"Da plane, Boss!  Da plane!"
"Smiles, everyone!   Smiles!'

"Welcome, Mr. Fosse, to Fantasy Island!"

If Ray Fosse were Hugh Hefner, Thursday's A's-Angels game would be the Centerfold of the Year. One old catcher hitting a game winning homer, and another throwing out a base stealer to nail the final out? Mmmmmm...oh, yes! OH, YES!

I'm not Ray Fosse; I'm not going to fantasize about Jason Kendall's arm, but I do fantasize about games like this. This A's-Angels rivalry is getting better with every game. They're rarely boring; nearly every game is nine innings of grinding tension. Frankly, it's rather exhausting watching these two teams play. By Sunday, after the fourth game of this series, I'm probably going to need a vacation.

I certainly don't have a good read on Mike Piazza yet. I missed his first at-bat, where he doubled. In his next at-bat, he came up with a runner on third and one out, and struck out. He looked awful, all out of sync. But then, in the ninth, he took a not cheating K-Rod deep, with one of the trademark right-center blasts that will land him in the Hall of Fame.

A few more of those, and I might be making a call to Ricardo Montalban about Piazza myself.