In case of a tie, an All-Star game will be declared.

Ray Ratto would be proud, if he were alive today.

What if the wind changed and it stayed like that?

shit shit shit piss shit shit shit gory gory what a hell of a way to die damn sad 40 win season cancer of the ass obscure pop culture reference barry zito bad signing former a

“I’m a fat walrus, boys and girls, and it’s hard for me to say anything nice about anything or anyone without doing it in a backhanded way. I am an unhappy man who sees the worst in everything but the difference between the rest of you and I is I get paid to say whatever I want.”

excessive profanity or make fun of weight, that’d be, like, really neat. Peachy, even. At least the guy writes about the A’s on a regular basis. Geez.

and Monkeyball will win this contest in a landslide ;)

But then I re-checked my baggie and to my delighted surprise found I had a little more than just stems and seeds as I had feared, then I got really inspired and was struck like a Usain Bolt of lightning with the column idea equivalent of the illicit love child of Thomas Pynchon and Comrade Slusser, but then I…wait, what was I talking about? I’ll just write a meandering piece which restates the conventional wisdom instead.

Consider if you will, ladies and gentlemen, the curious case of the heart of the Oakland (at least for the time being) Athletics batting order. First we see one Jonathan Joseph Cust. Frere Jacques drifted through the high seas of the minor leagues for nigh on a decade, doing battle with Tides and Clippers, much like his almost namesake aboard the Calypso. Then suddenly our hero found himself roaming around the Coliseum’s left field like a slightly confused manatee, leading the league in walks and hitting more than his fair share of home runs – not enough to make us forget Mark McGwire or Reggie Jackson, but perhaps enough to erase all traces of, say, John Jaha and Matt Stairs from our collective memories. And with Beane and his legion of Ivy-educated disciples telling us that that was enough, who are we mere hoi polloi to argue, given the past success that those number-crunchers have had (at least in the regular season) while cobbling together a team with a budget seemingly consisting entirely of coins that John Fisher found in jeans returned to the Gap? Still, after watching this player that Brilliant Billy fawns over so much staring at another called strike three like a modern-day Rob Deer-in-headlights, we are left with a feeling about as comfortable as John McCain on a date with Paris Hilton.

And on the other appendage, we have Emil (that’s pronounced E-meal, for those of you whose crystal radios have not been tuned in to Ken Korach and that other guy on whichever station they’re on this week) Brown, another prodigal journeyman returning after a long and mostly undistinguished career to the franchise that drafted him back when Our Billy was still getting his feet wet as Sandy Alderson’s errand boy. In April, Emil showed what Brown could do for you, driving in runs like Josh Hamilton on a cocaine-fueled RBI binge, but more recently he’s reminded us why he was without a job in the first place.

In case it isn’t obvious, what these two and the rest of the current crop of underachieving overachievers have in common, besides the green jerseys and white shoes, is that Fisher and Lew Wolff are paying them little more than what Ed McMahon is contributing toward his mortgage. And the fans have to wonder if that will be this franchise’s continuing modus operandus as long as they remain in their tarp palace.

he’s fat, useless, a word consuming wind bag and at the end of the day not that knowledgeable about sports.

hell, they even both love hockey.

done.

Stay tuned for the “Write Like Tolkien” Contest.

Hey dol! bobble dol! ring ’em up dillo!
Ring ’em up! hop along! big as a pillow!
Old Frank Thom with another Bombadillo!