Everyone who said the Oakland Athletics would be lucky to win 70 games this year can suck it, because the A's have been unlucky all year and they just won their 70th game! 2008 has mostly been a lost season for the A's (especially the second half), and my interest in baseball has been waning lately, just like this post on Catfish Stew.
All the players I like are now gone.
Rich Harden was traded. Justin Duchscherer is probably lost for the year. Eric Chavez is out for the season, and may never grace the hot corner again. Frank Thomas is out for the season, and may never play again. Mark Ellis is out for the season, and may never return to Oakland.
Who is left to watch? The Oakland A's have been drained from my soul. I feel empty. What is left to say? Meaningless talking points, nothing more.
But now, this three game winning streak and crossing the 70 win threshold has renewed my interest in the A's for the last two weeks of the baseball season. They were eliminated from the playoffs long ago, but if they win their last eleven games in a row (unlikely), they'll have a winning season! And if they go 6-5 (possible), they'll have a better record than they did in 2007. And they'll probably have a better record than the Giants, even if very few people in the Bay Area even know that baseball is still going on. And the Sacramento Rivercats (Oakland's triple-A affiliate) just won their fourth PCL title and second straight Bricktown Showdown (AAA World Series), which is doubly impressive since the A's suffered so many injuries that all the best Rivercats players are already in the majors.
With the end of the baseball season, it's time for me to assess my preseason picks. Here are the list of current division leaders along with the place I picked them before the season. I would be doing really well... if I were picking in bizarro world!
AL East: Tampa Bay Rays (last place)
AL Central: Chicago White Sox (last place)
AL West: Angels (1st place)
NL East: Phillies (2nd place)
NL Central: Cubs (2nd place)
NL West: Dodgers (4th place)
I had one division right (AL West) and the other two AL divisions as wrong as I could (picking the first place teams to finish last). In the NL the Phillies, Cubs, and Dodgers are in first because of collapses by the Mets, Brewers, and Diamondbacks (who I picked first).
One of the best things about this year's baseball season is that the New York Yankees will not make the postseason for their first time in 15 years. So this Sunday's "last game ever" at Yankee Stadium will be the last game ever at Yankee Stadium! And I picked the Yankees to finish third, so I had them pegged as a non-playoff team before the start of the season.
Even though they lost to the A's yesterday, I like the Angels in the AL playoffs, possibly in a Golden State Freeway series against the Dodgers. That's a World Series matchup that somehow excites me, and I don't like either team that much. A Cubs-White Sox series (1906 rematch) would also be a good one, especially if it gets Cub fans to stop whining about one hundred years without a title.
With all the stuff about hurricanes, the financial crises, and the volatile presidential race, I've decided to boycott the news as much as possible. It's pretty easy to not read the paper and tune out TV/radio news, but hard to look the other way when my iGoogle page shows the Dow dropping another 450 points today. Time to set my "no bad news" filter on in Google News!
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