In their recent history, the Oakland Athletics have always tried to be somewhere else. If it wasn't Oakland, it was Fremont. If it wasn't Fremont, it was San Jose. If it wasn't San Jose, it was Laney College. If it wasn't Laney College, it was . . . well, you get the drift.
Now what they want to be is in the National League. At least if they were in the NL, maybe more people would notice what they've been doing for the last month.
And where they want to be is home, where the building excitement that always accompanies a team on a hot streak could create some tangible benefits in the underrated word-of-mouth department.
Instead, they are where they are – in the more difficult American League, and on the road, where they have the fourth best record in baseball but get none of the psychic benefits.
In shutting out the Houston Astros Monday, 2-0 (hello again, Stephen Piscotty), the A's won their 17th game in 21 tries, and cut the margin between themselves and a playoff spot to six games – which in baseball terms is still a hefty distance away.
In the NL, they'd be the third best team, and they'd lead the NL West. They'd be right at the upper end of the 10-team morass that starts with the overachieving Milwaukee Brewers and ends with the underachieving Washington Nationals. And if they were doing all this winning (they are 19-7 outside Oakland since May 14) at home where the dormant fan base could actually go see them in person, they could create the kind of cool-place-to-go vibe that has worked for them in the best years of this century.
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But where they are, they are most noticeable as The Team That Can't Get Past The Door. Those six games between them and the Seattle Mariners still look vast, and since they don't come back home until after the All-Star Break, they won't get to benefit tangibly from all this good baseball they are presenting.
The A's, you see, work best as an attraction by word of mouth rather than aggressive marketing. They need to show the customer base that they are worth the bother, and no amount of treehousery will do that for them. The crowds turn up when they are ready to turn up, and not before, and it has always been such in a town that has mostly belonged to the Raiders and Warriors.
This is the A's third team in 20 years that has won after multiple years of losing, and it took until mid-August of 1999 to draw good crowds and late June in 2012. A's fans need to be convinced to buy in again because the hard times have been too many and the good times too few.
Worse yet for the sake of bandwagon building, after they open the second half with the Giants, they head back on the road for seven games in Texas and Colorado. In other words, they will have done their best work while on the road for 27 of 35 games.
But the baseball team is more than doing its duty. It has 14 more games on this extended hell-slog, and then it can come home to see if their deeds have resonated with a city distracted by basketball and a football team ready to leave town.
In other words, this could be their moment – if only Seattle would do the decent thing and cooperate. That way, the A's wouldn't have to wish they were in the National League, or worse, another city.
