It’s just about Spring Training time.  As a baseball enthusiast, I’d usually be keyed up right about now.  However, there are certain feelings of disappointment, betrayal, and desperation that come with being a true sports fan.  Following my favorite team doesn’t make me an exception.  I believe it’s fair to say that I’ve ridden the Oakland Athletics roller coaster during my stint as an avid fan.  There have been many ups over the last nine seasons (I know that doesn’t sound that long, but I’m only 21).  Over the last three, though, it feels like we’ve gotten stuck at bottom, and I don’t know if we’ll be climbing back up anytime soon.

As sad as that sounds, I found someone to blame.  His name is Billy Beane, and he’s the much-acclaimed general manager of the A’s.  In 2003, Michael Lewis wrote a book about Beane and titled it, Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game.  The book attempts to explain why the A’s, as one of the most financially-challenged teams in baseball, had been winning so many games.  Lewis gave Beane all the credit.  The Sporting News also recognized him as Executive of the Year in 1999 and so did Baseball America in 2002.  He’s also been named one of Baseball’s Heavy Hitters and one of the top 40 Under 40 by Street & Smith’s Sports Business Journal.

None of those titles are what I would call him.  As successful as the A’s may have been early on in his career as GM, he hasn’t put together a consistently strong team since he was formally praised.  It’s true that baseball is unfair, and his job is difficult.  However, it was frustrating to look at him as he gathered accolades, knowing that he was the reason for my heartache.  In reality, the team hasn’t done as well since Moneyball was published.  It makes me wonder if Lewis jumped the gun in even writing it.

Don’t get me wrong. I do realize, on one hand, that baseball has grown into more and more of a business than just a game.  Some factors are out of Beane’s control because, in Lewis’ words, “For more than a decade the people who run professional baseball have argued that the game was ceasing to be an athletic competition and becoming a financial one.”  Some trading and releasing is to be expected, but it has to stop at some point.  I know that, with the Athletics’ limited payroll, it’s much harder for Beane to make deals.  But, on the other hand of the business argument, fans bring in a lot of revenue, and we definitely get attached to our favorites.  So, shouldn’t we be considered at some point too? All I know is that, right now; he has made the A’s really hard to root for.

I don’t want to sound like a fair-weather fan, and I vowed never to become one.  However, this situation is a little different.  To me, “fairweatherness” means not rooting for the players on your team when they’re not doing as well as they “should.”  My issue is that, when I look on the field, absolutely none of my players are still there.  Since I began following the A’s in 1998 (a year after Beane took his general manager position) I studied the roster and learned everything I could about my favorites.  I knew every meaningless bit of information from the colleges they attended to their favorite cereals and types of pillowcases.  I knew Eric Byrnes had two English Bulldogs names Bella and Bruin; that Barry Zito guest-starred in an episode of JAG.

I know it seems ridiculous, but it was something that I loved doing and I put a lot of stock into it.  It wasn’t until 2006 that things started to change.  That was the last year the A’s made the playoffs.  They finished in first place in the American League West, but they haven’t even come close since.  When they used to struggle, I could still look to “my guys” and hope along with them that they’d eventually pull through like they had for me so many times before.  But, out of the 40 men on the roster today, only three of them are left from that 2006 team.  That means over about three seasons my team, as I knew it, disappeared.  So, what am I supposed to do now?

Am I supposed to bet that Beane’s new “elite” prospects will be able to get the job done?   I have a hard time believing that a completely overturned roster filled with young players much in need of veteran guidance (that they won’t come by) will be able to fill the roles of those who came before.  For now, I guess all I can do is continue to hope, but my gusto is definitely fading away.

Katrina Gaudier is a senior at Drexel University. She is studying English and Philosophy and is expected to graduate in June of 2010.

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