I have tickets to the Giants game. I can’t even tell you who they were supposed to be playing because I’m not trying to be a Giants fan. I have only so much energy to expend on this baseball thing and I feel I must conserve it for falling in love with Oakland. In love as in sports, I am a monogamist. (By the way, if you have no idea what I’m talking about here, read this post.)

But my friend offered to take me to see the Giants play at what used to be called Pacbell Park, and now has some other name, but might as well be called Gargantuan-Monopolist Rate-Gouging-Phone-Conglomerate-Park. I’ve heard it’s a nice place to see a ballgame. I gather they have unusually good and varied food. After my surprisingly positive experience with the barbeque at the A’s opener, I figured I ought to see whether the Giants could match up.

But by the time I’m supposed to BART over to the city for the game, it had been raining for three hours. If I were trying to become a Giants fan, I doubt I’d care. Fans go. They get rained upon. They suffer happily. But it was damn cold and I didn’t relish the idea of eating soggy bratwurst buns and flaccid garlic fries. And I have no allegiance whatsoever to Bonds & Co. So I call my friend and cancel.

I’d set aside the evening for baseball, so I figure I’ll dip into The Thinking Fan’s Guide to Baseball, by Leonard Koppett, and try to learn a thing or two. But before tucking into my bed with the book I make the possibly ruinous mistake of seeing how the A’s are making out in Seattle. The Mariners pitching phenom Felix Hernandez is making his debut, and after a 6-2 loss the previous evening, I’m rather uneasy about the game. I realize being a fan means sticking with a team through thick and thin, but as I’m just starting out, I’m concerned my interest and enthusiasm will flag if the A’s give me nothing at all to cheer about. Seems like if they stay around .500, which is where things stand before tonight’s game, I’ll stay engaged.

So before curling up with the book, I click over to the A’s Website to see if I can find any news. Which is where I discover something called Gameday. Before reading on it’s worth warning you that if you have an addictive personality, or commitments to family or work, or are for some other reason at risk for being sucked into a vortex of digital pleasure, I’d stay the hell away from Gameday.

On the A’s official website there are links for TV, Audio, and Gameday. I click the TV and Audio links, both of which are pay services. Then I click Gameday.

A window pops up on my screen filled with what looks like a baseball diamond. Names of players are scattered around. On the far right is a scoreboard, and rosters for the A’s and Mariners. In the middle of the screen is a rectangle. Every ten or fifteen seconds a red or green circle appears either inside or outside the box. It takes me a few minutes, but eventually I gather that the circles represent pitches, green for balls, red for strikes. When a rare blue circle appears in or near the rectangle, this means that the ball is in play. In that case I jerk my head to the left part of the Gameday screen to find a report of what just happened on the field, which is spelled out and also represented graphically on the diamond. With very little effort I discover the program’s many other bells and whistles. I can see everything: boxscore, inning-by-inning, play-by-play breakdown of pitching, hitting and fielding, lineup and reserve lists, and attractive photographs of the pitcher and whomever is in the batter's box. Feeds at the top and bottom of the screen offer updates on scores around the league which, as an A's fan, I could not care less about.

I do not have children. But I believe the shock and wonder and welling of emotion I experience upon discovering Gameday cannot be that different from the feelings swirling around a delivery room moments after a birth. I am stunned to find myself not just watching the action, but seemingly inside it. I know this is not the sort of thing a wanna be fan is supposed to think, but the experience is far better than being at the game. It’s deeper, richer, and doesn’t limit me to stadium food or stadium bathrooms. No parking hassles. No smelly guy behind me with the headphones duct taped to his skull.

And unlike television, the whole business is pleasingly untethered to any of the usual time constraints. In the middle of the third inning I can click back and relive the first. True, Gameday does not allow you to scroll into the future, but I would not be surprised to learn that such a feature is under construction.

Perhaps it’s my lack of experience that makes Gameday so appealing. At the game or at a sports bar I’m embarrassed to ask the experts what’s going on, who’s up, who’s pitching, is that a high pitch count or not, is he a home run threat? With Gameday I can answer my own questions. It’s educational, but thrilling, too, waiting for the data feed.

But wait, wait. I may be on the wrong track. I’m leading with my head. I’m trying to figure it out, get the facts. Maybe Gameday should be reserved for real fans, whose hearts are already on board. A person trying to become a fan probably should keep his head out of it for a while, try to approach things as a kid would, wide eyed, open hearted.

I can’t help myself. I lock my cat and dogs out of my office. I’m glued to the screen. The weather is updated at the top of the screen. In the second inning it’s cloudy, 57 degrees, with the wind from the left field at 12 mph. I can smell it, the water, the concrete, the hot dogs.

It’s the top of the fifth. A run scores on a double by Mark Kotsay, driving in Jason Kendall. Then Hernandez beans Mark Ellis and, I swear, without even thinking about it, I’m out of my desk chair and yelling at the pitcher. What the hell! Watch what you’re doing you &@#&$.

Suddenly I realize my wife will be arriving at Oakland airport in 30 minutes. This is not good. I need to stay right where I am. Chavez strikes out. If I take my laptop maybe I’ll get a wireless feed on the road.

My only complaint about Gameday is that fouled balls appear in the rectangle on the screen which represents the strike zone. Really they ought to show up someplace in the stands, in the very sore hand of a man who has dumped his beer and nachos on the woman next to him in order to fulfill his life’s dream of catching a baseball.

I really have to go.

I leave Gameday to play out in my absence. When I return I discover that Blanton held the Mariners to two hits, and the A’s shut out Seattle 6-0.

During future A’s games I will be in my office, listening to my music, eating my food, watching baseball in its glorious digital form. Feel free to phone; Gameday makes taking calls during the game a cinch. But don’t expect me to leave my house until the computer says the game over.