Frank Mallicoat, Michelle Griego, and Elizabeth Wenger were all doing the morning news on KPIX on the holiday. I used the computer to look over the summary of Thursday’s A’s game. It was a quiet morning. I took the two buses out to the stadium. The gates opened thirty minutes later than I thought they would. People had other plans for the Fourth of July. I saw a woman leave with a Chip and Chili Platter and a Catfish Hunter Bobblehead. I thought the A’s had run out of those items. There were plenty of empty seats. I had the misfortune of sitting in front of one of the loudest people in the building. He kept saying that baseball was not his favorite sport. It was the 75th anniversary of Lou Gehrig’s speech in Yankee Stadium. “Born in the U.S.A.” played as the A’s took the field. Tommy Milone got into some trouble in the first inning. He gave up a single to the game’s first batter. After a fly ball that went for an out, the runner stole second base. Milone got a strikeout, but intentionally walked the next batter. He got the last out on a ground ball. Milone pitched clean innings in the second and third. In the fourth, Milone allowed only a two-out single. He allowed a double to start the fifth inning, but two ground ball outs and a strike out followed. Milone gave up a single to start the sixth inning. Two fly ball outs came after that. Jed Lowrie committed an error, extending the inning as Milone was getting close to 100 pitches. Milone struck out the next batter, the last batter he would face this afternoon. He had a good game, with no runs, four hits, and one walk in six innings. The A’s on offense didn’t do much in those six innings. In the first inning, Coco Crisp walked and stole second base. In the third inning, Lowrie walked and Crisp singled. In the sixth inning, John Jaso walked and went to second on a wild pitch. It was a scoreless tie after six innings. We had heard the Cut of the Game, “Livin’ in America,” in the fifth inning. Before the sixth inning, Kara Tsuboi played Name That Tune with two fans. The song was “Don’t Stop Believin’.” Before the seventh inning, we got the Big Head race, and Dennis Eckersley managed to win this one. After Milone, the A’s would use six more pitchers to complete this game: Eric O’Flaherty, Luke Gregerson, Sean Doolittle, Fernando Abad, Ryan Cook, and Dan Otero. Each one worked one inning, and each allowed one man to reach base, all but one on a single. Abad allowed a walk. In the eighth inning, Josh Donaldson started a double play while on the seat of his pants. He made the throw to second base while seated on the ground, and the play went 5-4-3. For the game to go 12 innings without the Blue Jays scoring any runs, the A’s had to go 11 innings without scoring any runs, either. In the seventh, they got a single from Stephen Vogt. In the eighth, they had a chance to break the tie when Nate Freiman doubled and Yoenis Cespedes was intentionally walked with one out. However, Brandon Moss hit a ground ball and suffered an ankle injury so that he couldn’t run to first base. The play went 4-6-3 for a double play that confused everybody in the crowd. The ninth inning featured only a two-out walk from Derek Norris. This game was going on longer than we wanted it to under the hot sun. In the tenth inning, we saw only Coco Crisp walk with one out. In the eleventh inning, Alberto Callaspo, Josh Donaldson, and Craig Gentry all grounded out. The game had exceeded four hours, and the sea gulls were gathering but not circling. We wanted to get home so that we could get some food and make other plans for the rest of our holiday. The loud guy behind me said that he didn’t care if the A’s didn’t hit a home run. He just wanted them to score a run in any way possible. It was a 0-0 score all afternoon, and we wanted some action. The bottom of the twelfth inning started with Norris getting the count to 3-2 in drawing a walk. Lowrie hit a line drive that the Toronto centerfielder caught. Nick Punto had done nothing in four chances at bat, and I was wondering all afternoon what his value to the team was supposed to be. He swung at the first pitch, and the ball dropped in fair inside the left field foul line. It was a double for Punto. The Blue Jays’ left fielder couldn’t pick up the ball, committing an error. Norris ran all the way from first base to home for the winning run on the play. The game began at 1:08 and ended at 5:13. Attendance was 22,322. The A’s were now 26-19 on the Fourth of July since 1968, and 14-7 at home. It was the second win over Toronto on the Fourth of July, following a 3-2 win in 1985, also at the Coliseum. A man with bad body odor was in the BART train car I was in on the way back home. I got home and ate many hot dogs, although slightly fewer than Joey Chestnut ate in the hot dog eating competition. I watched the NUMB3RS episode “Backscatter.” A game of air hockey gave Charlie an idea. I watched “Yankee Doodle Dandy” again. He had those patriotic numbers and some good dance moves. The only firsthand memory I have of James Cagney was when he was an old man, and he appeared in “Ragtime.” Walter Huston was a good actor. I couldn’t imagine George M. Cohan sitting down to tell his whole life story to the President in two hours. Some of the people who died on July 5 include Leo McCarey (1969), Harry James (1983), and Ted Williams (2002). Today is a birthday for Edie Falco (51), Bill Watterson (56), and Katherine Helmond (86). According to the Brandon Brooks Rewind radio segment for July 5, Elvis Presley began his first recording session for Sun Records in 1954, out of which came his first single, “That’s All Right.” In 1965, the Rolling Stones had their first recording session in Los Angeles. In 1980, “The Blue Lagoon” was released. In 1983, Harry James died of lymphatic cancer in Las Vegas at age 67. Today is Huey Lewis’ 64th birthday and Robbie Robertson’s 71st birthday.
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