Green and Gold Household

We've got yellow and green towels in the bathroom, much to the delight of my sister-in-law, who attends U of O.  Didn't have the heart to tell her the real reason.

There are other clues: we do have a few Oakland A's pillow cases that find themselves in the rotation; my A's cap can often be found on the floor; Moneyball is nestled between texts on chemistry and optics.

She loves the Royals. Apparently, my mom got my aunt a baseball magazine to go along with her gift. My mom knows nothing about baseball. At all. (Example: "Green? I thought the A's had blue uniforms.") So my mom's telling me about this magazine she got... something about free agents.

"The Royals signed someone named Meechy to a $55 million contract?!?"

"It's Meche, Mom."

"$55 million?!?"

I found that highly amusing.

"But momma, I don't want another dog (Piazza), I want Spot (Frank)!"  As for my own household, my only hope is to indoctrinate my 2 year old daughter into the Order of the Elephant, since the spousal unit will watch no sports on tv.  Eventually, we will outnumber her!

saying how cute Lowry is, then I made her watch an A's game and she does not think about the Gnats anymore.  She keeps talking about the white pants and how much she loves them.  I should get upset, but I am usually to busy watching the game

are A's collector cups. I think I'll work on getting all the towels I can this season.

My daughter is six and my son is four.  Her first A’s game was at age seven months; his was at two months, which by virtue of his March birthday he’ll forever be able to hold over his sister’s head.  But the real test of A’s fandom is this:

My daughter’s first favorite A’s player was Miguel Tejada, largely because of his cool signature beat from the LF drums.  To this day, if I tat-a-tat out the right dum-dum-dah, dum-dum-dah-dah-dah, dum-dum-dah-dah-dah,  she’ll reply "Tejada!"  The first A’s themed toy I could find was one of those genericish teddy bears wearing an A’s jersey.  It’s still known to us as the Tejada Bear.

When I broke the news to her that Tejada had left for Baltimore, she cried.  And cried.  When the O’s next came to town she stood and cheered for Tejada, and then cried some more.  Finally, she came to understand that nothing is forever, and she became attached to a new favorite A’s player:

Barry Zito.

My son selected his first ever favorite player last year:  Frank Thomas.

When I was a youngun my hero signed an 8.5 x 11 black and white glossy for me at Alameda’s South Shore Mall one fine spring day in 1973 after I waited two hours in line.  He looked at me with eyes dark and sincere, sand said "take care, son."  I still have the photo, creased and tattered and utterly irreplaceable to me, a bearded vision of perfection corkscrewed into the ground after a titanic swing.

Reggie Jackson.

We forge ‘em tough in the crucible of Oakland.

We moved to the LA during the offseason. On a recent roadtrip back up north a few weeks back we passed the coliseum on the way back out of town and my three-year-old cried for an hour because he wanted me to take him to the "ballgame". After about the 100th "please turn around daddy" I was convinced that I might have created a monster. Oh, and the comment about bittersweet symphony is so true. Too funny.

we got my son's picture taken with Stomper when he was five weeks old.
When he was in first grade, the teacher asked the class if anyone could use the word "die" in a sentence and he said "Jermaine Dye plays in the outfield."