So much for the plans of mice and men, as they say. On the day of the first Spring Training game my wife and I could attend, torrential rain (for Phoenix anyway) has washed away any chances of the game being held. We showed up to the A's park, optimistically, a little after ten, for the noon game, and ended up being turned around. The A's official phone line said the game had been canceled by 11:30, so we are 0 for 1 so far in our 3-game plan.Amusingly, this is the first spat of rain that the Phoenix area has seen in approximately five months (143 days), in a drought that's raised national headlines, and on the front page, banner headline, the Arizona Republic said "It's Gonna Rain Today - Honest". I didn't know "gonna" was approved AP style, but you learn something new every day. I'm gonna look that up, by golly. Though the rain is certainly inconvenient for us, it's probably much-desired by the millions of others in the area who needed it more than we didn't.
Oddly enough, even the rainout made headlines, but in our view, for the wrong reasons. The A's vs. Giants matchup was much anticipated due to the teams' rivalry, but the national media made it sound like the A's fans, who had a sellout, had come to see Barry. Wrong! We came to see the A's kick Barry's butt. But that didn't stop ESPN from running a headline that said "Sellout A's Crowd Misses Bonds Because of Rainout", and in the story, saying "a sellout crowd hoping to see Barry Bonds play arrived to a soggy stadium...". Whatever. I guess, factually, I had hoped to see the game, and as Bonds would have been there, I would have hoped to see him play. But that's a little down the list.