So I saw the A's get beat kind of ugly last night. The offense couldn't do a thing outside of Bobby Crosby's solo home run that just got over the wall in the left field corner. There were a few walks, a few long counts against Jose Contreras, and so on, but the A's didn't even really threaten all night. Jason Giambi made a diving stop of a hard-hit Eric Chavez liner to end a two-on rally in the middle innings, and after that, Oakland was done. Of course, as so often happens, Giambi led off the next inning.

Giambi hit a home run in the top of the ninth off of Arthur Rhodes to ice it, prompting me to alternately scream at Rhodes and slump dejectedly into my seat.

After the game, I was on the four train, in a car with one poor girl wearing an A's hat who was taunted mercilessly by a rowdy bunch of Yankee fans. Her best line was "Jason Giambi's a little bitch!" Which, granted, is true, but it's also a weak comeback.

Well, at least the company was good. I had the pleasure of meeting, and getting to talk baseball for three hours with, Alex Belth of Bronx Banter, Alex Ciepley from the Cub Reporter, Cliff Corcoran from Clifford's Big Red Blog, Jay Jaffe from Futility Infielder (who organized the whole thing), Avkash Patel from the raindrops, and a number of others who don't seem to have online presences. Anyway, it was a good bunch of guys (and one girl) who really knew their baseball, as you'd expect. It's kind of neat, also, to be able to put a bunch of faces to names.