Travis Blackley — Sports Commentary

By Art Spander

OAKLAND -- It was 87 degrees at the first pitch. On October 2. In Oakland. If that makes sense, then why shouldn’t the A’s? “Nobody saw this coming,’’ both Tim Kurkjian and Terry Francona said on ESPN Tuesday morning about the miracle.

What they and everyone else saw Tuesday evening were the Oakland Athletics tied for first place in the American League West with Texas, and one last game, the biggest game of arguably the most improbable season, a few hours away.

“The fact that we won (Monday),’’ said Bob Melvin, the homegrown A’s manager, “we were in better position (Tuesday). Now both teams have to go out and see what they can do.’’

The story is what the A’s already have done. After the 3-1 win over the Rangers, after 30,660 spectators shouted and screamed, after the drummers out in the bleachers had finished, Oakland was locked with the Rangers at the top of the division.

In three months, they had gained 13 games on Texas. In three months, they had destroyed the theory that in baseball, like in wine and cars, you get what you pay for.

Because compared to other franchises, the people who run the A’s – owner Lew Wolff and GM Billy Beane (and can you imagine his inner smile?) – paid almost nothing for the players on the roster and, no matter what happens Wednesday, have received everything.

“We’ve had a nice run,’’ said Melvin, in the understatement of the year. BoMel, as he is known, wants to stay as low-key as imaginable for the express purpose of keeping his young athletes just as low-key.

If, after the sparkling wine spritzing on Monday night when the A’s clinched at least a wild card place, if after a celebration that back in March – hell, back in May when Oakland lost nine in a row – seemed as unlikely as 87-degree night in October.

Night baseball by the bay is supposed to be cold, and in Oakland this season it was supposed to be bad. “People said the A’s might lose 100 games,’’ said Ray Fosse, their former catcher and current TV analyst.

The question in spring was whether the Angels, who spent $240 million for Albert Pujols and another $77 million for pitcher C.J. Wilson, could overtake the Rangers, the 2011 and 2010 American League champions. But it was the A’s who caught the Angels, after going 56-26 since June 30 -- which was a day Oakland lost to Texas -- while the Rangers went 43-39.

On Monday night, Melvin found it difficult to speak, overtaken by emotion, doused in bubbly, and thinking about the past.

Melvin will be 51 in another month. He grew up on the Peninsula, went to Menlo-Atherton High, then played at Cal, then after a bit with the Detroit Tigers came for a while to the Giants. You can’t get more local than that. Or more connected to the region.

“What I was thinking of,’’ Melvin explained later, “was the times I had been to the Coliseum, the rock concerts – The Who – the postseason games the A’s played in the early 70s when I was a kid. It all was coming back."

Lew Wolff, the A’s owner, the man who desperately is trying to move the team to San Jose some 30 miles down the freeway, has been a despised figure in Oakland. But suddenly, the image has changed, as that of his ball club.

Wolff properly was part of the Monday jubilation, and he said to a television camera, wonderfully candid, “I didn’t think we’d be here.’’ He meant in the playoffs. Maybe he also meant in Oakland.

That war between Wolff and the cross-bay San Francisco Giants, who won’t relinquish their territorial rights on San Jose to the A’s, is at a temporary truce. The battles will be on the diamonds, the Giants and A’s both in the postseason in what most be the giddiest time in years for Bay Area baseball lovers.

The Giants’ success was expected. Needless to add, the A’s was not. Tuesday night, they got the victory using four pitchers, two of whom, starter Travis Blackley and closer Grant Balfour, are Australian. But why not? Baseball has been called the national pastime, but the nation was never specified.

Blackley, picked up from the Giants off waivers in May, went two innings against the Yankees and one inning against the Rangers in his previous two games. Tuesday night, he pitched six innings, allowing three hits and a run. Balfour came in for the ninth and in order retired Josh Hamilton, Adrian Beltre and Nelson Cruz, the heart of the order.

That’s a baseball term. The order for the A’s is one with plenty of heart.

“We got better as the year went along,’’ said Melvin. Nobody saw it coming.