You won't find this blog openly rooting for that other team across the Bay frequently. Translated: never, which is obviously why there is enough frozen-over ice in hell today to host pickup hockey for locked out players if they choose to make the trip way down. So admittedly, I was happy for Barry Zito after his fantastic performance in Friday's Game 5 of the National League Championship Series in St. Louis.
A quick primer on this: I once chatted up and got to know Barry Zito, about as well enough as you can with a pen in one hand and tape recorder in another. When I was working as a sports reporter in L.A. I wrote an extensive feature story on Zito previewing his start in the now infamous Game 3 of the ALDS vs. the Yankees in 2001. It was one my favorite pieces I've ever written on a pro player. During my interviews, I enjoyed meeting Barry's parents, Joe and Roberta, who were both wonderfully candid (I was so saddened to read of Roberta's passing in 2008. When I talked to her for that story she'd already endured plenty of health issues.).
Joe and I kept in touch for a long time via e-mail, and he even asked Barry for me to hook up myself and a buddy with some comp tickets when the A's played in Kansas City while Zito was still with the Athletics. Barry was how I expected him to be as an interviewee: cordial and accessible, but a deep thinker. I was much more pleased how the story turned out than the game (I drove up from L.A. to watch with some friends, and like all A's fans still refuse to understand nor accept why Jeremy Giambi didn't bother to slide).
Zito left Oakland for an absurd $126 million contract, so while he was one of my favorite Athletics, I understood even the cheapskate Oakland front office shouldn't have blinked in letting him walk away for that kind of dough. Sure enough, the left-hander has never come remotely close to justifying the amount, and when thinking about the Big Three of Zito, Mark Mulder and Tim Hudson, the A's fan base can look back and only feel bitter about the terrible return Oakland received from Atlanta for Hudson, clearly the best of that trio. Mulder, who got the A's a lot more back from St. Louis, is now out of baseball. And Zito must have been one of the game's richest non-playoff roster players ever when his current team won the World Series in 2010.
But it's weird, while I have less than zero rooting interest for the local team in the NLCS, whatever part of my blood that seeps out green and gold felt some satisfaction for Zito ironically keeping his team's season alive. Good for him to throw 7 2/3 scoreless last night, and though I find it difficult to ever feel sorry for someone near the end of a nine-figure contract and sporting a .457 winning percentage as a pitcher during that time, the guy's been hammered by his team's fans, the local and national media. Of course now he is an orange savior, a viral # and sudden fast friend to all scribes and talking heads rather than punching bag.
As an objective journalist who enjoyed the experience getting to know Barry Zito on a professional level, the A's fan in me who appreciates his 102 wins in an Oakland uniform salutes him for what he did in St. Louis.
A quick primer on this: I once chatted up and got to know Barry Zito, about as well enough as you can with a pen in one hand and tape recorder in another. When I was working as a sports reporter in L.A. I wrote an extensive feature story on Zito previewing his start in the now infamous Game 3 of the ALDS vs. the Yankees in 2001. It was one my favorite pieces I've ever written on a pro player. During my interviews, I enjoyed meeting Barry's parents, Joe and Roberta, who were both wonderfully candid (I was so saddened to read of Roberta's passing in 2008. When I talked to her for that story she'd already endured plenty of health issues.).
Joe and I kept in touch for a long time via e-mail, and he even asked Barry for me to hook up myself and a buddy with some comp tickets when the A's played in Kansas City while Zito was still with the Athletics. Barry was how I expected him to be as an interviewee: cordial and accessible, but a deep thinker. I was much more pleased how the story turned out than the game (I drove up from L.A. to watch with some friends, and like all A's fans still refuse to understand nor accept why Jeremy Giambi didn't bother to slide).
Zito left Oakland for an absurd $126 million contract, so while he was one of my favorite Athletics, I understood even the cheapskate Oakland front office shouldn't have blinked in letting him walk away for that kind of dough. Sure enough, the left-hander has never come remotely close to justifying the amount, and when thinking about the Big Three of Zito, Mark Mulder and Tim Hudson, the A's fan base can look back and only feel bitter about the terrible return Oakland received from Atlanta for Hudson, clearly the best of that trio. Mulder, who got the A's a lot more back from St. Louis, is now out of baseball. And Zito must have been one of the game's richest non-playoff roster players ever when his current team won the World Series in 2010.
But it's weird, while I have less than zero rooting interest for the local team in the NLCS, whatever part of my blood that seeps out green and gold felt some satisfaction for Zito ironically keeping his team's season alive. Good for him to throw 7 2/3 scoreless last night, and though I find it difficult to ever feel sorry for someone near the end of a nine-figure contract and sporting a .457 winning percentage as a pitcher during that time, the guy's been hammered by his team's fans, the local and national media. Of course now he is an orange savior, a viral # and sudden fast friend to all scribes and talking heads rather than punching bag.
As an objective journalist who enjoyed the experience getting to know Barry Zito on a professional level, the A's fan in me who appreciates his 102 wins in an Oakland uniform salutes him for what he did in St. Louis.
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