Back in January, when I bought my tickets for games at Fenway Park in the 2003 season, I picked a pile of games against the Yankees, of course. But when the ticket agent asked me if there were any other games I was interested in, I said "So when does Oakland come to town?" I had a hunch, you see. "August 19, 20, 21," he replied. A hunch that those games just might be important to the fate of the Red Sox, or the A's, or both.

Last year, at the end of August, I found myself in northern California for a convention. The A's were on a history-making winning streak at the time, threatened only by the spectre of a major league baseball work stoppage. The strike was averted, though, and the A's continued to roll. I've loved the A's for a while, and I couldn't resist the opportunity. I checked out of my hotel a day early, went to Oakland, and cheered them on to their 19th victory in a row. (See Entry 112: Summer Love Affair and Entry 123: A Fling for details.)

Of course there was no guarantee that August 2003 would find the A's in equally exciting circumstances. But as it happens, they came into Fenway Park on August 19th tied with the Red Sox for the wild card in the American League.

The poor Sox. Before the All Star break they were leading the A.L. East for a while. Then they fell back in that race, but were leading the wild card by a good margin. Now they have slipped in those standings as well. There has been no precipitous swoon this year--the Sox continue to battle. But somehow they are losing a gradual war of attrition, as the Yankees and A's heat up and raise their games.

No one can say whether history will look on tonight's game as pivotal. Right now I find it more likely that if the Sox fall out of the postseason the blame will be laid on the fact that the Orioles came into Fenway Park and won three out of four (and almost swept...), and a week later the Yankees went down to Oriole Park at Camden Yards and instead did the sweeping of the four game set. Okay, yes, the Yankees do it with incredible luck--one game won on a circus catch by Hideki Matsui, one on a three run homer from Aaron Boone (who hadn't had a hit in weeks and which the umpires first called foul and then reversed), one on an extra inning run down in which Jack Cust had a clear way to home plate as the tying run but then slipped and fell on his face and was tagged out. Nonetheless, the difference between the Sox losing three of four to the Birds and the Yankees taking all four is three whole games in the standings.

But we're not talking about the Yankees now, we're talking about the A's.

The Athletics have not quite been the powerhouse they were last year. Barry Zito has struggled, Jermaine Dye has been out injured most of the season, Eric Byrnes fell into a slump he can't seem to get out of. The team that did not lose an interleague series last year, took four of six from the Giants, and swept the N.L. central in their home ballparks, this year has a losing record on the road. Their big mid-season pickup this year was: Jose Guillen?! And now Tim Hudson has been hit in the wrist by a line drive and had his Fenway start pushed back a few days to Toronto. And yet here they are, tied with the Red Sox for the wild card.

Or they were, before tonight's game. The matchup was Derek Lowe, who has been great at Fenway this year (not so great away), and Mark Mulder, who leads the league in complete games and is always tough. We went to Fenway expecting to see a low-scoring pitching duel. We got what we expected, just not in the manner we expected.

Lowe was dominant. His sinker was inducing weak ground balls all over the place. The fly balls the A's did hit were pretty weak, too. Only slumping, light hitting 2B Mark Ellis hit two pretty good shots off him, one right to Kapler in right, one right to Manny in left. Ramon Hernandez hit one ball so softly he legged out an infield hit. (And he's a catcher!) Scott Hatteberg had the only other hit off Lowe through six.

Mulder, on the other hand, wasn't his usual dominating self. Right from the very first batter you could see he wasn't hitting his spots, missing the strike zone, and what is it with all those changeups? He gutted out three innings, in which he gave up two runs, neither of which would have scored if the breaks had been going Mulder's way. Kevin Millar singled, moved to second on a ground out, then went to third on a wild pitch. Oops, told you he wasn't hitting his spots. He scored on a single by Kapler with two outs, a short shot that would have held Millar at third had he not advanced on the WP.

Then Mulder, a lefty with a good pick off move, had Kapler picked off first so cleanly that Kapler ran all out for second. He made it in on a low throw from Hatteberg. That should have been the third out. Then Damian Jackson, a pinch runner type who has found himself playing second as Todd Walker's defensive liabilities have been gradually exposed over the course of the season, came to the plate hitting in the nine hole. Jackson singled and Kapler scored. Two runs in. Then Mulder picked Jackson off to end the inning. The Sox threatened again in the third, but Mulder held them. But that was all he would do. He left the game after that with a "right hip strain." Ouch. No wonder he wasn't putting much zip on the ball.

Chad Harville came in and kept the Red Sox at two. Then he gave way to Ricardo Rincon, who went to a full count on way too many batters, but still managed to win most of those battles, keeping the Red Sox bats quiet.

Then came the seventh inning, and Derek Lowe did not come out to pitch. Instead, Scott Sauerbeck, one of Theo Epstein's trading deadline pickups, a lefty, came in to face Eric Chavez, Miguel Tejada, and Erubiel Durazo. Chavvy and Ruby are both lefties so the move seemed to make sense, except that Lowe had been so dominating to every kind of batter, why take him out? Turns out he had developed a blister on his right thumb. So the two run lead was in the hands of the bullpen.

The A's are built to score runs with high on base percentage and high slugging percentage. In other words, walks followed by big hits. This was true in the 70s when Reggie Jackson and Joe Rudi were there to mash the ball, and in the 80s when Mark McGwire and Jose Canseco were there to bash the ball. Giambi. You get the picture. So here comes Sauerbeck to sit down the lefties.

Sox fans felt the first signs of impending doom when Sauerbeck walked Chavez, who doesn't hit lefties well at all, to open the inning. You never want to give Miggy a chance to be the tying or winning run. This time it was okay, though--he grounded to second. Jackson was almost able to tag Chavez on the way by and get himself a 4-4-3 double play, but no, couldn't quite touch him, so Chavez advanced to second. (Replays showed the he did miss.) Then came Durazo. Sauerbeck repeated his performance, and walked him. That was it for Scott Sauerbeck, who was replaced by a guy they say has "closer stuff," Scott Williamson. Another late pickup in Theo's rehaul of the bullpen.

Williamson faced Ramon Hernandez. He even got two strikes on him. But that was the limit of his success against Hernandez, who then hit a pitch deep and over the Green Monster, a no-doubter. 3-2 A's.

There was still hope for the Sox at that point. After all, it was only one run, and the heart of the order were coming up in the eighth, and some guys who can bash the ball pretty good themselves in the ninth. But in the eighth, Chad Bradford struck out Nomar with that weird underhand rise ball of his, Manny hit a hot shot up the middle that Tejada made a Nomar-like play on to get him out, and Millar grounded hard to third.

In the ninth, Keith Foulke, the American League saves leader came on to protect his one run lead against David Ortiz, Jason Varitek and Trot Nixon. Now, any one of these guys has the power to tie the game with one swing. Heck, the last time I was at Fenway, didn't Varitek hit two dingers? But listening to Joe and Jerry on the radio broadcast I learned that Ortiz is in a 4 for 34 slump, and Varitek was hitless in his last 17 at bats. "This could be it right here," I said to my friend David, who had come to the game with me. "This could be the whole wild card, the postseason hopes, everything. Because if these two guys continue to slump... no wonder you're not winning games right now."

Because it seemed to me everything was balanced on a knife edge in that inning. If Varitek or Ortiz could break their slumps, if Nixon could live up to his great numbers of this year, right there in that inning, then the Sox could not only win the one game, they would roll forward the last six weeks, gaining rather than losing ground in the race.

Only history will show whether I'm right. As it turned out, no one broke out of a slump in the ninth as Keith Foulke, the A.L. saves leader with 31, set them down 1-2-3. Final score, 3-2 A's. The loss put the Sox back one game in the wild card race and six-and-a-half back. It's still possible that they'll surge against Ted Lilly, that the A's will falter with Hudson and Mulder both ailing, that this game won't be the turning point it appeared to be while I was at the park. We'll just have to wait and see.

FENWAY NOTES: I watched the A's take BP while standing next to a guy named Brad who, when he was a teenager, was a bullpen catcher for Barry Zito in the Cape Cod League. The A's bullpen catcher, a guy named Buck, told Zito he was there, but Barry never really figured out where we were standing in the sea of faces lined up along the wall. After throwing his bullpen session, Zito came about twenty feet from us to sign autographs, but once he started signing he never looked up. He signed at least a hundred, but never moved from that spot. It was one of the biggest mobs of people I've ever seen trying to get one player's autograph--second only to when Jeter signs. The crowd of autograph seekers was mostly Red Sox fans but there were a few A's hats and jerseys mixed in there. I wore the black A's hat I bought at game 19 of the 20 game streak, and tried to get Barry to sign the scorecard from that game I had brought. (He had pitched that day, though not well.) But we missed him. Oh well.... Tejada also signed a large number, on the far side of the dugout, and so did Jose Morban.... Compared to the Yankees' series crowds, the Fenway crowd was quite sedate.... As always the loudest cheers for Manny and Nomar, the most flashbulbs for Nomar.... No appearance of the "Yankees Suck" chant though there were plenty of t-shirt sellers outside after the game... The Wave never made it past the first base seats.... The new "Big Concourse" of food concessions was finally opened beyond right field, with new menu items like french fries and chicken caesar salad.... I still ate a hot dog and an ice cream bar.