One of the defining features of the Oakland A's in the 21st century was the team's 2002 amateur draft, generally referred to as the Moneyball draft. The group was prominently featured in Michael Lewis' book of the same name, and yet it's possible the only ones you'd recognize now are Nick Swisher and Joe Blanton (and perhaps Mark Teahen). It was one of the earliest examples of Billy Beane's team bucking trends in an effort to gain an edge in a process that is otherwise something of a crapshoot.
Enter Tabitha Soren, former MTV News reporter, who also happens to be married to Lewis. Soren is a photographer, and she took an interest in the Moneyball draft class in the spring of 2003 and began chronicling their lives with her camera. The project continued for over a decade, and her Fantasy Life exhibit premiered in Los Angeles in 2015. A few words from Soren from an interview with our own Tyler Bleszinski last April:
Some of my subjects became well known, respected players at the highest level of the game. Some left baseball to pursue less glamorous work, such as selling insurance and coal mining. Some have struggled with poverty - even homelessness. But the common thread among them all is that they had a shot, and they literally put their bodies on the line for the sake of the game; the chance to play with the best.
...
One of the main themes and fantasies is Manifest Destiny. In the same way that American kids are all told they could grow up to be President one day, these boys have been told they are special and that they could be a professional baseball player one day since they were very very young. Their lives are a thematic and symbolic iteration of Americans' drive and ambition -- as well as our refusal to accept ordinariness.
And that brings us to the point of this post. On April 3, Fantasy Life will finally make its way to the East Bay for the first time as part of a larger exhibit of baseball art called Safe At Home. This will be the first time Soren's project will be viewed in the Bay Area, which she notes is "where it belongs." The exhibition, which features the work of dozens of other artists as well, will be held in the Bedford Gallery inside the Lesher Center for the Arts in Walnut Creek. After the opening on April 3, it is open for viewing daily (except Mondays) through June 12.
If you're a baseball fan, an art fan, or even just an Oakland A's fan looking for another way to appreciate your team, then this is an exhibit worth checking out. Hope to see you there!
How to see Fantasy Life
Exhibit: Safe At Home: A Short Survey of Baseball Art
Dates: Opening April 3, 3-5 p.m. PT; extends thru June 12
Viewing hours: Tue-Sun (closed Mon), noon-5 p.m. (also 6-8 p.m. on nights when the theater is active)
Where: Bedford Gallery, inside Lesher Center for the Arts
Address: 1601 Civic Drive, Walnut Creek, walking distance from BART station
Phone: 925-295-1417
Email: galleryinfo@bedfordgallery.org
Admission: $5, or $3 for kids; free on first Tuesdays (April 5, May 3, June 7)
For more info, visit the Bedford Gallery's website. Here is the official website for the Fantasy Life project.
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Tabitha sent me some of the photos so I could share a few, and I think this one is my favorite. It's Jeremy Brown, the big-body catcher whom the A's chose No. 35 overall in the 2002 draft (their fifth of seven first-round picks that year). If you didn't read Moneyball, then you still saw Brown toward the end of the movie adaptation, blasting a homer but falling down as he rounded first base because he was so focused on stretching for extra bases that he didn't realize the ball had cleared the fence. He did briefly reach MLB in 2006 and went 3-for-10, meaning he retired as a .300 hitter! Anyway, the photo on the left is from 2005, and the one on the right is from 2013, five years after his retirement from baseball.
Photo credit: Tabitha Soren