March 28, 2005
Just Baseball
Ray Ratto offers a number of reasons for Bay Area fans to watch the Athletics this season.
The A's are giving us the eternal hope of spring, and the promise of the eager nonroster player, and the smell of the morning grass, and the sweet sounds of ball on bat, ball on leather, and "Kevin Pittsnogle from the corner . .. FOR THREE!"
Yes, the A's are giving us baseball, and man, are they missing the point.
Maybe Billy Beane and Ken Macha and whoever owns the team this morning think that the A's gave up a large part of their alumni list to the sideshow. Canseco, McGwire, Jason Giambi, Sandy Alderson, Tony La Russa ... those are quite a few ponies to add to the dogs that turned the steroid hearings into "CSI: Foggy Bottom."
Maybe they are too young to have earned their spurs in scandal, or too clever to have been caught on the bad side of the syringe.
Maybe they are just bluff old traditionalists channeling Connie Mack, Jimmie Foxx and the Dead Ball Era.
All we know is this: Baseball isn't selling the innocence of promise this spring, but the A's are.
Baseball Musings is holding a pledge drive during March. Click here for details.
Funny.
Ray Ratto was on ESPN News after the Hudson and Mulder deals announcing that the A's franchise had given up and would lose 110 games and never be able to compete, again.
White Elephant Syndrome.
Ratto is a blowhard, who sometimes makes a point, but really just writes as if his pains of constipation were a commonality amongst all people. Ratto doesn't cover sports as much as he reacts to them. He definitely doesn't do any research. And rarely does he go a month without contradicting himself.
