It’s not like I’ve got it all figured out yet. But in the past twenty-four hours I’ve had a couple of minor revelations.

For example, I now believe that being a fan means caring about what happens to the A’s even if no one I know really shares my interest and my wife doesn’t want to hear about it.

To no small degree Jen decided to be with me, despite many attractive offers from far better looking, richer, more successful, funnier, smarter, better looking, skinnier, smarter, better looking men, because I do not (well, did not) care about baseball or any other profesional or college team sport. She does not want to be with someone who checks the scores before turning in, who turns to the sports section first, who begs out of a dinner party to see an important game. This may have less to do with her truly hating sports than it has to do with assumptions—some fair, some perhaps not so—about what men who care about professional team sports are like in other ways. We haven’t delved to deeply, but even a few games into the season I think she’s worried. Anyway, I keep asking if she’s reading my my GLOB and she says, rather unapologetically I’ve noticed, no.

It’s about sacrifice. If learning to love the A’s means I get less nookie, well, okay. I’ll just have to live without.

I should say, just in case Jen happens to stop by, that my commitment doesn’t run all that deep, really, at least not yet. And if giving up the A’s means I might get a whole lot of nookie, then hey, I’m willing to negotiate.

Caring about the A’s also means believing that I share something with people who don’t necessarily want to be my friend, and who may not feel they share anything with me.

I went to see a drag show in the Mission district last night. At the BART station were many people on their way to the park for the game against the Rangers. It’s not that I really wanted to join them. I was meeting friends, excited to see some theater. But I had a strong urge to walk up and down the platform slapping each and every one of them on the back, saying Go A’s! or Can you believe, three straight to the freaking Twins? or You think they should have pulled Zito earlier? I’m not sure I even know what any of these things mean, really. What I do know is that I wanted to share, to not be alone with my new, but strong feelings about the team.

All of this is rather confusing, and complicated, though, because if I’m becoming a fan and I feel as if I share something with the people at the BART station wearing A’s caps or jackets, and they don’t feel the same about me, are they fans? Are my feelings of community false? Are fans supposed to like each other? Is time spent at the park sui generis, some sort of bubble into which we A’s fans walk, share, cheer, maybe even love (the A’s, for sure, but each other, a little bit? Maybe?), and then return to our more cynical lives.

It’s going to take me a while to get used to this. The lines are not at all clear to me yet. I want to hug them, tell them how I’m falling, how my wife doesn’t really understand. When I catch the eye of one, a young man the size of a baby elephant, with a shiny jersey and unlaced high-tops, he looks away, as if to say, Not here, buddy, please. Wait until we’re inside.

So, I'm rather surprised to conclude that despite our sports-obsessed society, fans are a bit closeted.

The most unsurprising of my revelations is that caring means feeling gut-wrenchingly bad about having breakfast with friends and then working on a legal brief and then walking the dogs when something truly momentous is happening to your team.

After a three game losing streak, today, at home, the A’s beat Texas 6-5. This is good, but this is not momentous. But when I finally got back with the dogs I learned that during the game something happened that hasn’t happened, on any team, in five years. Three batters–Eric Chavez, Frank Thomas, and Milton Bradley (sorry, I keep thinking, You sunk my battleship!)–hit three successive pitches out of the park. Three home runs in a row!

And where the hell was I?