A's 5, Mariners 1

Debbi's workplace has season tickets to the Athletics, and employees are allowed to use the tickets left over (which I guess means the ones which aren't being used to take V.I.P. visitors out for a good time at the game). So Debbi and I, and her friends Lisa and Michel, headed over tonight to see the Athletics host the Seattle Mariners, in a match-up of the two best teams in the American League.

Seattle was a key component of Oakland's poor start in April, as the A's division rivals beat up on them for much of that month. Although Seattle is having an historic season (they could win 115 games - or more), it's equally impressive how far back Oakland has come since their poor start, as they're now all but assured of a trip to the playoffs, and should end up with a better record than last year.

As I've taken many photos of the A's this year, I decided to leave my camera at home, and regretted it when we arrived. Not so much because we had first-row seats (I've sat in the first row before, although I don't offhand remember doing so at the Coliseum), but because this was the first A's home game since the attacks, and they had a whole bunch of policemen holding a giant American Flag and standing at attention along the first and third base lines, plus a bagpipe group who played "Amazing Grace" and a marching band who played "The Star Spangled Banner". It was something to see!

The other peculiarity about this game was the number of Asians (presumably Japanese) in attendance, since the Mariners - majority-owned by Nintendo - feature two of the game's best Japanese players in Ichiro Suzuki and Kazahiro Sasaki. I can only presume that for most of them the pre-game ceremonies and the flag-waving (literally!) that prevailed throughout the whole game seemed surreal, if not downright eerie.

As for the game itself, it was almost all Athletics, starting with Jason Giambi's home run in the first inning. Pitcher Corey Lidle dominated the Mariners through seven innings, and struck out Ichiro twice, which is impressive because he rarely gets through an at-bat without making contact! And we almost got to see Jermaine Dye hit a grand slam (which I don't think I've ever seen before in person), but he fell short by a few feet in deep center field. Bummer! Plus the A's threw out a runner at home plate on a strange-looking play which I missed all but the final throw of (from first base to home) because I was standing in line for food.

The A's bullpen did a servicible job, although they did allow a run to score in the ninth, eliciting loud boos from the crowd about the broken-up shutout. Debbi and I also debated the merits of the A's backup second baseman, F.P. Santangelo, who it seemed to us wasn't diving for balls hit near him which he probably should have gotten to. But in the end we went home happy with an A's win, 5-1.

I did see something interesting during the game: Often, when a pitcher is struggling, the pitching coach will come out to the mound to meet with him and the catcher. After 20 or 30 seconds, the umpire will stroll casually to the mound to tell them to get on with the game. Every time I've seen this before - even on TV - the ump gets less than halfway to the mound because the conference breaks up. Today, the conference lasted until after the ump made it to the mound - twice, once for each team! The Mariners pitching coach even chatted with the ump briefly after everyone left the mound. It was different, and I wonder what was going on.

It's been a very busy week, and I've been pretty tired through much of it. This weekend I need to catch up on my sleep so I can tackle next week refreshed. (Not that next week is going to be anything special, just that I'm tired of being tired!)

I spent today at work making some key revisions to my big project, which (of course) came to light as soon as we released it to our own team of developers to start using. Fortunately, it all turned out to be pretty straightforward to change, and I got it all done and checked in by the end of the day. Woo-hoo!

Finally, the Bay Area is definitely heading into fall (of which today might be the first day; I can never keep track of the official season changes to the day): It's cloudy and chilly in the mornings, and the leaves are starting to change color on the few trees which do that. The days are a little hazier, and sometimes even partly cloudy, although we're still having high temperatures in the 70s.

Fall is my least favorite season in the Bay Area (I say, having lived through a whole two of them): The weather doesn't change much, but the area still looks a little bleaker, especially since it's been so long since it rained that all the grass and trees are starting to lose their summer golden color and are turning just brown and droopy. And the weather has been the same for about five months at this point that I'm really looking forward to the winter showers.

Well, only a few more months. Plus, as I look at homes this will give me a chance to see them at their seasonal worst, which seems like not a bad thing to see.