I was still under the illusion that the Oakland A's had some classy fans, but shock of all shocks occured when a smacktalker on this blog by the handle of vacaAsfan turned out to be using many aliases on our site - one of which was the allegedly classy baseball fan Im4Oakgal.
So we get an illustration of the schizophrenia of the Oakland Chump Fan Base: He-She possesses both the hooliganesque socipathic tendencies of Raider fans AND yet longs for the acceptance as an informed, objective and knowledgable baseball analyzer that Moneyball promised to deliver.
Don't tell the A's fan that He-She is not as gifted as Michael Lewis. Hell, read their Mychael Urban if you want proof...
So they are each a Jekyll and Hyde, wanting to be seen as cerebral statisticians while they stroke themselves in a hot lather over Mark Kotsay's tight asscrack and promise to bully anyone who doesn't share in said circle jerk.
Perhaps they each purchase two tickets from Lew Wolff as he sells them a shitty seat by the foulpole and tarps over the one behind homeplate.
Regardless of the 4,000 split personality chumps who make up the fan base of the Athletics, let's get something straight here.:
1. The Angels are winding up the most successful rebuilding year in American League history.
2. The A's have won impressively, but shot their wad at the MLB casino betting that Milton Bradley and Frankenhurt would stay healthy in 2006, and in a few days we will all be congratulating Billy Beane on this dramatic gamble paying off. They may go all the way or Frank Thomas may be nice to his neighbors in Vegas and swing and miss in the ALDS on purpose.
3. 2007: Frank will be a distant memory, the Angels will actually field a major league team and Andre Ethier challenges for a National League batting title as the Athletics farm system is revealed to be as bare as Old Mother Hubbard's cupboard.
Beane will likely trade high-stock Loaiza for reinforcements in the offseason - and he should. In fact, he better. As difficult as it is to blog for a 2nd place club, it is made nicer by the quality of core Angel fans and the knowledge that the finish line our competition is about to cross leads to an unforgiving cliff. Grab the ring baby, it will make the long drop at least matter.