No Winning in Oakland

Yesterday, I had what I called "A bad BART experience.

I was going up to Oakland to meet Lucy and some of her friends for an Athletics game. I checked the schedule on-line and figured I'd left enough time to get to the Fremont station to catch the train that would get me to the park by 12:30.

But, I must have left slightly later than I'd thought, since just as I was getting my ticket I heard the train leaving above me. D'oh!

But, not a big deal, since two trains were due to leave in about 20 minutes. So I headed upstairs and waited. After about 2 minutes a train pulled into one side of the station. Since Fremont is the end of the line, I figured I'd just get on. The doors opened, (almost) everyone got off the train, I got on, sat down, pulled out the magazine I was reading, and started reading.

I soon noticed that no one else had gotten on the train. Moreover, the doors had closed without my noticing. A few minutes later, a train pulled into the other side of the station. Its doors stayed open and everyone started getting on. Ten minutes passed, and I'd drawn the obvious (and correct) conclusion that the other train would be leaving first. I wandered to the front of the train, but there was no driver. (BART is mostly computerized, though there is a driver for occasional necessary human interaction.) So I sat down, and eventually watched the other train leave.

A few minutes later my train's doors opened and people started getting on. After another 5 minutes it left and I made it to the park.

Grr. You'd think they would have had an announcement at some point. But no.

Anyway, it turned out to be a wash since although I was a few minutes late, Lucy was also running behind schedule. We finally met up and got into the game just a couple of minutes after first pitch.

I was excited about the game because Barry Zito, Oakland's sophomore pitcher who's also on my fantasy team, was starting. I like seeing young pitchers succeed, since they have such a hard road to travel in the Majors.

Alas, Zito didn't succeed today. Despite striking out 9 Rangers in 6 innings, he gave up 8 runs (2 of which weren't really his fault, but scored largely due to a botched catch by Terrence Long in center field). So after 4 innings the A's were down 8-0. Amazingly, they clawed their way back to an 8-8 tie in the 8th inning - quite impressive given their lackluster offense so far this year - but Jim Mecir gave up the winning run in the 9th and Oakland lost, 9-8. The A's lost again today and are 2-10 on the season. Ugh!

It wasn't a very well-played game. Besides Long's error, the Rangers' Chad Curtis looked out of his depth in left field, the pitching was clearly all-around weak, and Rangers catcher Ivan Rodriguez got tossed out of the game early on after a strikeout he wasn't happy about.

I didn't get much chance to talk to Lucy's friends, and I suspect I chattered away to Lucy about baseball things a little too much. But still, it was a day at the ballpark, and that's always worth something.

(I have a couple of photos that I haven't yet uploaded. The funnier of the two is the guy in the outfield who was putting up 'Z's instead of 'K's for Zito's strikeouts.)

Speaking of baseball, I think my aforementioned fantasy team is having a good first week. Certainly Cardinals rookie Albert Pujols is kicking some serious ass! I'll find out tomorrow when our first week's results are posted. Also, the Red Sox have taken two of the first three of four games from the Hated Yorkies, which is quite cool.

We're heading back into 70-degree-plus weather here in sunny northern California. So I took advantage to do some shopping today. Among other things, I ended up adding a new skill to my, uh, skill set: Replacing the screen in a window frame. It turns out to be trivial: You buy a sheet of screen, along with a utility knife and a rolly-thing to press the rubber pipe into the frame to hold the screen in place. Remove the old screen, attach the new one, cut to fit. Simple!

Tonight I walked down to the nearby coffee shop, which was closed due to Easter. So I went down a block to Starbuck's, where I met Anders who was relaxing from doing his taxes. We chatted for a while, he gave me a lift home and met my cats. (I also gave him a tax tip that I just recently learned myself.)

After I beamed him my address using our PDAs, we did have this funny exchange:

Anders: I'd beam you my information, but I don't have an entry for myself.

Me: I have one for you on mine.

Anders [laughing]: Could you beam it to me?