A Facebook friend of mine saw this
and did a double take, thinking at first the headline read;

A’s New
Home: “Jersey“
………………oh nooooo,……………….
The “Hoboken Athletics“

His LMAO comment reminded me of the three alarm anxiety I felt when I first heard Lew Wolf’s plan B to move the A’s to Omaha Nebraska. I could identify with the abandonment plagued Oakland area natives experience with yet another of their team’s pending exodus looming on the smoggy horizon…and the subsequent obvious revelation that I may be storing up treasure on a sinking ship rather than investing in eternal things, the things that bring real meaning and purpose in life.

Everyone that knows me knows I’m a hard core A’s fan, love ’em long time season ticket holder and obsessive compulsive sports memorabilia collector. I’ve paid a stiff price learning the hard way that being an Oakland Athletic Supporter is a slippery game in which we the peeps can get sucked in to more than what we’ve bargained for. The past couple of decades of musical chairs with Oakland’s star players has been shocking and disappointing. Passing on Miggy’s due value for the affordable Cry-Bobby Crosby, forcing Jason G’s hand to go play for the Dark Side, the breakup of the big three (Hudson-Mulder-Zito) rocked the house that Reggie built. The apparent solution to filling the salary gap seems to be the very hole Lew Wolf has spent the past several years digging for; the perfect plot to break ground and build a new stadium.  We know that He knows where that place is, the space makes the best horse sense to erect his high-tech cathedral of the future. It’s so ridiculous that the team directly across the bridge owns marketing rights in a territory thirty miles away, in a city that can actually sell out a new stadium, the self proclaimed Capitol of Silicon Valley; San Jose. Did I just hear someone in Oakland say “be careful what you wish for”?

True-dat, a brand new big ticket price stadium can’t stop the merry go round free agency created, it may just slow it down long enough for the ink to dry on my Josh Willingham autographed gold baseball…but when will this viscous cycle end? Which brings me to the point I really want to share with my fellow sports addicts and/or anyone else that God has lead to this page in life. The realization that maybe I’ve sunk way too much time, money and effort in something that is ultimately doomed to let me down.

It was no secret that 2006 would be Zito’s last year with the A’s, yet
I still wanted to add his #75 home white to my collection. I even paid
to have the Bill King patch sewn on…Barry left Oakland in style and he
was sure to be an icon at his next gig, right? The next season, spring 2007, in an attempt to endear myself to another Oakland A, I kicked down full price on an authentic Swisherlicious, a most colorful fun-loving character. As fast as you can say; SHEEKABOOMBA-2008 dude’s dealt to another team…so when I saw “Oakland’s Man In Black” (Justin The Duke) on the cover of the September issue of the Athletics Magazine that year, I could hear Ken Harrelson’s voice in
my head proclaim; “He Gone”. A born sucker for the alternate black cool base, I seriously considered
having a #32 version tagged [CUST OUT] but thank
God for bringing me back to reality. And thank God for giving us one franchise player so I can safely stock pile all that #3 garb available, amen? ….I break the bank writing checks that my balance sheet can’t cash, Mr. Franchise broke his back leaving it all on the field of dreams…Sorry Chavey, you’re heading for the retirement home-team down stream while I’m up floating up cash creek without a paddle to my name.

So now that I have 24 feet of wardrobe space full of mustard stained jerseys, none of them with a player on their current team, some of them only fit my beer belly evil twin, and all of them aint going with me to heaven…but, the grace and mercy of the Lord brought me to a place of restoration. God is making a youth leader and tailgate minister out of me. I can now see a day when I will be able to reach the lost dressed up like Ice Cube in “Are We There Yet”.

We will never be fulfilled to the full satisfaction of our need by anyone or anything other than Jesus Christ. He is the one who we all want to believe in. The following famous quote has been attributed to renowned mathematician, physicist, and philosopher Blaise Pascal:

“There is a God shaped vacuum in the heart of every man which cannot be
filled by any created thing, but only by God, the Creator, made known
through Jesus.”

Life is the pursuit of fulfilling basic human needs. If we try to meet
them with our own understanding, we will become disillusioned,
frustrated, discouraged, and depressed. However, if we follow God’s
design, we will experience the joy and fulfillment that comes from
achieving our basic life purposes. I would like to recommend a web site that outlines a book called Seven Basic Needs. LifePurposeHealth.com

May the Lord bless you and lead you to fulfill His purpose for your life…

….wish you were here,

e