A look in the crystal ball

With all the uncertainty around the A's performance so far, I decided to have a look into my crystal ball to see what the future would hold. The pictures were somewhat obscured by the seams, but here is some of what we have to look forward to this year. Be forewarned: it's not a pretty sight.

May 11: Sprinting out to left field before the bottom of the first inning, Eric Byrnes gets distracted by the afternoon sun and runs full-speed into the green monster. He is dazed, and removed from the game as a precautionary measure, but afterwards a relieved Larry Davis announces that "X-Rays of Eric's head didn't show anything."

June 12: On a blazing hot day in Atlanta, Bobby Kielty removes his hat during the national anthem, and within seconds his hair catches fire. Mark Kotsay calmly saves the day by extinguishing the flames with a perfectly aimed stream of tobacco juice. Tim Hudson pitches eight scoreless innings as the Braves take a 1-0 lead into the ninth, but Charles Thomas, substituting for Kielty, beats his old team with a 2-run homer off Danny Kolb in the ninth, finally earning Joe Blanton his first win.

June 24: Barry Bonds returns to the Giants lineup as the DH against Oakland. In his first at-bat, he hits a shallow fly ball to left field that Byrnes misplays as Bonds limps around the bases for an inside-the-park home run, bringing him within 10 of Babe Ruth. The strain proves to be too much for Bonds' knee, which requires surgery the next day, ending his season.

July 10: Just before the All-Star break, Beane tries to shake up the team by firing Ken Macha. The new manager is Art Howe, whose first move to jump start the offense is to swap Mark Ellis and Marco Scutaro in the batting order.

July 16: When Howe comes out to the mound in the 7th inning to replace Barry Zito with Ricardo Rincon, a confused Zito says "Wait, where's Ken?"

July 20: Beane trades Byrnes to the Royals. In return, the A's get Calvin Pickering, and Allard Baird agrees to buy new chairs for the A's offices. After working with the new acquisition for one day, Ron Washington declares him a "Pickerin' machine."

July 28: In a blockbuster seven-team deal, the A's trade Octavio Dotel and Kirk Saarloos, acquiring Ryan Howard, Prince Fielder, Jason Giambi, Bellamy Road, cash considerations, and a new dinette set. (Oddly enough, Ohad predicts the trade exactly two days earlier, in a post on AN that no one reads). After two days of working with the new players, Ron Washington has a nervous breakdown and leaves the team. Rene Lachemann takes over as third-base coach, and Howe hires Ken Macha as his new bench coach.

August 5: After a frustrating loss to the Royals (despite a record the six errors committed by the starting outfield of Stairs, Long, and Byrnes), Eric Chavez misunderstands Jason Kendall's admonition to "Wear It," and puts on Kendall's catcher's mask.

August 7: Chavez is still wearing Kendall's mask, having decided that he is more comfortable talking to reporters that way. A distracted Howe hands in a lineup card featuring Chavez as the starting catcher. Chavez throws out three baserunners, and calls a brilliant game as Joe Blanton pitches eight shutout innings, but Blanton is denied what would have been his third win of the year when, in the ninth inning, Erubiel Durazo, playing third base, boots a ground ball and then throws it into the fountain in Kauffman stadium, allowing three runs to score as the Royals complete their sweep.

August 21: Jason Kendall hits his first home run of the season, but is called out for passing Kotsay on the base path, as Kotsay stands on second base too stunned to move.

September 5: Frustrated by the team's most recent losing streak, Nick Swisher proclaims "Dude, this sucks almost as much as losing to Chavvy at Halo2."

September 11: Barry Zito holds a press conference announcing that he will be starring in a new reality series with Paris Hilton, but controversy erupts when Zito refuses to answer questions about his relationship with an adolescent girl who he met on the internet.

September 29: In his last start, Rich Harden pitches a complete game shutout against the Angels, finishing the season with a record of 12-15 and an ERA of 1.66. He will finish second in the Cy Young voting to Sidney Ponson, who is 23-5 with an ERA of 4.72.

October 1: The A's win their 61st game of the season. Ray Ratto writes a column calling them lucky.

October 10: After the White Sox win their first two games of the ALDS against Boston, Michael Lewis announces his plans to write a book about how Kenny Williams and Ozzie Guillen have used innovative strategies to outpace their competition, prompting Guillen to ask "Who the fuck is Michael Lewis." But the Red Sox storm back to beat Chicago as Keith Foulke strikes out Jermaine Dye with the bases loaded to end game 5.

March 24: Rob Neyer publishes his preseason predictions for the 2006 season, which include the A's as world series champions and Chavez as MVP.

March 28: On the eve of spring training, Chavez announces he is retiring from baseball to study holistic medicine. At least I think that's what he says; it's hard to understand him when he's wearing that damn mask.