Have you heard of this stouthearted Base-ball club, the Oakland Athletics? Tearing it up after a miserable first two months of the season. If you're unfamiliar with the A's, please note:
- The Athletics are the only baseball team whose name is a type of physical activity, unless I'm unaware of minor league teams like the Scranton Leisure or the Billings Toil.
- If you're from the Bay Area, watching the Giants this year is like watching a live, on-the-field version of The Aristocrats, only not funny. Imagine the Bruce Vilanch or Smothers Brothers versions. ("...then Pedro Feliz mounts Kirk Reuter...") And despite what a few rabid drum-beaters in Oakland will tell you, there's no crosstown rivalry, so feel free to jump back & forth at the slightest shift of the standings like a miserable goddamn bandwagoneer. I do.
- The Athletics have a proud history: they were once the Kansas City Athletics; before that, the Philadelphia Athletics; and, in the 1800s, the Wilkes-Barre Mustachioed Nine. The Mustachioed Nine featured colorful characters such as "Gentleman Jim" Dandy, Hoss Breeches, and the legendary Charlemagne DuBois. DuBois pioneered the bipedal fielding stance favored in the modern era.
- Small payroll, plucky, Moneyball, blah blah. Actually, the only possible reason to dislike the A's is that this angle is overplayed.
- The crowd at the Coliseum broke into the catchy and timeless chant of "Saarloos! Saarloos!" yesterday.
