Just a tiny insight into how this NorCal boy became a baseball fan for life:
We are one day away from the official season beginning in this baseball season 2019 for the Oakland A’s. I couldn’t be prouder that once again another baseball season beginning. From what I can recall, I have been privileged to go to over close to 60 to 70 games in my time as an Oakland A’s and baseball fan. Growing up, baseball or sports for that matter were never interesting for me to watch. I would occasionally watch or hear about the ball players in the bay area. I even remember us coming back from Mexico one year and my dad asking me if Jose Canseco was still playing in the majors (much to my naïve personality, Jose Canseco by this point was close to calling it a career). I remember the first game I attended as a kid was at the young age of 14 years old. This A’s team had Eric Chavez, Miguel Tejada, Scott Hatterberg, and the big Three of Mulder Zito and Hudson. That night it was Cory Lidle’s turn to pitch and I remember during the game in the left field bleachers there were chants for Miguel Tejada and for other players that night. Looking back at some of the stats from that game on July 19th 2002, I’m amazed that back in the Moneyball era players like John Mabry, Mark Ellis, and David Justice were around for some of the best moments in team history. The score that night ended up being 10-0 A’s due to Lidle pitching a one hit shutout against the Texas Rangers. Little did I know, the Rangers had some stars of their own in Alex Rodriguez, Michael Young, and Ivan ‘Pudge’ Rodriguez and yet here I was. I was surprised on how welcoming the fans were that night to the home team and even though it wasn’t the beginning of my fandom for the Oakland A’s I noticed that as I was a teenager my vanity for sports needed to be in something. For one, it gave me something to talk about with other people at school and my brother liked it so why the hell not. Also, my dad was a fan of the game and even though my parents had immigrated from the state of Zacatecas in Mexico in the late 1980’s they cheered on the Oakland A’s in those years when players such as Henderson, Steinbach, Canseco, Lansford, Eckersley, and Welch held the helm. The next season 2003 around when the ALDS started was when I got into the A’s. I stayed up a little bit later than usual and I was not able to catch the end of the game because I had school the next day but I saw the headlines the next morning that Ramon Hernandez the catcher had won on a walk off bunt. We ended up losing the series 3 games to 2 but I knew there was something about this game that I wanted to know more about. The next season in 2004 was when I became a full-fledged Oakland Athletics fan. I ended up attending one game that season but it was because I was still in school and I knew as my years wore on for college there was no excuse to miss A’s games. I have been there for some of the most unforgettable moments as an A’s fan.
Some of the unforgettable moments I have seen on TV while nowadays we have the comfort of a screen, we can hold in our hands I remember being there in 2005 when the A’s and Angels were battling for the division after earlier in the season most considered our guys to be out of the race for the division. Barry Zito ended up pitching his heart out and ultimately the bottom of the 7th when Jay Payton legged out a triple was when I just about lost it as the A’s rallied for 3 runs in that inning. The two games that stand out for myself as I was becoming a student at De Anza College in Cupertino were when Justin Duchscherer pitched a two hitter against the Seattle Mariners in 2 hours or so. I also remember in 2007 Mark Ellis hitting for the cycle against the Red Sox even though it took a few extra innings with a test that was looming that next day for my government class.
Between 2008-2011 there were A’s games that I attended and in 2010 I wasn’t able to go to any games because my schedule was pretty hectic at that time with school and work. In 2011 things started turning around as management relieved Bob Geren of his duties as manager in May of 2011 and a new era began with Bob Melvin better known to A’s fans as ‘Bo-Mel’ as manager. This season of 2012 started off quite dreadfully with a roster of unknown and I predicted that year that we would end up losing 100 games. I saw a roster with a guy named Josh Reddick and some other guy named Yoenis Cespedes. My brother and myself went to a game around the time of Memorial Day in 2012 with the hometown A’s getting 1 hit against the Angels and with a lineup consisting of Cliff Pennington and Jonny Gomes I thought maybe we could have gotten something better off of the ground as the score that game ended 5-0. That same week, I sat up in the plaza reserved and saw us get shut out twice that same week as this time the damage was done by Joe Girardi and the Yankees as they shut us out 2-0. But then something strange happened as we started winning games left and right with a July record of 19-5 as wins against high powered clubs the Dodgers, Yankees, and the Red Sox had me paying attention even more. 2012 forever holds a special place in my heart. I think my most satisfying experience as an A’s fan has to be when game 162 in 2012 rolled around on October 3rd 2012 that pitted the Rangers against the A’s. I remember walking in and just seeing the sea of A’s fans was like ‘whoa this place is jam packed’. Before this game, there were the rumblings that if we won at least one of the games we would at least take over a playoff spot which in this age was a wildcard game against the other wild card in the American League which is classified as a play in game against one of the division winners. Lo and behold, the A’s pulled off a miraculous comeback to have the division tied up on the last day of the season. That season, I hadn’t won a single game that I gone to that season and I kept telling my friend that I had predicted to that we would lose 100 games ‘dude I think I’m bad luck’. The Rangers scored 5 runs in the first 2 innings and then I just felt that feeling of ‘here we go again with this losing’. But as the innings started piling up for started Ryan Dempster of the Rangers the lineup of Reddick, Donaldson, Moss, Cespedes, Drew, and Crisp brought it against the Rangers and ended up scoring an unanswered 12 runs against the Rangers. I remember after Josh Hamilton dropped the flyball against the Oakland team that Cespedes hit towards him that was probably the turning point in the game.
The ball could have been caught and the inning would have been over but who knows what came was a barrage of celebration towards the team and everyone who was a part of it. The game ended 12-5 A’s and I couldn’t have been prouder as my friend had asked me one day before if we should go still as tickets would be pricey but that was probably the best 50 dollars I ever spent on a ticket. This is my story as an A’s fan and this season I will be celebrating my 15th year as an A’s and as a baseball fan. Last year’s 2018 season was unforgettable and I have no doubt with players such as Matt Chapman, Matt Olson, Stephen Piscotty, Jurickson Profar, Khris Davis, Mike Fiers, Frankie Montas, and Blake Treinen we’ll see something special for years to come. My one wish is to see my baseball team or any of the other two teams I root for (The Tampa Bay Lightning and the Oakland Raiders) to win at least one championship before I die. I like to think baseball is an everyday man’s game with flyballs, grounders, doubles, walk off homeruns, and pitching duels. I like to see it as a numbers game with psychological mindgames amongst players along with what was previously mentioned. You just never know what you will see at a ball game whether it’s the game or otherwise. In closing this out, I want to post a special picture we have of that game 162 that I went to in 2012 where we ended up winning in game 162 where victory was finally hitting me like it had not before, cheers to a great team in the East Bay your Oakland Athletics
Just Another Day... 