While watching the Giants” World Series Game 1 victory last night, I faced a tough question: should I be happy or upset?
In the interest of full disclosure, I”ve supported the Oakland Athletics for my entire baseball-watching life, going to games or catching them on television.
So, I can relate to the difficulty some A”s fans must be having with this World Series. Who should they root for: The crosstown rival or the American League West Division rival? It”s the 2002 Fall Classic all over again.
The pros and cons for each team are intriguing.
The Texas Rangers offer A”s fans plenty of reasons to root for them.
The Rangers are the most innocuous of all the AL West teams, especially considering that they”ve been competitively non-existent the past decade. At least it”s not the hated Angels playing for it all, like in 2002.
Plus many fans of AL teams enjoy rooting for other AL teams because the AL style of baseball (characterized by great hitting, exhilarating defense and good-to-mediocre pitching) appeals to fans. It”s not the low-scoring, offensively-lacking National League game.
Then there”s the Rangers” figurehead, manager Ron Washington, one of our own. Washington was the Athletics” longtime third-base coach and a fan favorite.
In fact, many A”s fans hoped Washington would become A”s manager when the job became available following the team”s run to the AL Championship Series in 2006.
But the media-proclaimed genius that is Billy Beane decided to go with minor league manager and journeyman backup catcher Bob Geren.
Don”t get me wrong, the past four years under Geren have been exhilarating, watching him finally take the A”s to the peak of his potential this year, a final record of 81-81.
But A”s fans have no choice but to wonder “what if?” while staring into the Rangers” dugout Wednesday night. At the top step, there was Washington, who successfully guided the Rangers through a rebuilding process since the 2007 season (making Geren”s rebuilding attempt look like the Andrew Johnson administration).
The AL connection and the Ron Washington reverence might be enough to compel some A”s fans to root for Texas.
On the other hand, some fans will look vindictively upon Washington”s success in Texas, making it easy to root against the Rangers.
Some other fans will also factor in that the Rangers, though innocuous in recent years, are still a longtime A”s rival. Those fans could never bring themselves to root for the Rangers, despite Washington”s excellent managing job, the thrilling rate at which they score runs and the eloquent dominance of pitcher Cliff Lee.
It”s a tough call because in the opposite dugout were the Giants.
There are two types of A”s fans, who live in or hail from Northern California: those who support the A”s first, Giants second, or those who support A”s first, and that”s it.
Choosing a team to support should be easy for that first group of fans, but even more perplexing for the second.
On the one hand, there”s the hometown connection. The Giants are a neighboring team, and we all probably know as many Giants fans as A”s fans.
And the Giants do play a style of ball reminiscent of the A”s of the 2000s: extraordinary pitching complemented by timely hitting.
Still, the Giants are the crosstown rivals, the A”s enemy every season during interleague play, and the team the A”s crushed during the 1989 World Series. Some A”s fans would be jealous of their Giants-fan neighbors, resenting any over-exuberance in the wake of a Giants” series victory.
Fans still hold fresh in their minds an image of the Giants, taking the form of a true baseball villain, which happens to be a bulging, oversized, high-voiced, home run-hitting, arrogant poster child for all that was wrong with Major League Baseball”s steroid era.
(Though all A”s fans should recognize two things: the A”s have had a significant number of former players admit to using performance-enhancing drugs and Barry Bonds is still only alleged to be a knowing user.)
My personal leanings have been to root against the Giants at all cost, as if they were a hated division rival. I prefer AL baseball and am enamored with the job Washington has done in Texas.
But this World Series, I”m pulling for the Giants.
The Giants are the hot, underdog team. They have outstanding starting pitching, an electric, bearded closer and a lineup that combines home run power with timely hitting.
I have numerous friends who are Giants fans and they deserve a championship, which would be the Giants” first in San Francisco.
Texas is a more significant rival, in the sense that the A”s play the Rangers nearly 20 times a season as opposed to the six games a year they play the Giants, and therefore should be a more hated rival.
Nothing would be more painful for A”s fans than to hear over and over in 2011 that their team is playing the defending champion.
All A”s fans should join me in saying, “Go Giants, get ”em again tonight.”
Jeremy Walsh is a staff reporter for Lake County Publishing. He can be reached at 263-5636 ext.37 or jwalsh@record-bee.com.
