I’m not sure if I wrote about the following experience on this blog. (I tend to write in the grand tradition of self-absorbed blow-hards…the tediousness still exists to this day.) The world is full of holes. That’s always how it seems with thoughts that transition into stories: one minute there’s nothing, and the next minute it’s there, already sitting inside you. Memories…
I was a bad kid. Juvenile hall and all that shit. My mom sent me to live with my grandparents when I was 16. I moved from Northern California to the southlands of Orange County. My grandparents ran a motel in Buena Park, Ca. not but 5 miles or so north of Anaheim. Grandpa and I used to go to Angels games now and then to see the likes of Gary Gaetti, Jim Abbott, Mark Langston, Chili Davis, and old man Jimmie Reese. (Babe Ruth’s roommate) Jimmie was an honorary coach because of his age and stature, and he would sign autographs and answer any questions the young kids had about baseball. I loved it and would ask him casual questions about the Babe. We were Oakland A’s fans until the grave, yet we were baseball fans overall, so we took what we could get. I had nothing but great memories of the “Big A.” Mind you, all of this happened before the new ownership, the condescending attitudes, bloated payroll, self-righteous disdain and that idiotic Disney rock pile in the left/center field. (Now everyone in the “real” Los Angeles area makes fun of the Angels because of their unfortunate name and “intellectually inferior” suburban plight.)
The recent collapse by the Oakland ballclub has thrown the fan base into a bit of a controlled rage. The Anaheim Republicans recently swept us in 4, throwing us into that unfortunate abyss of Wild Card hell. But…as every Oakland fan woke up on Saturday; no doubt bleary-eyed/ hung over from the festivities from the day before…..we decided to sign Adam Dunn. Adam Fucking Dunn.
The rest of the league laughed at our desperation! Not ONE team wanted him at the trading deadline. Dunn was a has- been. A steaming pile of crap on a junkies’ ball sack. The limping, lame orphaned dog that everyone wished would be put out of its misery. The cyst on your ass that you never noticed until your girlfriend laughs at you and lances as you fantasize about porn star A,B, OR C.
Our kind of guy.
Dunn hit a homer in his first AB as an Athletic on a hot, sticky day at the Coliseum on Monday afternoon; not a moon shot , but a moment of hope. This was a meaningless homerun in the baseball world, yet to Athletics fans it was akin to the battered and bloody boxer that had recently been knocked down in the 12th round. Yet, in this story the boxer gets up…again, as he had done so many times before….and he says, “I’m still here….let’s get it on.”
