The WORD, Athletics Style

Blez got me wondering about what it'd be like if Stephen Colbert did an A's-themed segment of his epic "The Word".  It was a sloooooooow day at work with no game to go home to, so I went for it with both barrels blazing.... please be warned that it's kind of sarcastic and spares no barbs, but that it is ALL IN FUN and designed for your maximum amusement...just PLEASE don't take it too seriously!!!!  "Any characters' resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental" and all that!

Enjoy!

...which brings us to tonight's Word: MAXIMIZE.

The Oakland Athletics are a most unlikely success story, a baseball team consistently able to do the most with the least available resources, often more effectively than perhaps any other professional sports franchise of modern times (The Word: 21st Century Team, 19th Century Payroll). They continuously show the ability to compete with the sport's elite, well-funded teams (The Word: BloSox, Bankees, Los Osos Angels of Arroyo Grande, each shown more times per segment on ESPN than the network logo) year after year due to their ability to MAXIMIZE their organizational skills and talent, marshalling their resources of money and brainpower towards a singular goal (The Word: To Avoid Ever Having to Move to Portland).  And all this as a small-market team (The Word: Rent or Food? Pick One), playing in a blue-collar, working-class city (The Word: Terrifying, "Mad Max"-Type Street Gangs With Automatic Weapons Roaming the Night Accompanied By Packs of Rabid Dogs) constantly overshadowed by its glittering neighbor to the west, San Francisco (The Word: Ten-Dollar Latte).

The A's unusual formula for success (The Word: First-Round Playoff Exit) revolves around their General Manager, the ubiquitous Billy Beane (The Word: Sold His Soul to Lucifer for Eternal Youth and the Uncanny Ability to Draft Exceptional College Players).  The Beane Approach is called "Moneyball," (The Word: How-the-Fuck-Are-We-Gonna-Win-Without-Any-Money?-Ball) a highly cerebral set of statistical theories (The Word: Math Geeks on the Loose, Hide the Slide Rules and the Abacus) centered upon the often-marginalized "On-Base Percentage" stat, which tracks how often a player reaches base between aggregate hits, bases-on-balls, and errors by the opposition (The Word: Walk So Many Damn Times That the Other Team Falls Gently Into a Deep, Catatonic Sleep and You Win the Game By Default). MAXIMIZE the bases while minimizing the outs, and you win a lot of baseball games (The Word: And Draw So Few Fans That Your Average Attendance Can Be Calculated Using the Fingers of Two Hands).

The other component of the Moneyball formula (The Word: Kind of Voodoo-esque, Probably Part of GM's Ongoing Arrangement With the Prince of Darkness) is the acquisition of undervalued role players (The Word: Guys Left On Your Doorstep In the Middle of the Night Because No Team Would Want Them, One Slump From a New Job With a Car Dealership) as opposed to expensive superstars in the prime of their careers (The Word: Broke-As-a-Joke-Land).  Very often these athletes are undervalued not for their in-game performance with other teams that have released them (The Word: Hits .350 But Smears Body With Garlic and Motor Oil Before Game for Good Luck), but for their negative clubhouse reputations (The Word: Perpetual Entourage Consisting of Loudly-Chanting Hare Krishnas) or past bad behavior (The Word: Barely Cognitive, Hair-Trigger, Balls-Out Sociopaths).  Past examples of this phenomenon have ranged from Jose Guillen (The Word: Broke Open Scioscia's Skull and Ate His Brains Before Orange County Police Were Summoned) to the team's current "bad boy," Milton Bradley (The Word: Responds to Taunts From Opposing Fans With Small Arms Fire From 9MM Glock Pistol Concealed in Uniform Pants).

This emphasis on under-the-radar talent, coupled with the team's incredible success at drafting and developing homegrown stars like wild-eyed southern boy Nick Swisher (The Word: Three Brain Channels--Dogs, Trucks and $1000 Vodka), boyishly young closer Huston Street (The Word: Can I Please See Some ID, Son?) and Bobby Crosby (The Word: Pictured Next to Definition of "Underachieving, Conceited Headcase" in Merriam-Webster "Dictionary of Sports Terminology") have led to yearly contention in the highly competitive American League West (The Word: So Terminally Lousy That the Combination of You, Me, and 23 Other Dudes in Somewhat-Reasonable Physical Condition Could Run Away With It).  In fact, some experts (The Word: Tin Foil Hats) have gone so far as to predict that, if they MAXIMIZE what they have, this could indeed be the year when the A's "go all the way" (The Word: Team Features Unusually High Concentration of Virgins) and actually win the World Series (The Word: Equally-As-Unusually Large Supply of High-Grade Angel Dust In Press Box This Year)!  

Of course, it's not all roses in Athletics-land (The Word: Next to "Children's Fairy Land," Near Lake Merritt) these days as the A's make their run at the MLB crown.  The team has fallen victim to a ridiculously intense spate of injuries, prompting Head Trainer Larry Davis (The Word: Hiring a 300-Pound Man to Get and Keep Guys In Shape Is Like Hiring a Crackhead As Your 12-Step Counselor) to just about throw up his hands in despair (The Word: Or Throw Down Another 17-Course Italian Meal).  Key players like ace pitcher Rich Harden (The Word: Suffers From Rare "Paper-Maiche Elbow" Syndrome Common to Canadians For Some Strange Reason), Frank Thomas (The Word: 25-Year-Old Swing, But 97-Year-Old Feet) and Esteban Loaiza (The Word: Beane Should Have Just Spent the 7 Million on Most Excessive Crystal Meth Binge World Has Ever Seen) have all spent significant time on the disabled list, as has the aforementioned Milton Bradley (The Word: Major League Baseball's Reigning "Dugout Olympics of Sunflower Seed Flicking" Champion).

Then there are the issues of declining attendance (The Word: Hard to Draw Customers When Your Team Struggles to Surpass Overall Excitement Level of Watching Galaxy Expand Over the Course of Billions of Years), the outdated stadium the team calls home (The Word: Maximum Security Concrete Prison, But With Concession Stands and More Foul Territory), and the inability of the city of Oakland (The Word: More Concerned With Building Expensive Loft Housing for Non-Existent Upper-Middle-Class People That Will Never Live There) to follow through on a plan for a new, state-of-the-art ballpark (The Word: Possible New Names for Team Include "Campbell A's of Los Gatos" and "Montreal Expos") that will grow the team's dedicated-but-undersized fan base (The Word: Currently Consists of 14 Guys With Those Beer-Holder Double-Cup Hats -- One Cup Green, One Cup Gold --- and several slammin' percussionists).

So we'll just have to wait and see what happens (The Word: Lofty, Hopeful, Idyllic Expectations Dashed By Excruciating Frustration and Mind-Numbing, Heroin-Habit-Inducing Heartbreak) with this most unusual of professional sports franchises.  Who knows?  Maybe this will, indeed, be the year that the Athletics and their fans (The Word: Best Sports-Related Blog of All Time, Notwithstanding Oaktoon) have waited for, and the team will find a way to MAXIMIZE their chances for a World Series ring (The Word: Greater Probability Benevolent Extra-Terrestrial Species Will Land on White House Lawn and Solve Earth's Myriad Problems, But We Can Hope, Can't We?)!!!!

And that, my friends, is The Word.