Think Dec. 6 is too soon?  Too bad...the holiday joy gets flung early and often around here.  I was putting up crazy blinky colored Xmas lights before my T-giving turkey had digested, to the tunes of 50's swinging Rat Pack carols.  I'm as fun-loving a secular holidayist as you're likely to find.  I blame Dr. Seuss, so I again this year borrow his epic How the Grinch Stole Christmas.  

Cool Grinch site here.
Last year's Ray Ratto as Grinch piece here.

HOW COMMISH STOLE CHRISTMAS

Every cheap fan in Oak-ville
Liked Christmas a lot...
But Commish, who lived just North of Oak-ville
Did NOT!

Commish hated Christmas!  
The whole Christmas season!
To Allan "Bud" Selig compassion was treason!
Maybe years of used cars sales had filled him with spite.
Maybe slashed Expo throats piqued his lust for blood fights.
But I think that the most likely reason of all
May have been that he found windfall profits too small.

But whatever the reason, his heart or his scams
He stood there on Christmas Eve, hating Oak-fans.
Staring down from his cave with a sour, sickly frown
At the warm lighted windows below in Oaktown.
For he knew every cheap fan in Oak-ville beneath
Was busy securing his ticket relief.

"And they're not paying royalties!" he snarled with a sneer.
"Five dollah BART bridge hats for Christmas this year!"
Then he growled, with his beady eyes lit with despising,
"I MUST find a way to keep franchise price rising!"
For, tomorrow, he knew, those cheap fan girls and boys
Would wake up bright and early. They'd pound on drum toys!
And then! Oh, the noise! Oh, the noise! Noise! Noise! Noise!
That's one thing he hated! The UNLICENSED NOISE!

Then Oak-fans young and old would sit down to a feast.
And they'd feast! And they'd feast!
And they'd FEAST! FEAST! FEAST! FEAST!
On 14th Street burritos and barbequed beast
Which would profit Commish and pals not in the least!

Then something would happen he liked least of all!
Every player for Oak-ville, the tall and the small,
Would assemble in park lacking cash underpinning.
They'd stand on the field. And those A's would start winning!
They'd win!  And they'd win!
And they'd WIN! WIN! WIN! WIN!
And the more Commish thought of this unfunded glee,
The more Commish thought, "This sure ain't Milwaukee!
"Why, their low budget wins make me look like a sow!
"I MUST stop Oak-Christmas from coming!
"But HOW?"

Then he got an idea!
An awful idea!
Commish got a wonderful, awful idea!
"I know just what to do,"  Commish tongue forked around.
"I'll see to it they move to the bland part of town!
"Where the fans will pay dearly to park, eat, and ticket,
"Plus a red hat and coat, and tonight I'll Saint Nick it!"

"All I need is a reindeer..."
Commish scanned the gulf.
But since reindeer are scarce, he instead chose a Wolff.
Dear old Pi Lambda brother
Once in togas, now condos
Could build steel-glass village and rake profits mondo!
So again Commish turned to Stadia Maledictus
And reviewed incantations for ways he had tricked us.

Then Commish loaded bags
And his slanderous tools
Bound for historic stables
Of Charlie O's mules.
Then Commish said "Giddyap!"
And the sleigh started down
Toward the homes where the fans
Lay a-snooze in Oaktown.

All their windows were dark. Quiet fog o'er the glade.
All the fans were all dreaming World Series parade
When he came to the ballpark that Oak-ville had made.
"It's a shameful affront," said this Claus most unjolly
As he climbed up the worn concrete steps of the Coli.

Then he squeezed through the chainlink, a bit of a squish,
But if Santa could do it, then so could Commish.
He got stuck only once, with a grunt and some oofs.
Then he made it and stood on his two cloven hooves
Where decrepit third deckings hung up in a row.
"These cheap seats," he grinned, "are the first things to go!"

Then he slithered and slunk, with a smile most collusive,
Around the whole park, and he grew more abusive!
"These lux boxes suck!  The sinks reek of pruno!
"You'll never sell these to Cisco or Mizuno!
"Concourses a crush of bad food and worse potties,
"Pissing revenue streams off, and also fly hotties!"

Then he slunk to the pressbox and issued more lies.
"The neighborhood's scary and full of bad guys!
"It's a wonder fans get out with dollars at all
"(a concern we'll address with our new Bland-town mall)."
He defamed and reviled the whole Oak-ville park scene.
"And now," grinned Commish, "I'll lambaste Billy Beane!"
Whose remarkable skills finding value sans lucre
Commish found a problem with those who he'd snooker.

Then he heard a small sound, from a sleepy-eyed A who
Was little Huston-Lou who just passed twenty-two.
Commish had been caught by this A who remembered
To visit the park even in cold December.
He stared at Commish and said, "Santy Claus, why,
"Why are you trashing our Oak-ville team?  Why?"

But, you know, that Commish was so smart and so slick
He thought up a lie, and he thought it up quick!
"Why, my sweet little tot," the fake Santy Claus lied,
"Oak-ville's always been where we want A's to reside.
"So I'm working with your Mayor and Council, my dear
"For they're driven, creative, and always sincere."

And his fib fooled the child (who it's said weren't too bright)
So Commish sent the closer to bed for the night.
And with Huston-Lou once again dreaming of saves
Commish gargled brimstone and belched out more raves.

Then the last thing he slammed were their Moneyball hires
Swisher Blanton and Teahen, fat J. Brown and Mark Kiger
Could neither to paychecks nor jeans sales aspire.
And the last desecration he made, that old louse
Was to hoist ratty green tarps atop of their house.
Then he did the same thing to the other teams' houses
Extorting new parks for the other teams' louses.

It was quarter past dawn, all the fans still a-bed
All the A's still a-snooze, when he packed up his sled.
Packed it up with their metrics!  Their methods of WARPing!
OPS!  Runs Created!  EqA, WHIP, and VORPing!
Three hundred feet up! Up the side of Mount Davis,
He wickedly reckoned that no one could save us!

"Pooh-pooh to cheap fans!" in Commish voice most numbing.
"They're finding out now that no tickets are coming!
"They're just waking up! I know just what they'll do!
"Their mouths will hang open a minute or two
"Then the cheap fans in Oak-ville will all cry BOO-HOO!"

"That's a noise," grinned Commish,
"That I simply must hear!"
So he paused. And Commish put a hand to his ear.
And he did hear a sound which would give him cold chills.
The sweet hiss of beer cans and barbeque grills!
And the sound wasn't sad, welling up from the Coli.
It couldn't be so!  But it WAS jolly! Golly!

He stared down at Oak-ville!  Commish popped his eyes!
Then he shook, for he knew they were onto his lies!
Every cheap fan in Oak-ville, the tall and the small,
Was cheering! Without any ballgames at all!
He HADN'T stopped Christmas from coming!  IT CAME!
Somehow or other, it came just the same!

And Commish with his outlook both tone-deaf and slow
Stood puzzling and puzzling: "How could it be so?
"It came without sponsors!  It came without ads!
"It came without villages, mallparks, or fads!"
And he puzzled three hours, till his puzzler was sore.
Then Commish thought of something he hadn't before!
"Maybe baseball," he thought, "can't be pimped like a whore.
"Maybe baseball, perhaps, means a little bit more."

And what happened then?  In Oak-ville they suppose
That Commish's small heart that day slightly unfroze.
And the minute his heart let himself empathize,
He at last saw the world through an Oak-viller's eyes.
He felt bad for the loyal cheap fans of the A's
And then he...HE HIMSELF...! Said

"Fuck `em all anyways."