Hope Is The Thing With Red Stitches

For that brief moment, all was right with the world again. After a long winter full of discontent and football, Spring arrived and saved the day. Part of it, anyway. The Oakland Athletics took the field as a team for the first time in this exhibition season last Tuesday, and they put a great big hurt on World Series Most Valuable Player Madison Bumgarner. The A's won nine to four, and the most valuable pitcher what chased from the game after giving up four runs over one and two-thirds innings. The trouble started with a two run home run in the first inning, where Oakland scored three. By contrast, Madison Bumgarner gave up just one run in twenty-one innings of post-season work at the end of last season, the one that saw the San Francisco Giants win the World Series. Mister Bumgarner won a truck with "technology and stuff" for that effort.
I saw it on TV. So did the Oakland A's. They were able to catch the whole thing, including that MVP award ceremony, because they weren't playing in the World Series. They got bounced from the big show by the eventual second place Kansas City Royals. It seems like so long ago, but it hasn't even been five months yet. In that time, the Oakland Athletics roster has changed in ways that can only be described as "huh?" This includes sending most of the All-Stars who pushed the team to its best first half record in years to other teams, leaving them with an infield that includes none of the starters from 2014. That was last year. Five months ago. Time gets so crooked when you start talking sports, but for that one day, this new bunch of A's beat the World Champion Giants. It gave me hope.
It also gave me pause: time to reflect on the months between now and October. Including those exhibition games, nearly two hundred of these contests will have to be played out between various teams in various stadiums across the country. And Canada. Who will be left standing? It's entirely possible that Madison Bumgarner will be driving off in another new truck, having found his rhythm and his speed, returning to the dominating presence that he was last year. It's entirely possible that all that reworking of the Athletics lineup will produce nothing more than a near-miss at the playoffs. Or worse. All of that is fine. I relax into the unfolding mystery that is one hundred sixty-two games of possibility.
Thank you, baseball, for renewing my hope.