10 Misguided But Earnest Reasons I’ve Decided to Become an Oakland A’s Fan

This is the most I’ve ever written about sports, maybe ever. I’ve decided to throw my baseball team allegiance, such as it is, to the Oakland A’s. Here are just a few reasons why:

1. The hats have a big blackletter A on them.
2. There used to be a mustachioed player on the team named Rollie Fingers. ROLLIE FINGERS.
3. Tom Hanks likes them.
4. Their unofficial mascot is a white elephant, based on something the New York Giants manager called their team back in the 1910s.
5. They’re bold enough to use the awkward-plural apostrophe for “A’s”, but not when it’s spelled out as “Athletics”, which is grammatically correct, even in the face of adversity because it looks possessive, and a lot of people might judge them for that.
6. Terry Gross has told me for years I need to watch “Moneyball”, which is about the Oakland A’s, but I don’t usually watch movies about sports.
7. The bearded guy from “Highway to Heaven” wears an Oakland A’s hat, even though you’d think it’d be an LA Angels hat. But then you remember he’s not the angel, he’s the human, and then you realize Michael Landon is the angel, and there’s no way he’s putting a hat over that magnificent coif of hair.
8. The Giants’ colors are dumb. And boy, are their fans rowdy on the Caltrain.
9. They won three World Series titles in the the 1910s, and then three-in-a-row once more in the early 70s, the two best eras.
10. Billy Beane, the GM, has a name that’s very similar to that of Billy Bean, the only openly gay MLB player, so much so that it’s easy to think they’re the same person, and then get excited that a semi-local team is managed by the only openly gay former MLB player, and then when you learn they’re not the same person, you’re only a little disappointed, but — screw it — it’s only because you want to wear a baseball hat with an A on it anyway and that dark green color reminds you of the Fort Wayne TinCaps.

Special thanks to Tim Wasem for his guidance in this spiritual journey.