FanPost

Hear ye, hear ye: WE'RE IN FIRST PLACE.

A quick look down the recent diaries thread right now will make you ask yourself a very odd question: Is this an A's FAN SITE?

Even odder, the answer to that question at the moment is 'no'. And that, good people, is abso-fricking-lutely insane.

I see goofballs posting diaries suggesting Billy Beane should have sent Swisher to the DL instead of Johnson. I see diaries talking about how there's nothing to like in the current A's team, and it was all so much better when we had Stairs and Berroa. I see people bitching that they're "losing patience" with this team.

Well I have just one thing to say - we, the Oakland Athletics, with injuries galore, no money, precious few fans showing up to games, a depleted AAA team, and slumps aplenty, is still in...

FIRST PLACE!

So can we quit with the second guessing of Beane like he's some chump that every other team in the game WOULDN'T snap up in a flash?

Can we stop it already with the "Dan Johnson is mashing in AAA, so he shouldn't have been dropped" rubbish?

Can we give it a rest on the "I hate watching this team" routine just long enough for half the players in the starting lineup to get over their injuries?

Can we end the "We can't win without Rich Harden" junk?

Can we give it a freaking rest with the "Milton Bradley was a terrible deal" talk, at least while he's going 4-4 every other day?

Can we puh-lease maybe observe the fact that the Mariners stink, and the Rangers are being talked down even by their own management, and that the Angels are getting smoked by the freaking Royals, and maybe... just maybe, once in a while, point out that:

WE. ARE. IN. FIRST. PLACE.

Imagine, just for one second, that the players come here once in a while, just to see what the fans are saying about them. Now think to yourself - do my five most recent posts seem more likely to inspire them to greatness, or make them say "screw you and your four-figure crowds, you f'ing ingrates."

I'm an Oakland fan, and thus I will find the silver lining on the clouds every single time - but right now I don't NEED to find any GD lining, because my team, my INJURED team, my SLUMPING team, my INEXPENSIVE team, my YOUNG team, my PROSPECT-FREE team, is in first frickin' place.

And they're not falling from a higher first, they're CHASING to get into first. With all the crap we've had to endure this year, they're MOVING UP.

So the next time you see an attention-seeker talk about how we're not first enough, call them what they are: