{"id":8653,"date":"2010-07-26T07:01:37","date_gmt":"2010-07-26T06:01:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/?p=8653"},"modified":"2010-07-27T07:07:01","modified_gmt":"2010-07-27T06:07:01","slug":"weekly-hit-ground-ball-watsons-first-home-run-was-worth-the-wait","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/?p=8653","title":{"rendered":"Weekly Hit Ground Ball: Watson’s first home run was worth the wait"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"WhgbHlSq\"The sun was shining down on the Oakland Coliseum\u00c2\u00a0last Wednesday as the A\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s hosted the Boston Red Sox in a mid-week day-game.\u00c2\u00a0 The long-sleeves and jackets worn by those in the shade, as many wearing Boston red as wearing Oakland green and gold, showed that it wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t quite as warm as it looked, but no one seemed to mind.<\/p>\n

Least of all the A\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s outfielder Matt Watson.<\/p>\n

With his team trailing 1-0 in the bottom of the second inning, Watson walked up to the batter\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s box and let a Clay Buchholz change-up sail past the outside corner for a ball.\u00c2\u00a0 No point in swinging at something he couldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t do much with; why not wait for something he could drive or take a walk to get on base for a teammate to knock him around?\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

Ball Four never came.\u00c2\u00a0 The next pitch from Buchholz was a 93 MPH fastball on the outer part of the plate and up in the strikezone.\u00c2\u00a0 The left-handed Watson pulled it up into the air towards the right-field wall.\u00c2\u00a0 <\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Does it have enough?”, asked A\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s announcer Glen Kuiper.\u00c2\u00a0 He quickly answered his own question with an excited \u00e2\u20ac\u0153yes!\u00e2\u20ac\u009d.<\/p>\n

Watson circled the bases with his head down, desperately trying to hold back a smile.\u00c2\u00a0 Any home run is worth celebrating, but when it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the first in your Major League career, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s all the more precious, hence Kuiper\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s cry of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153get the baseball, folks\u00e2\u20ac\u009d.\u00c2\u00a0 But when that first Major League home run comes at age 31, when you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve toiled in the Minors, overseas in Japan and Korea and then back to an independent league in the States, when you thought that your chance to hit a Big League long ball, just one, had gone, adhering to baseball etiquette and not showing up the pitcher must be the ultimate act of restraint.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153It was nice to finally get one\u00e2\u20ac\u009d, said Watson after the game<\/a>, adding with a smile, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I got the ball … I hit the first one short enough to make it a little easier to get\u00e2\u20ac\u009d.\u00c2\u00a0 His shot had landed just above the out-of-town scoreboard in right-field, right beside the 362 ft sign, and bounced down onto the warning track.\u00c2\u00a0 Most players would dream of their first Major League home run being a towering shot, majestically spiralling into the air and landing in\u00c2\u00a0the upper deck or leaving a dent in a car parked outside the stadium, but this was probably how Watson dreamed it when he got the call from the A\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s on\u00c2\u00a05 July.\u00c2\u00a0 Who cares how far it goes so long as it goes far enough and I can keep the ball as a souvenir.<\/p>\n

That home run capped off an incredible journey for Watson, one that, by chance, I had followed over the years.<\/p>\n

The 2004\/05 off-season was a tumultuous time for A\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s fans.\u00c2\u00a0 General Manager Billy Beane traded two-thirds of the Big Three, Tim Hudson and Mark Mulder, within days of each other and I joined many other A\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s fans in logging onto various A\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s websites and blogs trying to make sense of what the future would bring for our team (and, by association, us fans).\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

One of the blogs I came across was the now-dormant Elephants in Oakland<\/a> site. It was written by a guy called Zachary D. Manprin who was not afraid to voice his opinion on anything A\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s related while slamming the A\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s beat writers and taking pot shots at the popular Athletics Nation blog (\u00e2\u20ac\u02dcPathetics Nation\u00e2\u20ac\u2122, as he liked to call it) for good measure.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"July<\/a><\/div>\n