Baseball comebacks like the one the Oakland Athletics pulled off Wednesday night are fun for players and for fans (of the winning side). For sportswriters working on a deadline, or for clubhouse workers anticipating a series clincher, games that suddenly flip can be a terrifying bit of extra work. Take the guys in charge of the visitors clubhouse at the Oakland Coliseum, where they had to tear down protective plastic covering the lockers of the Detroit Tigers after they lost.
Detroit led by two runs in the ninth, just three outs from closing out the A's in four games and advancing to the ALCS. That's not how it ended, of course; Seth Smith tied the score with a two-run double and Coco Crisp brought in the winning run with a two-out RBI single.
No need, then, for the plastic to protect the personal valuables of Prince Fielder, Miguel Cabrera, Justin Verlander and the rest. They wouldn't be popping champagne-like liquid and spraying non-alcoholic beer all over the place on this night, making a happy mess. Reporter Anthony Witrado of the Sporting News happened to notice the plastic, ripped down from the lockers and stuffed in a side room:
The plastic over the Tiger lockers had to be torn down in a hurry. It ended up in a room here... twitter.com/WitradoSN/stat…
— Anthony Witrado (@WitradoSN) October 11, 2012
Hey, that plastic can be recycled! (This is "Moneyball" Oakland, after all.) The Tigers get one more crack at the A's on Thursday night. But imagine if we have a tie score in the late innings ... both clubhouses will be adorned in plastic, with one side to be ripped down and left in a heap in another room, so as not to remind the losing side of what could have been, what almost was.
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