This morning Angels fans woke up with a 2 game lead in the AL West. If the team hadn't come through with a walk off win in the 10th inning, we very well could have been looking at a tie, with three games left to play in the series, including the pitching void left by Garrett Richards season ending injury, so winning the first game was actually quite important. For those that think that psychology isn't a big part of baseball, just keep watching for a few more years because baseball is a game played in the perfect diamond of our minds.
There was some controversy last night, when Erick Aybar collided with A's pitcher Dan Otero as he ran out a high chopper that was fielded right near the baseline. The umpire called Aybar safe citing obstruction of the basepath, a call which might have been critical, had the Angels scored that inning, but instead was relatively benign when nothing came of the ensuing rally. The A's played the game in protest nonetheless, and for Oakland's faithful fans, it left a bruise on their working class collective psyche.
I followed a link in today's Halo Links over to the Athletics Nation fan page, to sift through some of the A's fans cries of lamentation. It was there that I saw a thoughtfully composed diatribe by DaRubiesSLOKingsA's, an A's fan who wrote a rally Ra-Ra bit on the A's being the masters of the come from behind season finish. DaRubies threw a few soft jabs at the HH faithful, and tried to throw some cold water on the Athletics Nation chicken little impersonators. One of the points DaRubiesSLOKingsA's tried to make was: Angels fans don't respect the A's. So let me address that from an Angels fan perspective.
I respect the Oakland A's, and I think a lot of die hard baseball fans share that sentiment. In an era of free agent super teams like the Dodgers and Yankees, teams that blow the salary cap out of the water, and which are subsidized by massive media contracts and swollen fan bases, the A's are living proof that baseball is alive and well in it's purest form. When you look at the A's team, you have to admire that it is a collective effort, top to bottom. A team that seldom has the resources to nab expensive free agents, which has been constructed, and managed, with a shrewd, working class, hard nosed baseball DNA. It's a testament in some ways to what makes baseball such a great sport. The notion that it takes the combined effort of 25 players to succeed, all willing to sacrifice, to risk, to lay out and dive on the Astro-Turf at any given moment for a chance to win that night.
Some might say that the Angels are more like the super teams of the Yankees and Dodgers, with a salary edging up to the salary cap, and expensive free agents in the core of the batting order, but what I see in the Angels this year, is a team that has had to compete with the Oakland A's and has grown together over the past few seasons as a group. A team which has come together, with some tremendous talent, but also, a team which has it's own vulnerabilities and gaps, and a team that has stepped up this year and put a great effort into what they are doing. Winning Together.
So as the Angels square off against the A's this weekend, I am glad that Oakland is a great team. I am glad that Oakland has played the best regular season baseball for the last three years combined, and that the Angels still have to beat Oakland to win anything this year. I think having a great team in the same division, competing for the same playoff spot is a good thing for the Angels. If the Angels win the division, they know they will have accomplished something that is hard to do. If the teams battle all the way down to the wire, that is a good thing because it will mean the Angels will keep raising their level of play and come together even more as a team down the stretch. Basically, I live for these times, and beating Oakland is a labor of love. It's something worth caring about, worth watching, worth fighting for, and being part of. And when the A's win a game against the Angels, I know they fought for it, and that my team didn't get beat by a second rate team. When the Angels beat the A's, I know they did something right, and that they earned it that night.
There are teams in this league that I don't like, that I don't necessarily respect. Boston immediately comes to mind, with it's pompous obnoxious fans, and it's inflated collective ego. The Yankees with their moneybags and their 25 free agent prostitutes in pinstripes, that pack of mercenaries and steroid abusers. I'm annoyed by the way the East coast broadcasters slobber on their jocks every night. So when the Angels beat teams like those, there is a special kind of joy, like stealing baseball back from something evil and misguided.
The Texas Rangers are another team that comes to mind, as one that I don't really like at all. Ronnie Washington is hard not to like, but the team itself, the players, the Rangers culture.. let's face it, it's a foot ball town, with a sleazeball GM, they can all go frack themselves.
Coming back to the A's though, earlier this season I went to an A's game when I was on a business trip to Oakland. It was Samardzija's first start as an A, it was a Sunday day game I think, and I was able to observe the culture of the stadium. Giant swaths of the upper deck were covered over with green cloth, essentially, seats that could never be sold, and the remaining stadium seats were still only half filled, yet it was filled with passion. It was filled with noise, with families, children, parents, young people, chanting, yelling, drums being pounded, flags being waved. They ohh'd and Ahh'd at every pitch. They stood up and clapped and cheered, and cared, and rooted, but most of all, they Worked. Those A's fans willed the team forward, they Worked like a big green and yellow organism. (I almost said orgasm, but that wouldn't have been far off either). An undulating unified baseball loving creature, and the cheering was almost like a statement against the backdrop of this specter of ownership who wants to scoop the team out of that shell, like an oyster being shucked, and drop the city's heart into San Jose. It almost felt like there was this element from the movie, Major League, where behind some smoked glass windows, an evil owner cracked his knuckles and popped his neck, gasping when the team kept winning, and the crowd kept screaming.
So as this series plays out, and this finish to the season plays out, I will be rooting hard for the Angels, but if you are an Oakland A fan, you don't have to pretend that your team is the Rodney Dangerfield of baseball and gets no respect. The success of the A's is impossible to ignore, and they are a team that is hard to hate if you actually care about the sport of baseball. There is no road to an Angels world series this year, that doesn't go through Oakland, and so as we cross the bay bridge, we pay the toll, you get the respect.
That being said, let's kick some Oakland A'ss tonight, and every night, for the next month. Go Angels.