The gray clouds parted over Phoenix this morning, allowing for Spring Training to resume as originally planned. The AN contingent amassed at Papago Park and saw a tale of two games - with the A's regulars winning over the Angels 3-2, only to see the subs outscored 3-1 the rest of the way for a final tally of 5-4, erasing memories of a strong outing by Haren, and home runs by Eric Chavez and John Baker, who went 2 for 3 in his role as the A's DH.

In "the other game", the A's downed the Rockies 9-5 on the back of a 2 hit, 4 RBI game from Dan Johnson that also featured home runs by Mark Ellis and Adam Melhuse. Though Jason Kendall was rumored to try and start both games, the space/time continuum came into effect and blocked that plan cold.

One consistency in both games was the A's continued struggles on defense. The first play against the Angels was an error by Keith Ginter, which eventually allowed Chone Figgins to score. In fact, of the five Angel runs, only two were earned. In Colorado, two errors led to an unearned run in the 9th off of Matt Roney. Through our biased eyes, the infield at Papago Park left much to be desired, and likely contributed to some of the sloppiness.

Also of note - Crosby started his first game at shortstop, without injuries to himself or nearby teammates, while clubbing a double, and Haren pitched four solid innings, while Kurt Suzuki and Mac Suzuki were the featured battery for the A's in the fateful 8th inning. It was unknown at press time whether Ichiro was aware of the proceedings.

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.

In my four years at Cal (UC Berkeley), we only made one serious run through the NCAA Basketball tournament, when, led by coach Ben Braun, we made to the Sweet Sixteen, only to lose to the much-revered North Carolina Tarheels. That we made it that far was a surprise, as the team's leading scorer, Ed Gray, was out for the tournament with an injury. Since then, Cal hasn't done much in the tournament at all - in fact, in 1999, they even won the NIT championship, not that anybody noticed.

Flash forward to 2006, and we have an interesting story. Cal, with a double overtime defeat of Oregon yesterday, is now 20 and 9, and faces UCLA tonight in the Pac 10 Championship tourney final. The winner is a guaranteed lock for the NCAA tournament, and if UCLA loses, they will very likely still get in, thanks to a top 20 ranking. But if Cal loses? Who knows? The team will have 20 wins, which is a great start, but 10 losses, and only a small handful of meaningful wins. In ESPN's last "Bracketology" column, the author said Cal still had work to do to make it into the tournament rather than sit on the sidelines. And for Cal, it at times has seemed like a one man team. Last night, that one man, Leon Powe, scored 41 points, and the previous game, he literally outrebounded USC all by himself, 20 to 18.

After today's A's game, I'll do whatever I can to find out the Cal/UCLA matchup and be cheering on the Bears to claw their way to the NCAA tournament, but I don't trust the selection committee to do the right thing should they not win tonight. Cal has to pull it off.

We made it down to Arizona safe and sound, and in just hours, we will see the Oakland A's take on Barry Bonds and the hated San Francisco Giants in a game that should no doubt see quite a bit of media attention, due to Bonds' alleged dabbling in steroids, and should also see some strong fan reaction to his announcement, especially at a "home" ballpark for the A's, the team's cross-Bay rival.

Yesterday, with the day off from work, I took all fifteen ANtics comics, converted them to a single unified PDF file, and printed out 10 copies at Kinkos, with the intent of distributing copies to the players who have been covered for the last year. I don't have any idea how that will happen, but if the intimacy of Spring Training is close to what I've heard, then hopefully we will get that chance.

Yesterday, the A's played two split squad games, and as is common with split squad games, the A's well... split. They walloped the division rival Angels 16-4, but lost to the perennial basement dwelling Royals. That happens. So now the team has a record of 3-7 in the Cactus League campaign, which we keep being told has no bearing on reality. We shall see.