On the A's

[oaklandhusker]

I wrote this for a school blog. I don't want to link to thepost because I don't the world to know where I go to school, but here is the post, word for word. I'm pretty proud of it.

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This is it. Including tonight, there are a maximum of eight games remaining in the 2012 baseball season. And that's only if the World Series, to be played between the Tigers and the winner of tonight's Cardinals-Giants game, goes to that final and exciting seventh game, down to the wire, do or die.

In an essay my father once made me read, there is a profound quote about the glorious game of baseball. "It breaks your heart." And it's true. A real fan lives and dies with his team, celebrating or mourning after Every. Single. Game. It has certainly been like this for me during this past season. Nobody believed in my beloved team, the Oakland Athletics, better known as the A's. They were, according to most, a rag-tag group of non-superstars. There was the odd exception. Yoenis Cespedes, for example. But for the most part, the A's were an also-ran sort of team.

But I believed. I maintained for all 162 games that they were going to pull out a playoff berth. I wore my A's kippah (which still has the name of the team misspelled) as often as I could. At camp, I sat in the lunchroom during my break and watched the previous day's game on my phone. It was the most exciting season I had ever experienced. And they did it, too. The A's were in sole possession of first place in the AL West for only one day in 2012. Luckily, that one day happened to be the very last, after their 162nd game had been played.

It was off to the American League Division Series against Central Division winners, the Detroit Tigers. And that series was intense. The Tigers demolished the A's in the first two games, and it looked like they were going to pull off a sweep during game 3 in Oakland. But in true A's fashion, they managed to win at the very end. And then they won the next day. And then it all came to an end, going down 6-0 in the final game 5.

Nevertheless, I watched with joy as the very same Tigers who had beaten my team demolished the New York Yankees, sweeping them 4-0 in the League Champion Series. And I have greatly enjoyed pulling for the Cardinals in their series with the Giants, which, like the A's-Tigers showdown, is going the whole distance, all the way to game 7 tonight at 8pm EST.

The World Series will be wonderful. It always is. It is, to me and many otherrealbaseball fans, the most important sporting event of the year. Two teams out of thirty will duke it out to see who is the best in the Majors. Hopefully, just like most of the series this playoffs season, it will go to the full seven games, allowing us to drag out the season to the very end.

Baseball. It breaks your heart. But, like so many others, I keep coming back for more. I count myself among those who follow every pitch with fervor, who read into everything, who wear their team gear at every opportunity. I may not paint my face green and yellow, but I wish I could.

Let's go A's.