Game five dives

Here's the good news, Athletics' fans: Your team has been to the playoffs six times between 2000-2012. Those accomplishments would make fans in Pittsburgh, Kansas City and Toronto green (or gold?) with envy. But having watched the A's playoff teams continually shrivel up in division series Game 5's over the years has made October baseball cruel and unforgiving in Oakland.

First things first, Athletics fans had no reason to feel cheated or ashamed with what happened in Game 5 Thursday night. Fortunately, as the game ended and a quick chorus of boos came down when Detroit players burst from the dugout and on the diamond to celebrate its clinching win, most of the crowd of 36,393 -see my picture of one of many "happy" Coliseum moments above- remained standing. For a good few minutes the crowd remained to salute, cheer and chant for a wonderfully surprising club that not only exceeded but smashed the barrier of low expectations. And given how Wednesday's Game 4 ended with such momentum in one clubhouse and dumbfounded shock in the other, it's not a stretch to claim the A's probably would have beaten any other Tigers' starting pitcher if somehow their rotation wasn't set up to throw Justin Verlander, who was not going to lose Game 5 provided his team managed some run support (he got more than he needed).

Still, the A's have played in five Game 5's in the ALDS and are 0-for-5, four of those at the Coliseum. Thankfully, Oakland's division series win over Minnesota in 2006 didn't require five games since it was a sweep. Otherwise the snakebit A's probably would have lost that series too had the Twins gotten into a decisive game. 

Yes, Game 5 is the Athletics' Wimbledon to Ivan Lendl, the Super Bowl to the Buffalo Bills; wide right to Bobby Bowden; Gettysburg to Robert E. Lee. There's always that one nemesis that defines you no matter how much good you do elsewhere. And it's up to the 2013 A's to disprove if this season was nothing more than a flukey alignment of the planets, a one-year wonder and a quick return to also-ran status behind the unlimited spending Rangers and Angels.

The only salvation for the A's is Thursday night's final out was more a footnote than a foot in your mouth. There was no heartbreak, unlike in 2000 vs. the Yankees, 2001 at the Yankees, 2002 vs. the Twins, 2003 vs. the Red Sox. The A's had the tying run at the plate in 2000; blew a 2-0 lead both in the series and in the fifth game in the Bronx; somehow wasted the 20-game winning streak and a 2-games-to-1 series lead against the heavy underdog Twins; and made some of the worst baserunning blunders in baseball history during a meltdown from two games up to the Red Sox.

For the Athletics, the Fifth Game Amendment still reads like this: No Oakland baseball fan shall expect his or her team to survive a five-game division series without creating drama, tension and anticipation for a do-die game, only to fall painfully short with everything at stake.