Johnny Case in Wonderland . . . hopelessly adrift in popular culture

It’s staying light out until almost 6 PM.  The dark daytime skies of the NW aren’t quite as low to the ground and heavy on the soul as they were just a week ago.  It’s still cold, but it’s not that bone chilling moist air that you can’t get away from.  There are tight buds ready to burst on the Dogwoods in my yard and just yesterday I saw the first green fronds of the season emerging from the boughs of a willow tree.  It’s coming, you can just feel it in the air, but even better than that feeling of a veil receding as we begin edging closer towards spring is the tangibility of the coming future glory of spring and summer that starts with today, when the pitchers and catchers of my beloved Oakland A’s report to training camp.

A lot has happened since the A’s season ended, including the trading away of their number one and two pitchers and their all-star closer.  It’s been hard being an A’s fan in recent years, what with their stadium situation in flux and inability to sign big time free agents and that hopeless feeling of knowing they’re going to be terrible but that you’re going to watch anyway because that’s just how you’re wired—it’s how you always have been and always will be.  You learn to root for the little moments, a pitching gem here, a steal of second and a single for a walk-off win there, maybe grabbing a victory on the road that dents another hated AL team’s playoff hopes.  You take what you can get and learn to relish the few bright spots that come your way, thankful for scraps even as you deal with the ignominy of a team from your own division making the World Series two years in a row, only to lose the Giants of all freaking teams the first year (the Bay Area will never be the same) and then to melt down in Game Six the following year in what can truly only be called old school Red Sox fashion.

But in the spring everyone has a shot, even when deep down you know they don’t.  That’s just the way it works, as illogical as that may be.  But for the first time in years, this year feels different.  I’m not foolish—I may love the A’s, but I evaluate them with my head, not my heart and while a lot of others picked them to win the AL West last year, I bet the under heavily and it paid off handsomely.  Make no mistake, they’re not going to be good this year either, but for the first time in many years I think they have a chance to be fun to watch and about that I’m super excited.  They stole a fair amount of bases last year and I think they will again this year as well.  They are a pretty fast team.  I like the flash and cockiness with which Jemile Weeks plays.  I like that Cliff Pennington has a Tulowitzkish cannon at short.  Together they make a fluid and quick turn.  Coco Crisp might have a noodle for an arm, but he sure can track the ball off the bat and he’s so disruptive and fun to watch on the base paths, even though he has a lousy OBP.  But let’s be honest.  It’s all about Yoenis Cespedes, the massive Cuban outfielder with the best promotional reel ever (I’m serious—watch this, it’s ridiculous), who the A’s signed after he defected via the Dominican Republic. 

He might be amazing. But he might also be abysmal.  Or he could be somewhere in between, but in any case it’s going to take some time to find out.  You can’t really gauge how he’ll adapt to the majors as Cuban baseball isn’t necessarily predictive.  But he’s interesting and the A’s, with their speed and defense and young pitchers, just might be interesting too and for the first time in a long time all eyes are going to be on Oakland as everyone wants to see what Cespedes can do, and for an A’s fan long-starved for something worth watching, here’s hoping he rakes; those of us who are still sticking with the A’s deserve something to root for!  Indeed, it’s not just the Cuban nation that is looking to Yoenis to fulfill his destiny; it’s also we few, we happy few, we band of brothers (and sisters) who make up the fan base of our beloved Oakland A’s.  The future is coming fast and it starts today.