Marinerds, etc.

Oakland 7, Mariners 2

When you can't find anything nice to say about your own team, might as well not say anything at all. I think my favorite moments of tonight's game were:

1) Seeing Frank Thomas turn a double into a single (and subsequently the announcers calling him Frank Robinson by accident)
2) Kendall catching a foul ball right out of the hands of the cameraman, who was hamming it up for like five minutes afterwards
3) Swisher's leaping ballet catch off Beltre, not just because it was a great catch but because his grin afterwards was the cutest thing I've ever seen in my entire life.

I just found out Jill Sobule's playing at the Tractor Tavern this Saturday at 7pm, and if I survive the Race for the Cure that morning and the Giants-Mariners game in the afternoon, and am still awake, I'm totally going. On that note, I wrote a song parody about tonight's game to the tune of a Jill Sobule song. No, I still have never been to the Coliseum (though I will be down there over July 4th weekend), so just pretend I'm writing this from the viewpoint of an A's fan who was actually there:

Haren Tonight
To the tune of "Karen by Night" by Jill Sobule

Haren, he's a pitcher for Oakland
He plays for the crowd on 66th Avenue
We come in late from Berkeley on the BART train
Haren's in warmup, right before game time
But we like him, he's fun but approachable
Really cool hair, sort of like Eckersley
We ask him, "Hey, come sign my new baseball hat,"
And Haren, he never declines

So we came to see
Haren tonight
Imagine he must give the batters a fright
With just a ball and a glove by his side
He's starting today, so let's cheer for
Haren tonight

Seventh inning, sitting near the dugout,
I overheard Ken Macha talking on the phone
He said, "Is Halsey there?
Make sure he's warming up
I'm not letting Dan go on alone"
Well, I didn't know what to think
Was he done for the night?
Was the pitch count for Haren a little high?
I sat right there
On the edge of my chair
As he retired the side

And we all saw
Haren tonight
His slider breaks out under the moonlight
It crosses the plate and is called for a strike
Beating out Joel Pineiro,
Haren tonight

Saw him run into the trouble in the top of the first,
He had the bases loaded with nobody out.
But he got a double play and a strikeout,
He was doing all right.
Then he went for six more innings
And surrendered no more runs
He missed a couple bats
And was backed by great defense
He passed a hundred pitches
And they took him out, but all night all we could talk about was
Haren tonight

The next morning, I blog as usual
Haren's start fresh in my memory
I sing with a smile, "Why, that game was swell,
I hope you watched last night."

Haren tonight
Imagine he must give the batters a fright
With just a glove and a ball by his side
We love when he plays so we're cheering
Haren tonight
The slider breaks out under the moonlight
It crosses the plate and is called for a strike
Beating out Joel Pineiro
Cooler than Kiko Calero
I wish they could all be like
Haren tonight

Beating out Joel Pineiro
Not that it's hard to beat Pineiro with the way he sucks now...
Haren tonight