I Hate My Favorite Baseball Team

Those would be the Oakland A's, the only baseball team that I've ever been a season ticket holder. Some of the best times in my life were either spent at the park or just listening on the radio to the sublime Bill King. I've read "Moneyball" and posted to A's blogs and even been to A's fan group outings... so how has it come to this?

I still want them to win, will watch them when they are on, look to their box score first, and wear the merch, Billy Beane remains the only GM or owner in any sport that I'd piss on if he were on fire.

I just can't stand watching them.

Why? Because this year's Oakland A's team not only isn't winning that much -- at 43-41, they are 8 games out of the division and 6 games out of the wild card -- but they've also committed the cardinal sin of being no fun to watch. By valuing the subtle things that win ball games and can be found on the open market relatively cheaply, they've managed to drain the lifeblood out of the ways in which baseball can appeal on a visceral level.

Like watching a ball shoot into the gap and seeing if the hitter can go for three? The A's aren't the team for you. Despite playing half of their games in a park with funky angles and an outfield that, during football season, sends balls to the wall faster than an airport tarmac, they rank 26th in MLB in baseball's most exciting hit.

How about when your pitcher rears back with a 2-strike count and blows the hitter away with heat? Not so much with these A's, who despite the AL's best ERA, rank just 23rd in MLB in strikeouts. Blame the perpetually injured Rich Harden, the biggest tease to hit Oakland since Todd van Poppel.

Does watching young players emerge from obscurity wet your whistle? It does for me, which is why those A's teams from earlier in the decade where such a kick in the pants... and why this team is such a collection of blah.

This era gives you the failed promise of guys like Harden and Bobby Crosby. Crosby's excuse is frequent injuries, but at some point, you have to accept that hitting like Jose Hernandez is not acceptable, no matter what your excuse is.

You can also take a good whiff of Eric Chavez, who used to bear a passing resemblance to a Hall of Fame third baseman, and now looks more like a platoon player. Chavy now holds the dubious distinction of being the active player with the most home runs who has never made it to an All-Star Game, and his current .250 BA isn't going to get him an at-large invite this year, either.

I won't even get into the certifiably bad guys on the roster -- not many, because Beane is smart enough not to give knuckleheads the fuel they need to hijack a clubhouse, but still. Esteban Loiaza and his DUI is not much fun to root for, even when he isn't hurt. Arthur Rhodes and Mark Redman were such asshats, the team had to take on the ruinous contract of Jason Kendall, who is in the last year of a contract that's so bad, he should be in the NBA. ($10 million for a catcher with a breathtaking .540 OPS, which is the lowest in MLB among players with enough at-bats to measure. Tasty.)

Mind you, these A's *do* have their fun moments. Jack Cust gives hope to every beer leaguer. Dan Haren haunts the dreams of Cardinals fans who are paying for the broken-down years of Mark Mulder. Travis Buck has half of the team's triples, looks very good for his age and made Milton DL Bradley go away. Daric Barton is tearing up AAA and could be Pujolsian one day soon. Let's make it soon.

If they ever got back the myriad number of injured players, especially in the bullpen -- where the team has somehow patched together outs due mainly to the joy of being rested from the quality starting staff -- they could go on one of their traditional July/August runs that saves the year.

But for now, the team just looks like Mark Kotsay to me... a textbook defensively, means well, nice guy, tries hard, with occasional moments of power, gets the most out of his abilities... and a .622 OPS. And he ain't getting any better.

I'd rather watch Kurt Suzuki than Jason Kendall. I want to see Daric Barton now, not when the season's decided, even if that means the outfield becomes a defensive nightmare. I'd rather watch some minor-league kid than Crosby (another .622 OPS). And I can't be the only A's fan that feels this way. Let's move on to people with a future, because the present is making me feel like this guy.


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And the season is too long for that.