Bored

Found a bunch of new original game footage clips. Someone posted a bunch of Steeler clips but won't post them all here. Immaculate Reception, original footage reshown on NBC in the early 90's Classic finish to the 1996 AFC Championship game The game that wanted me to kill Bubby Brister's mom...who shows up at the end of the clip 1979 MNF Eagles vs. Cowboys, Tony Franklin hits a 59 yard field goal Comp clip of Eric Dickerson's record breaking playoff game against the Cowboys in 1986 Steve Christie's game winning field goal to cap greatest comeback ever Tom Dempsey's 63 yard field goal from 1970, original footage

ESPN/Fox Games To Poison Our Youth With MONDAY Assholes (PV4S) at Assholes (So Very Fat), 1:00 PM/10:00 AM, ESPN2 Dodgers (Chad Billingsley) at Padres (Chan Ho Park), 10:00/7:00 PM, ESPN2 WEDNESDAY White Sox (Freddy Garcia) at Tigers (Zach Miner), 7:00/4:00 PM, ESPN2 THURSDAY Cardinals (Jason Marquis) at Mets (Dave Williams), 7:00/4:00 PM, ESPN2 SATURDAY Nationals at Braves, 1:00 PM EST, Fox Cubs at Cardinals, Noon CST, Fox Yankees at Angels, 4:00/1:00 PM, Fox SUNDAY Cubs at Cardinals, 8:00/5:00 PM, ESPN

Okay I need to get my eyes checked...I was looking at San Diego when glancing at the standings. Still the N.L. can suck my dick. Two years in a row the Giants get to be terrible but stay in the hunt.

The Giants are now only a half game out of the Wild Card. Man the National League can suck my dick. And I sooooooo was looking forward to the A's actually getting the majority of the attention of the Bay Area media late in the season for the first time in 14 years.

Another entry flushed because I'm a dumbass. I had been working on for an hour and a half on a new "Where'd They Go?" entry, this one on the '91 Mariners but decided to be typing here in the blog instead of C&P from a Word file. I was almost done with their line-up and but I had to restart my computer and I hit restart before realizing I hadn't saved my entry. So this is a complete throw away entry and I'll just talk briefly about one thing. -ESPN I'm going to let you in on a little something...you don't have Monday Night Football. You may have the name, you might be showing games on Monday nights this year, but you don't have Monday Night Football. Monday Night Football is now shown on Sunday nights. NBC landed the dream deal where they will be able select better games the last couple of months of the season while ESPN your stuck with your lousy schedule. What you have ESPN is Sunday Night Football on Monday nights. No shock at all NBC's presentation and coverage absolutely smokes ESPN's, even though NBC hasn't covered the sport since 1997. It's pathetic the way they've been hyping their preseason MNF games and then after the game ends they start SportsCenter with a 15 minute segment with extended highlights and analyzing the game people just saw, a meaningless exhibition. It's scary to think how much coverage and hype they'll give to their regular season MNF games.

Carlos Delgado isn't even having that good of a year but his standards. He's still slugging near his career mark but his average and OBP are way down. Saying he does more for his team that Albert Pujols is ludicrous.

I've never been quite sure what it is either but from best I can tell it is free but I've never tried to watch a game live to see if it was. I guess I'll try to give it a shot on Thursday to see if the Minnesota/Kent State game comes through for free.

Figured it'd end soon after ESPNews jumped on it. Why was I watching ESPNews instead of the game? Because it's not televised locally. First place, late August, night game...not televised. A's local t.v. deal has been a joke for years now. Now I hope they just hold on for the win and keep the pressure on the Angels.

nogoodnick is right, Oregon State has historically been the worst team. They had an NCAA record 28 straight losing season from '71 to '98. I would be remiss in not mention Cal's futility over the years and that they haven't been to the Rose Bowl since 1959. Here are the overall records since the conference added the Arizona schools in 1978, from the Pac-10 media guide. (Conference, Overall) 1. USC (150-62-5, 228-103-8) 2. Washington (142-75-3, 217-109-3) 3. UCLA (133-82-5, 207-114-7) 4. Arizona State (110-98-4, 190-129-4) 5. Oregon (111-105-2, 178-142-4) 6. Arizona (105-109-6, 171-143-8) 7. Stanford (98-120-3, 146-166-5) 8. Washington State (92-125-4, 158-156-5) 9. California (83-137-5, 141-174-2) 10. Oregon State (52-163-5, 98-211-6)

Maybe, but my arguement is that Sizemore may not get on base as often....but he goes farther when he does (the higher SLG and OPS numbers). The walks are about the same, but Grady has about DOUBLE the extra base hits that Jeter does. That's gotta count for something. I don't really buy into the whole Win Shares thing; I'm pretty much looking at it in a basis of pure stats. But if you're only going to rely on basic stats one has to point out Jeter's huge edge in RBI as well despite have so fewer number of extra base hits. Sizemore has a .315/.397/.596 line with the bases empty but then only a .269/.368/.394 line with RISP. Jeter on the other hand is hitting .385/.490/.538 with RISP.* * - Poster does not endorse this line of argument and also points out that Jeter hits better with the bases empty than with RISP during his career but does think Jeter is having a better year than Sizemore.

Jeter's huge edge in OBP really tips the scales for him more than the counting stats. And when you bring in those EVIL~ sabermetric stats that are ruining baseball or something Jeter beats Sizemore out in EQA, VORP, and Win Shares.

In the ongoing debate in college football of playoffs vs. bowls I certainly come on the side of playoffs. I personally think the bowls have out lived their usefulness and that any tradition left in the system was pissed away when the Big Ten and Pac-10 agreed to join the BCS a few years back thus no longer guaranteeing that those two conference’s champions would meet in the Rose Bowl. Since the creation of the BCS in 1998 it has only avoided controversy twice, in 2002 and 2005 simply because they lucked out by having two major conference, unbeaten teams left at the end of the year. Not surprisingly those are the only two years that the BCS title game hasn’t been terrible. It is only in years like 2002 and 2005 where the BCS “works” but if you look at college football’s history there are several years with scenarios where such a system would have been incapable of solving any controversy. One of those years was 1993. After many near misses at a national title Bobby Bowden and Florida State came into 1993 the run away favorites to win the title. Led by the eventual Heisman trophy winner Charlie Ward, the Seminoles destroyed every team in their path. I had forgotten how dominate they were, just look at their jaw dropping results from that year. 8/28 vs. Kansas 42-0 9/4 at Duke 45-7 9/11 vs. Clemson 57-0 9/18 at North Carolina 33-7 10/2 vs. Georgia Tech 51-0 10/9 vs. Miami 28-10 10/16 vs. Virginia 40-14 10/30 vs. Wake Forest 54-0 11/6 at Maryland 49-20 Not even their tormenters from Miami could give them a real challenge. Then came a trip to South Bend. The Irish were also undefeated and came in at #2 in both polls. The Noles fell behind 24-7 but made a furious comeback to pull the game to 31-24. They had the ball on the Irish 14 for one final play but Ward could not connect in the endzone and it looked like FSU’s national title hopes had been dashed but a late season loss yet again. Now going into that weekend Nebraska was undefeated and #3 in the Coaches’ Poll and #4 in the AP Poll (Miami was #3). The Cornhuskers had not been nearly as dominate as the Seminoles and Irish, with one point wins over UCLA and Kansas. The coaches would move Nebraska to #2 ahead of FSU but the media would leave the Seminoles ahead of the Huskers. Things then of course got really interesting the following week as after their triumph over Florida State and now with strangle hold on the #1 ranking in both polls, the Irish were stunned at home by Boston College in another classic on a last second field goal 41-39. FSU that weekend slaughtered another ACC foe, N.C. State 62-3, and in the media poll reclaimed the #1 spot while Nebraska grabbed the #1 spot in the coaches poll. The Irish dropped all the way to #4 in both polls behind two different interesting stories. In the coaches poll at #3 was a surprising West Virginia team had upset Miami that week to improve to 10-0 which finally earned them some serious respect, but they were #5 in the media poll. #3 in that poll was Auburn. Auburn was on probation and ineligible for postseason, they concluded their regular season undefeated but nothing to show for it. The final weekend of the regular season would play out with FSU and Nebraska disposing of their rivals, Florida and Oklahoma, while West Virginia edged Boston College 17-14 and thus ending the season with a serious poll controversy. Here’s how the regular season concluded in the polls. AP 1. Florida State 11-1 2. Nebraska 11-0 3. West Virginia 11-0 4. Auburn 11-0 5. Notre Dame 10-1 Coaches 1. Nebraska 11-0 2. West Virginia 11-0 3. Florida State 11-1 4. Notre Dame 10-1 5. Auburn 11-0 This is was a complete nightmare. The coaches felt the right thing to do was put Nebraska and West Virginia at the top two spots but many didn’t think either was on the level of Florida State and Notre Dame. Of course the media poll was ripped to shreds as how could you have FSU at #1 and the Irish at #5, let alone have West Virginia below FSU when they beat Boston College, who beat Notre Dame, who beat Florida State. This was the type of scenario that only a playoff could have solved. Interestingly enough there was one poll left after the SEC title game, which with Auburn ineligible didn’t have much meaning on the national scene, the media bumped the Irish past Auburn even though neither played. In the bowl selection process the Orange Bowl held all the cards as who they picked would likely decide that national title. Nebraska had the automatic invite with winning the Big 8 so after that they had the choice of Florida State, West Virginia, and Notre Dame. The would choose the Seminoles, Notre Dame would head to the Cotton Bowl against Texas A&M, and West Virginia to the Sugar Bowl against Florida. In the afternoon of January 1st the Irish edged A&M 24-21. West Virginia would prove their doubters right as they would get murdered by the Gators 41-7 and potentially helping the pollsters quite a bit. If Nebraska could beat Florida State they would get an undefeated and relatively undisputed national champion. They took a 16-15 lead with a little over a minute to go but Charlie Ward would march the Seminoles down the field in a drive that included a fourth down conversion and very controversial personal foul penalty for a field goal and an 18-16 lead with 21 seconds left. A celebration penalty though gave Nebraska life and get in field goal range but kicker Byron Bennett badly hooked the 45 yard attempt. Everyone waited for the polls the next day to see if Notre Dame jumped Florida State due to the way everything shook out but the Irish’s unconvincing win over the Aggies left them at #2 and Bobby Bowden with his long awaited first national title, despite losing to the team who was at #2. Preseason AP Top 25 1. Florida State 2. Alabama 3. Michigan 4. Texas A&M 5. Miami 6. Syracuse 7. Notre Dame 8. Nebraska 9. Florida 10. Tennessee 11. Colorado 12. Washington 13. Gerogia 14. Arizona 15. Stanford 16. Penn State 17. Ohio State 18. USC 19. BYU 20. North Carolina 21. Boston College 22. Oklahoma 23. Clemson 24. Mississippi State 25. N.C. State Top 25 Regular Season Match-ups Week 1 #20 North Carolina 31, #18 USC 9 Week 2 #3 Miami 23, #20 Boston College 7 Week 3 #1 Florida State 57, #21 Clemson 0 #11 Notre Dame 27, #3 Michigan 23 #17 Oklahoma 44, #5 Texas A&M 14 #8 Tennessee 38, #22 Georgia 6 #10 Colorado 45, #24 Baylor 21 #16 Ohio State 21, #12 Washington 12 Week 4 #1 Florida State 33, #13 North Carolina 7 #9 Florida 41, #5 Tennessee 34 #20 Stanford 41, #7 Colorado 37 Week 5 #3 Miami 35, #13 Colorado 29 #18 North Carolina 35, #19 N.C. State 14 Week 6 None Week 7 #1 Florida State 28, #3 Miami 10 #13 Washington 24, #16 California 23 #25 UCLA 68, #19 BYU 14 Week 8 #1 Florida State 40, #15 Virginia 14 #2 Alabama 17, #10 Tennessee 17 tie #19 Auburn 38, #4 Florida 35 #5 Ohio State 28, #25 Michigan State 21 #18 Michigan 21, #7 Penn State 13 #20 Colorado 27, #9 Oklahoma 10 #22 UCLA 39, #12 Washington 25 Week 9 #6 Miami 49, #23 Syracuse 0 #7 Arizona 9, #25 Washington State 6 #21 Virginia 17, #12 North Carolina 10 Week 10 #3 Ohio State 24, #12 Penn State 6 #6 Nebraska 21, #20 Colorado 17 #15 UCLA 37, #7 Arizona 17 #25 Kansas State 21, #14 Oklahoma 14 #24 Michigan 13, #21 Wisconsin 21 Week 11 #3 Ohio State 14, #15 Wisconsin 14 tie #7 Tennessee 45, #13 Louisville 10 #19 Penn State 38, #17 Indiana 31 Week 12 #2 Notre Dame 31, #1 Florida State 24 #5 Ohio State 23, #19 Indiana 17 #11 Texas A&M 42, #20 Louisville 7 Week 13 #17 Boston College 41, #1 Notre Dame 39 #9 West Virginia 17, #4 Miami 14 #6 Auburn 22, #11 Alabama 14 #16 UCLA 27, #22 USC 21 #25 Virginia Tech 20, #23 Virginia 17 Week 14 #1 Florida State 33, #7 Florida 21 #2 Nebraska 21, #16 Oklahoma 7 #5 West Virginia 17, #11 Boston College 14 #14 Penn State 38, #25 Michigan State 37 Week 15 #9 Florida 28, #16 Alabama 13 (SEC Title) #10 Wisconsin 41, #25 Michigan State 20 Bowl Results (MVP) Las Vegas: Utah State 42, Ball State 33 (Anthony Calvillo) Sun: #19 Oklahoma 41, Texas Tech 10 (Jerald Moore) Aloha: #17 Colorado 41, #25 Fresno State 30 (Rashaan Salaam) Liberty: Louisville 18, Michigan State 7 (Jeff Brohm) Copper: #20 Kansas State 52, Wyoming 17 (Andre Coleman) Holiday: #11 Ohio State 28, BYU 21 (Raymont Harris) Freedom: USC 28, Utah 21 (Johnnie Morton) Gator: #18 Alabama 24, #12 North Carolina 10 (Brian Burgdorf) Alamo: California 37, Iowa 3 (Dave Barr) Peach: #24 Clemson 14, Kentucky 13 (Brentson Buckner) Independence: #22 Virginia Tech 45, #21 Indiana 20 (Maurice DeShazo) Fiesta: #16 Arizona 29, #10 Miami 0 (Chuck Levy) Carquest: #15 Boston College 31, Virginia 13 (Glenn Foley) Hall of Fame: #23 Michigan 42, N.C. State 7 (Tyrone Wheatley) Cotton: #4 Notre Dame 24, #7 Texas A&M 21 (Lee Becton) Citrus: #13 Penn State 31, #6 Tennessee 13 (Bobby Engram) Rose: #9 Wisconsin 21, #14 UCLA 16 (Brent Moss) Sugar: #8 Florida 41, #3 West Virginia 7 (Errict Rhett) Orange: #1 Florida State 18, #2 Nebraska 16 (Charlie Ward) Final AP Top 25 1. Florida State 2. Notre Dame 3. Nebraska 4. Auburn 5. Florida 6. Wisconsin 7. West Virginia 8. Penn State 9. Texas A&M 10. Arizona 11. Ohio State 12. Tennessee 13. Boston College 14. Alabama 15. Miami 16. Colorado 17. Oklahoma 18. UCLA 19. North Carolina 20. Kansas State 21. Michigan 22. Virginia Tech 23. Clemson 24. Louisville 25. California All-Americans QB Charlie Ward, Florida State RB Marshall Faulk, San Diego State LeShon Johnson, Northern Illinois Errict Rhett, Florida WR J.J. Stokes, UCLA Johnnie Morton, USC Ryan Yarborough, Wyoming TE Carlester Crumpler, East Carolina Pete Mitchell, Boston College OL Mark Dixon, Virginia Stacy Seegars, Clemson Aaron Taylor, Notre Dame Wayne Gandy, Auburn Jim Pyne, Virginia Tech Korey Stringer, Ohio State Marcus Spears, Northwestern State Rich Braham, West Virginia Todd Steussie, California Bernard Williams, Georgia DL Rob Waldrop, Arizona Dan Wilkinson, Ohio State Sam Adams, Texas A&M Lou Benfatti, Penn State Derrick Alexander, Florida State Shante Carver, Arizona Kevin Patrick, Miami Bryant Young, Notre Dame LB Trev Alberts, Nebraska Derrick Brooks, Florida State Jamir Miller, UCLA Barron Wortham, UTEP Dana Howard, Illinois DB Antonio Langham, Alabama Aaron Glenn, Texas A&M Jeff Burris, Notre Dame Corey Sawyer, Florida State Bobby Taylor, Notre Dame Bracey Walker, North Carolina Jaime Mendez, Kansas State K Bjorn Merten, UCLA John Becksvoort, Tennessee John Stewart, SMU P Terry Daniel, Auburn KR David Palmer, Alabama

Bowl names are still a bit unsettled but it really doesn't matter what they end up as but I did want to get the bowl bids set up before the season starts. Here are the bowl name changes I've received: Traditional Bowl's sponsor changes from Adam & Eve's Anal Lube to the Yellow Submarine (Kingofthe909) Jack Osborne's Oxycotton Bowl is now TheSWF.com Dust Bowl (Secret Agent) Lucky Strikes Tar Bowl is now Williams Games SinisTar Bowl (teke184) XXNX.com Meow Mix Pussy Bowl is now shortened to Meow Mix Pussy Bowl (iggymcfly) Marvin elected not to change the KFC PETA Bowl. I have not heard from anyone else including APO regarding the sponsor for the Bored Bowl so I'll just leave that off for now. Oh and I decided to go with Vern's idea for the 9th bowl game. Here's how the conference bids will be set up. Bored Bowl: BCS #1 vs. BCS #2 Traditional Bowl presented by the Yellow Submarine: Pac-8 #1/BCS vs. Big MAC #1/BCS TheSWF.com Dust Bowl: BCS vs. BCS Williams Games SinisTar Bowl: SE7 #2 vs. Big MAC #2 Out Magazine Bowl: WAC #2 vs. Big 8 #2 KFC PETA Bowl: Pac-8 #2 vs. Big 8 #3 Meow Mix Pussy Bowl: SE7 #3 vs. WAC #3 Ex-Lax Toilet Bowl: Big MAC #3 vs. Pac-8 #3 FireJoeMorgan.com Bowl: At-large vs. At-large Week 1 thread will be posted Thursday night.

Shawn Green has been traded to the Mets. D-Backs will pick up $6.3 million of the $12.75 million remaining on his contract through next year.

ESPN is reporting he's going to enroll at Nebraska.

Interesting bit of news this week at ASU as after naming Sam Keller as the starting quarterback Dirk Koetter changed his mind two days later and named Rudy Carpenter the starter. Keller might jump ship now and transfer.

Starting off topic, but are the Red Sox cursed again or something? Seriously stop with this “Boston Massacre” shit ESPN. Oh my god they won’t win the East…just like the last 10 years. They still have a shot at the Wild Card and a shot at ruining the playoffs for me again with another Yankees/Red Sox ALCS. 1975 World Series Game 5 - Reds 6, Red Sox 2 (boxscore and play account) -As mentioned before the video quality of these games has not held up very well. The first few innings of this game the video is waaaaaaaaay too bright but the quality is fairly decent the rest of the game. -Graphic flashes that Joe Morgan has led the league in “on base average” three of the last four years. Gowdy brings up a quote from during the year, or supposedly it was, that a writer saying something to Joe in the effect of “you get on base a lot” and Joe replied “that’s what I get paid to do.” Wait it’s not hitting a ground ball to the right with a runner on first and less than two out? Say it ain’t so Joe, say it ain’t so. -What the hell died on Tom Brenneman’s head? -In the 6th with Morgan on first, Red Sox starter Reggie Cleveland throws over to first base 15 times. Ya that’s just a bit excessive. Not surprisingly Cleveland gives up a single to Bench and then a homerun to Perez and gets knocked out of the game, no doubt tiring after all those throws to first. -Hey a Dick Pole sighting. The announcers mention that Pole had his jaw broken earlier in the year by a line drive. Got to watch out for those balls to the face Dick. -They bring up that Don Gullet once scored 11 touchdowns in a high school football game. I wonder if Don does any Al Bundy type reminiscing about that game or pitching in four World Series? 1979 World Series Game 5 - Pirates 7, Orioles 1 (boxscore and play account) -Yay, the original network graphics show up on this game’s footage after they were missing from Game’s 2 thru 4. -Jim Rooker was the surprise starter over Game 1 starter Bruce Kison for the Pirates. Quite the risk going against the eventual A.L. Cy Young winner in Mike Flannagan with the Pirates season on the line. Rooker kept them in the game though and then Bert Blyleven, who apparently has never been good a big game supposedly or whatever lame reason he’s kept out of the HOF, pitched four shutout innings out of the bullpen to pick up the win. -The special Sunday Night Football game on ABC that night between the Rams and Cowboys is hyped through the whole game. Dallas blew out the eventual NFC champs 30-6. -ABC producers for no apparent reason go back to their Game 1 strategy of showing every single player’s wife that they can. Cosell I’m pretty sure got fully aroused when showing Rich Dauer’s wife as went into creepy old man mode about how he’d like to sit next to the wives. -Fidel Castro apparently picked the Pirates to win the Series. And who says communism doesn’t work? -Chuck Tanner’s mom died the morning of this game. Now in none of these DVD sets is any pregame coverage included but in the actual game they don’t mention this until the 5th inning. Can you imagine if a manger or player’s mom died the morning of a World Series game today how much Fox would play up that angle through the whole game? A little later Cosell accidentally says that Tanner’s wife died and takes a little bit before he (or probably a producer) corrected him. -Cosell’s gushing over Willie Stargell through out this series really reached Tim McCarver/Derek Jeter type levels. Funny enough though late in the game with Stargell up and Cosell in the middle of again talking about how Stargell is saving the city of Pittsburgh or something, he brings up Stargell being 0 for 6 with RISP so far. So in one minute he goes from being Jeter to A-Rod. -Here’s a rule change, in the bottom of the 8th with runners on first and second Doug Stanhouse’s pick off throw trying to get Tim Foli hits Foli in the helmet and bounces all the way into the crowd. The runners are only awarded one base while today it would have been two bases. 1986 World Series Game 5 - Red Sox 4, Mets 2 (boxscore and play account) -I guess in 1986 they still weren’t having the ceremonial first pitch be thrown for the mound as Ted Williams throws it here from the stands. Williams as you see was with his son John Henry. Did they freeze his head too? -Another lackluster outing for Gooden here. He never gets in any rhythm as he seems bothered by the relatively cold weather as he’s constantly blowing on his hands after almost every pitch. He takes so much time the Red Sox hitters then start to mess with him in the 4th and 5th but constantly stepping out of box right before he gets set. -Dave Henderson was a having a huge series to this point going 8 for 18 with a two homeruns and then adding a double and a triple (although should have been a double as Strawberry made a weak effort to get to the ball) in this game. He likely wouldn’t have been playing if Tony Armas wasn’t hurt even though he was the better player at this point. -Overmatch of the Night: Sid Fernandez vs. Rich Gedman. Six pitches, six swings, six strikes. -After Strawberry pops out to end a mild Mets rally in the 8th the Sox fans greet him with the “Darrrrrrrrrrrryl” chant. He mockingly tips his cap to them. Joe Garagiola says he hates to see this happen to a young player and wonder what it does to him. Trust me Joe he had bigger problems. -After three straight drama free games, Mets bring the tying run to the plate in the 9th with a two out rally but Dykstra goes down swinging -Red Sox up 3-2, Clemens going in Game 6. This one is in the bag…

That 8-0 comeback ties an Oakland club record for their biggest comeback. 12-10 the final. Dan Haren becomes the 2nd pitcher in modern baseball history to win a game after giving up eight runs in the first two innings. Not really a record you want to be a part of.

Rocket Ismail clips. 1989 TD run vs. Pitt 1989 kickoff return vs. Michigan 1990 kickoff return vs. Miami 1991 Orange Bowl vs. Colorado...the punt return called back by a controversial penalty

I don't care about the Little League World Series but check out the 6' 8", 256 lbs, "13 year old" first baseman for Saudi Arabia.

49ers trade Kevan Barlow to the Jets for an undiscolsed draft pick. He turned into complete shit after he got his big contract and was likely going to lose his starting job to Frank Gore.

I bet Dusty is upset that the Cubs didn't trade for Infante. A Perez/Infante is platoon at 2nd is the ultimate offensive chasm. Can someone tell the Mariners they aren't playing the A's for over a month. It's okay for you guys to win games again. Angels tie it up 2-2 in the 8th, going for the four game sweep and a 11th straight loss for Seattle. Edit: Annnnd the Angels win it in the 9th. Fuck.

Last night the Oakland A’s beat the Seattle Mariners 4-0 and by doing so have tied a Major League record with 15 consecutive wins over a divisional opponent (Braves turned the trick against the Padres in 1974). On the season the A’s are 53-51 against everyone besides the Mariners while on the flip side the Mariners are 55-49 against everyone besides the A’s. The A’s dominance of the Mariners has now put them a position that didn’t seem possible just a few weeks earlier and that is a commanding lead in the A.L. West. Now it was just four years ago around this time of year that the A’s were in the middle of another streak, one of much more historic importance that I was able to see in person. On August 12th, 2002 the A’s lost the Toronto Blue Jays 2-1 at home dropping themselves 4 and a half games back of the first place Mariners. They wouldn’t lose another game until 24 days later. The following night an Eric Chavez two run single in the 7th broke a 3-3 tie, Billy Koch made it interesting in the 9th as he usually did but the A’s held on for a 5-4 win. They’d take the rubber match 4-2 the next day. That Friday on the 16th I went to the game with my brother as the A’s played the White Sox, the first of three games I’d attend during the streak not that I had any idea at the time what had started. Jermaine Dye led off the 2nd with a homerun and that would be enough for Cory Lidle and three relievers as the A’s went on to win 1-0. After sweeping the White Sox that weekend they headed to Cleveland for four games. The Indians would hardly put up a fight as the A’s outscored them 29-7 during the four game sweep and left Cleveland in a tie for first now with the Mariners. Next up was a trip Detroit. The A’s crushed the hapless Tigers 9-1 and 12-3 for wins #10 and #11 in the streak and the Mariners had lost both days giving the A’s a two game lead now in the West, a six and a half game swing in a span of 11 games. But in the finale in Detroit it appeared the streak would come to an end. In the 4th starter Aaron Harang was tagged for five runs, capped by a Randall Simon three run homer off reliever Micah Bowie to give the Tigers a 7-2 lead. A’s were still down 7-3 going into the 8th but it was in that inning that you got the feeling this streak wasn’t going to end anytime soon. Greg Myers led off the inning with a homerun, Chavez would hit a two run double a few batters later to cut the lead to a run, and then John Mabry followed with another two run double to give the A’s the lead. They tacked two more runs on in the 9th on a Dye homer and the A’s would win 10-7 for win #12. Off to Kansas City next for a fairly easy sweep to cap a 10-0 road trip and head home with a 15 game winning streak. Now while on this was going on baseball involved in another labor dispute. My Dad and I had tickets to the A’s return game from the road trip on Friday the 30th against the Twins but there was potentially not going to be a game at all as the player’s were set to go on strike the day before if a labor deal was not agreed on. Obviously the A’s had probably more to lose than any team if a strike happened both on the field and at the box office. But for the first time a very, very long time the player’s union compromised with the owners and a strike was avoided. That following night there was a bit of a buzz in the crowd as the A’s closed in the American League record of 19 straight wins held by the ’06 White Sox and ’47 Yankees but at the same time you didn’t get the sense that people thought it would happen. It didn’t help that Jacque Jones would hit the first pitch of the game from Tim Hudson into the right field seats. But Ray Durham would answer with his lead off homerun in the bottom of the inning and the A’s would eventually win 4-2 for win #16. The next day I was off to Tahoe for the weekend for my brother’s bachelor party and I would miss three remarkable games by the A’s, not that I really noticed beyond catching a few highlights at the casinos. A’s won Saturday 6-3, after Ricardo Rincon had coughed up the lead in the top of the 8th they had answered with three runs in the bottom of inning to get the win. With the A’s now two wins shy of tying the record, they would start a streak of three straight games that they would win in their last at bat. Koch would blow a 5-2 lead in the 9th giving up homeruns to Corey Koskie and Micahel Cuddyer. But with two out and one on in the bottom of the 9th, Miguel Tejada hit a walkoff homerun against Eddie Guardado for the 7-5 win. Kansas City came in for Labor Day the next day for a brief two game “series.” The A’s blew yet another late inning lead but Tejada would get the game winning hit again after the A’s loaded the bases for a 7-6 win and tie the A.L. record with 19 straight wins. I came home from Tahoe on Tuesday morning the 3rd and the A’s had an odd off day between the two home games that day. For whatever reasons I hadn’t even thought about going to the game the next night and I was surprised about two hours before the game my Dad asks me if I want to the game but I was like “sure, why not?” Now a weeknight game against the Royals wasn’t going to have much of a presale so we weren’t too concerned about tickets even if we knew there would be a huge walk up because of the possibility witnessing baseball history. I thought that a lot of the walk up would be people getting off work and buying tickets right before the opening pitch. But apparently people were there all day long getting tickets and everything outside of Mount Davis was sold out by the time we got to the game. For those unfamiliar Mount Davis is the football monstrosity that was erected in the outfield of the Oakland Coliseum back in 1996 in place of the old school bleachers. I had never sat on top of Mount Davis and I’ll never do it again unless the A’s get to the World Series. There’s little to no sarcasm in me saying that you have a better view of San Francisco up there than you do of the field. A good portion of the outfield is obstructed so we had to pretty much rely on what the rest of the crowd did to figure what happened on long fly balls. But bad seats aside the game started out as good as anyone could hope for. By the end of the 3rd inning the A’s had torched Paul Byrd and Darrell May for an 11-0 lead. The A.L. record was in the bag. Even when the Royals scored five in the 4th there was still none of the 55,000+ at the game who was worried at all and as the 11-5 lead held most of us just wanted the game to end as soon as possible so we could see the celebration. Then came the 8th with Chad Bradford in the game for the A’s. Brent Mayne walked. Emil Brown walked. Neifi Perez singled. Luis Ordaz reaches on fielder’s choice, no out recorded, Mabry scores, 11-6. Bradford was lifted for Rincon and at this point my Dad and I started to head down the ramps to get down the field level area and watch the rest of the game standing behind the field level seats. Still not that worried but wishing they would stop this from getting too interesting. Now it is a long ass walk down Mount Davis to field level and Michael Tucker struck out while we were walking but as we reached the bottom a large portion of the stadium groaned…Royals just scored again on a Carlos Beltran sac fly. But there were now two out and the A’s were still up 11-7. Rincon was lifted for Jeff Tam and we finally settled on a spot to watch the rest of the game. Any remaining thoughts that the A’s still had this under control soon went out the window. Mike Sweeney crushed one down the left field line and it was now 11-10. It was at that point that I let out a loud “FUCK!” and got a dirty look from some old lady. It was also at that time that Billy Beane was in the A’s clubhouse breaking several things. Thankfully Raul Ibanez grounded out to ended the inning but you suddenly now didn’t even care about the record and were more worried about the A’s being part of a different record by blowing an 11-0 lead. A’s went quietly in the 8th and it was now up to Koch. Joe Randa led off with a single and Mayne bunted him over to 2nd. Koch though would strike out Brown and got two strikes on Luis Alicea…this was it, the 20th straight win! Or not. Alicea singles. Randa scores. Tie game 11-11. The sound you heard in the Coliseum was 55,000+ people being punched in the stomach at the same time. You just couldn’t believe what had happened. A team with a 19 game winning streak, playing one of the worst team’s in baseball, just blew an 11-0 lead. Now faced with possibly extra innings and the A’s bullpen almost completely exhausted, things couldn’t be grimmer. Against Jason Grimsely, Dye led off the night with a harmless fly out. Scott Hatteberg came up to pinch hit for Eric Byrnes. Grimsley missed with the first pitch and then…. Everyone knew it was gone the second it left his bat. I've never been one to start celebrating and high fiving complete strangers at sporting events but you couldn't help it here. In an instant this had gone from the worst game I've ever been to, to the best game I've ever been to. Two days later in Minnesota the streak was over. Exactly one month later the Twins would end the A's season in another dissapointing, heartbreaking playoff ALDS loss by the A's and the streak was forgotten. But it is kind of cool to know that I was able to watch some true baseball history in person. The Streak (* - Game I saw in person) #1: A's 5, Blue Jays 4 #2: A's 4, Blue Jays 2 #3: A's 1, White Sox 0* #4: A's 9, White Sox 2 #5: A's 7, White Sox 4 #6: A's 8, Indians 1 #7: A's 6, Indians 3 #8: A's 6, Indians 0 #9: A's 9, Indians 3 #10: A's 9, Tigers 1 #11: A's 12, Tigers 3 #12: A's 10, Tigers 7 #13: A's 6, Royals 3 #14: A's 6, Royals 4 #15: A's 7, Royals 1 #16: A's 4, Twins 2* #17: A's 6, Twins 3 #18: A's 7, Twins 5 #19: A's 7, Royals 6 #20: A's 12, Royals 11*

That's the one chapter in the book that I will every once in a while go back and reread.

And nevermind the fact that he's still awaiting trial on robbery charges. http://sports.yahoo.com/ncaaf/news;_ylt=Ah...p&type=lgns