I returned from Sweden Wednesday night, went to bed, got up at 3am Thursday morning and noticed that I had tickets to Thursday night’s A’s-White Sox game. Oops, forgot about that.

I guess I could have tried to get rid of the tickets, but I also found upon returning that the police had found my stolen car while I was away. So instead of spending Thursday recovering from jet lag and trying to find some takers, I spent it working the police and insurance bureaucracies to get the car out of storage and to a repair shop. Fortunately, the car was in fine shape, except for a drained battery.

I didn’t want to let the tickets go to waste, so I decided to go to the game. Besides, I hadn’t seen so much as a baseball highlight in over three weeks. I needed some baseball.

The game started at 7pm, which is 4am Sweden time. I managed to get about a 20 minute nap before heading out to the Coliseum, which I hoped would be enough to get me through the game without falling asleep.

I arrived just in time to see the first pitch from the concourse, and by the time I reached my seat, Rich Harden had gotten three outs.

This was the best game I’ve ever seen Rich Harden pitch. He zipped through the batting order twice, facing the minimum through six. The best part was that he was doing it with ground outs instead of strikeouts. He was painting the corners, and keeping his pitches down in the zone. He ended up pitching eight innings, striking out only three, but getting 15 ground outs. He only threw 95 pitches. This was the Rich Harden that makes A’s fans drool. The game flew by.

Really, what if Rich Harden could pitch like that more often? Have there ever been any pitchers who throw 96-100 mph who were ground ball pitchers, not strikeout pitchers?

The A’s rode a Bobby Crosby double to a three-run rally in the 4th, and Eric Chavez homered in the next inning, and those were all the runs the A’s needed. Harden gave up a tip-your-hat-to-a-good-hitter homer to Magglio Ordonez in the 7th, but that was all.

I got my first look at Octavio Dotel in the ninth, and was satisfied with what I saw. He didn’t show much velocity in walking the first batter, hitting only 92 mph on the gun. I started thinking “Arthur Rhodes all over again”, because Rhodes showed up with the A’s not throwing as hard as advertised, too. Then Dotel started cranking it up to 95, and got the next three guys out.

The game was over in 2:02, and there wasn’t a happier guy in Oakland about that than me. I stayed awake for the whole game, collapsed into bed by 10pm, feeling in fine shape, except for a drained battery.