Gotta love being an A's fan!

I just got back early this morning from the greatest week of my A's fan life.  My brother and myself made the 15 hour drive out to Phoenix and met up with Athleticsgirl24 (also known as Emily) who had flown in from Arkansas.  Now those of you that know or have met Athleticsgirl24 know that she is totally in love with Nick Swisher and although she would never admit to being a stalker, she has admitted to obsesively shadowing him.

When she got off the plane she was fighting the flu and was in bad shape.  She made it to the game with us but by the 7th inning she was toast and needed to go back to the room.  She was in no shape to go to the A's/Giants video game challenge and decided to skip the event (just like Zito did).  

We walked into the video game challenge and it was a dream come true.  There were players everywhere and we soon had so many autographs and memories that we could have gone home right then and called it a great week.  But what about poor Athleticsgirl24 back at her room?  Since she couldn't make it to the party I brought the party to her.  I found Nick and asked him if he would call a sick friend for me an he agreed to do it.  Poor Emily about had a heart attack.  All she could think to say was "I love you!" but managed to repeat that 7 or 8 times.  By the time they were through talking she was in tears and had to excuse herself so she could go "freak out".

By tuesday she was feeling much better and felt she needed to redeem herself in Nick Swisher's eyes.  We found out where Robert Buan was doing his postgame show and that Swish was going to be his guest.  Although Robert Buan claimed on air that there were hundreds of A's fans at the bar in actuality it was more like 15.  a few minutes later, Nick walked in with Chad Gaudin and Dan Meyer and did the show.  

Athleticsgirl24 locked up and was scared to death that Nick might somehow notice her but thanks to our waitress He came over to our table.  I thought she was going to die when he put his arm around her to take a picture.  She managed to squeak out the words "Can I touch you?"  then put a squeeze on him that would have put mere mortals on the 60 day DL. He signed a card which came with the    polaroid but she couldn't remember her own name for the  personalization.

She was so engulfed in admiring her picture with Nick that she didn't notice that Chad Gaudin had made his way over to the table.  Chad puts his arm around her and Emily looks up at him with wide eyes and annouces to the entire bar "Holy Sh@t, Chad Gaudin is touching me!"  The entire group of A's fans erupted in laughter and for a second I thought Chad was going to lose it too.  After she had regained her composure and taken a few more pictures, we visited with them for a few minutes, then, like my whole spring training experience, it was over and we went home.  Gotta love those A's.

Nick on the phone with Athleticsgirl24