"Real fans", huh?

[gridlore]

The A's have been running ads for this weekend's series against the Giants with the tag line "come see baseball with real fans."

This has pissed Giants Nation right the fuck off. We're the ones who used to fill Candlestick on summer nights where hypothermia was a real possibility. We're the ones who realize that enjoyment of a baseball game does not require beach balls, horns, or excessive amounts of really bad beer.

They just announced that this is just the third sell-out of McAfee Coliseum this season. Judging from the noise and the amount of orange in the crowd shots, a good 65% of these people are Giants fans. Over at AT&T Park, we've had over a dozen sellouts with a worse team.

"Real fans." Hmph.

Comments

[pauldrye.livejournal.com]

Because there's not the slightest possibility that they were actually wanting to annoy Giants fans? Crosstown rivalry, etc.?

[gridlore.livejournal.com]

Despite all the attempts by MLB to create one, there really isn't that much of a rivalry. We're not crosstown, we're cross-bay, and to residents of the SFBA, crossing the Bay Bridge might as well be entering another world.

Hell, not even the 1989 World Series created a real rivalry.

[bunyip.livejournal.com]

The Cubs sell out pretty much every game... and the White Sox don't sell out despite we're in the lead of their Division.

[aurictech.livejournal.com]

How can Athletics supporters be real fans if they (along with the rest of the fans of AL teams) are not even watching real baseball?

[gridlore.livejournal.com]

Indeed.

[netquiddler.livejournal.com]

Agreed. Baseball is a game between two teams of nine players each, not ten.

Of course, at least I'm not a fan of those hitless wonders down South.

[pauldrye.livejournal.com]

Right on. It's also a game where the pitcher is fifty feet away from the batter like Abner Doubleday intended.

[gridlore.livejournal.com]

Abner Doubleday had nothing to do with the invention of baseball. And the distance from pitcher to plate was set at 60' 6" in 1893, so it's been a part of baseball's modern era from the beginning.

[pauldrye.livejournal.com]

1) OK, then: batting helmets. And four umpires. And black people.

2) Abner Doubleday...you know that when people say "The White House announced today" that it wasn't actually the White House talking, yes?

[gridlore.livejournal.com]

Batting helmets and breaking the race barrier didn't change Rule 1.01:

"Baseball is a game between two teams of nine players each, under direction of a manager, played on an enclosed field in accordance with these rules, under jurisdiction of one or more umpires."

The designated hitter is a tenth player.

[lysana.livejournal.com]

Bah. You're just jealous the NL can't win the All-Star game worth a damn these days.

*g, d, r*

ETA: And need I remind you it was a NL team that introduced artificial turf? Hail Boston. Hail Charleston. Who stinketh the most?

[kevin-standlee.livejournal.com]

Remember the "hat dance" that they used to do at Giants games, where they would put a ball under one hat, show three hats, mix them up, and have people guess where the ball was? The A's do that, or at least they did last night. Later in the game, they did it again, but with a Giants cap, and only one cap. The animation showed the cap going through the gyrations, and then after the board suggested that we pick one, lifted the only cap to show nothing there, with a caption of, "Wrong Again!" Silly.

Well, at least we finally won one from them.