this team had some interesting players. In the playoff loss to the Yankees, I felt a bond growing, but I could still take or leave them.

 In 2001, we went to a few more games, mostly for fireworks, opening day, that sort of thing. The bond grew. I didn't really want it to - I had stopped following baseball entirely after the strike, following a lack of interest after the Phillies 1993 Blue Snow Team faded - but it did just the same. I started taking my daughter to the games by myself when my wife needed a break.

In 2002, the ante was raised. My daughter and I attended the last 4 games of the streak together. Memories were built (during the Streak, my 2-year-old conducted a section of people in Let's Go Oakland chants, quieted a section of guys using profanities with her wide little eyes, and slept through the Hattie homer), and traditions established (we're going to the Kids Club in the fourth inning, we're singing during the Stretch, you get ice cream or cotton candy but not both, etc., etc.).

The playoff loss was much more bitter. I began to resent the Giants for their saturation media coverage. I started collecting stories of what it was like to go to games with someone so young, so often. And in the next year, when a friend asked me to join a baseball fantasy league for the first time in 15 years, I said yes.

In 2003, my daughter and I went to 20 games, as we got season tickets for the first time in my life. We watched Eric Chavez and Keith Foulke drive the A's and my team. I went to the first - and, to date, last - playoff games of my life, and charted every pitch. My friend Doug and I watched Ramon's walk-off bunt, and a few days later, we saw Terence Long end the season and his A's career, while a third of the stadium cheered the death of hope. It stayed with me for a very long time, and made me feel the same as when Joe Carter ended Mitch Williams in 1993.

I didn't realize I could still feel that way about baseball. The A's made me.

In 2004, the Aces year, my daughter and I again went to 20 games... but with scar tissue. Mark Mulder faded and took my fantasy team and the A's down with him, and my playoff check was returned two months later. I felt as if the team had missed its window of opportunity, and now the best parts would simply go, one by one, to wealthier teams. Combined with political activities that can't be discussed here, it was a very down season, but I was a lifer now.

2005 was better in some ways, worse in others. I discovered this site, went to a couple of get-togethers, and took in another 20 games with my daughter. The team gained new and more promising momentum with Blanton, Haren, Johnson and Street, and I rode many A's in my league to recover from a bad start to a second-place finish. Our second child was born in July, and my eldest started kindergarten, so we started cutting back on nights out. With the hard eye of a fantasy league player, I never sent the team a playoff check.

So when 2006 rolled around, and the need to spend for new tickets came due... I put it off. We finally settled on just 10 games, for fireworks and games with friends, and I resigned myself to the fact that my daughter was just going to eat junk food, play with her LeapPad, and jump in the Kids Club bounce tent. Adding distance to distance, I had no A's on my team, and could no longer sit in the third deck, behind home, where I had for most of the last 5 years.

So 2006 has been something of the low ebb... and with job worries creeping into too many waking moments, and the previously forgotten challenges of raising an infant, the odd A's game didn't seem like a big deal. I also stopped coming to AN very often, and posted less. Baseball was there, the A's were there. They'd always be there, and I'd get back to them when I could.

Well, now, I can't.

* * * * *

So, today. The job situation became clear, and it's time to say goodbye to the Coliseum with a game against, of all people, Derek Lowe. And I have him on my team, and with Jason Schmidt getting lit up in Seattle this afternoon, I even had to consider starting him. Thankfully, Jose Contreras strikes out a ton of hitters, so I was able to bench Lowe at the last minute, and save what's left of my A's soul. And I went to the game, my karma clear, with any number of endings seeming poetic.

Doug, my wingman for the 2003 ALDS, is here again. Since I am without child for once, we can imbibe freely, and do. Lowe struggles in the first, and my decision looks wise. Then the A's pound grounders at fielders for 6 more innings, and it's all going to end badly - no win for either of my teams, the final game for me ending with a whimper.

And then Kielty, and then Scutaro, and then Crosby... and as Lowe leaves, I give him a celebratory crotch-grab, because revenge is a dish best served cold, three years later, in a regular season game instead of a season-ending playoff. Hah. Take that, you bastard. I'm feeling all of the old chills, all of the old love, because baseball is like that, and the A's are like that.

Street blows the save, and the blue shirts in the crowd give me flashbacks to 2003. The game goes on and on, and Doug and I trade stories. How he went to a 20-inning game in Philly in 2003 with the woman that became his wife. I didn't know him then, but I was at the same game, and stayed for all of it, just like him. We move down as others move out, and also rip on guys, because that's what we do.

"Think Nomar always talks down Lowe, even on games he doesn't pitch? `It's OK, Derek, I know it's late, but it's still going to be steak when it gets here...'"

"I wonder if Nomar has those same ticks in other aspects of his life."
"I don't want to think about that."
"Where is your mind at? I'm talking about brushing his teeth."
"Oh, man. I can't believe I went straight to that."
"It's OK. I did, too."

Foul pop up, near the screen, caught. "That's only an out in Oakland." Next inning, foul pop up, just outside the third base line. "That's only an out in Oakland."

A Bill King montage plays during an inning break. I can't put into words how much I miss Bill King, how my ears still keep reaching out on the radio to hear him every time I've turned on a game this year. We have the technology, and we have 20 years of Bill on tape. Someone can't put together a software program so that Bill can broadcast just an inning or two, now and again? I'm not ready to say goodbye to him. I'm not ready to say goodbye, period.

The 17th rolls around, and Seo misses on his first pitch to Crosby, and Doug and I are of the same mind. We're holding up fingers for the walk.

"Come on, Blue! Three more!"

Ball 2.

"Atta boy, Blue! Two more!"

Ball 3.

"YES, Blue! One more and its restaurant time, Blue! Let's go home!"

Strike 1.

"BLUE! YOU'RE KILLING ME!"

Ball 4, and it's all over. High fives all around, 9 in a row. I love this team. I even love this stadium.

And yes, there's always the possibility of the sequel of more games, and I've got tickets for July 4 fireworks that I may or may not be in the area to use. I'm sure I'll follow them online, Tivo their games back East if possible, log on to AN, etc., etc.

But on some level, I'm already gone, just because I'm aware of the possibility, and paying attention so much it hurts, trying to download the highest possible resolution file to the hard drive of my mind. We walk to the BART station and say our goodbyes. As the stadium fades into the distance, I actually say good bye, out loud, because that's just the way this movie ends.

Thanks for the moments, guys. Thanks for reading this, AN.

And Go A's.