People often ask why I’m so negative in my column. Let me clarify that, since the first sentence makes it sound like there is actually a sizable group of people who read my column. A couple of people have asked me why I’m so negative in my column.

For my reply, I’d like to direct them to the last few weeks in baseball.

First, my beloved San Francisco Giants were eliminated from the playoffs. I have supported these bastards since spring training in February and how do they repay me? By coming so tantalizingly close to the postseason I could practically touch it and then folding quicker than Martha Stewart’s laundry.

With the Giants out of the picture, I was forced to pin my sagging hopes on the Oakland A’s. I have never been particularly fond of the A’s after they swept the Giants in the 1989 World Series, but they were the closest thing to a home team left after the Giants broke my heart.

The A’s had a pretty good chance, too. All they had to do was beat a Yankee team that was noticably weaker than the one that won the World Series last year.

Then Monday came around and the A’s picked up my shattered hopes and ground them into dust. I’m not even sure if what they did on Monday could be called baseball. If they had played a good game and lost, it would be different. But no, the A’s shot themselves in the foot Monday with sloppy defense, sloppy pitching and sloppy hitting. Hell, they didn’t just shoot themselves in the foot, they shot themselves in the foot and then amputated their leg just below the knee.

And so my baseball season ends the same way it does every year: I vow to never root for another baseball team ever again and resign myself to watching another high-rolling bunch of mercenaries buy the World Series.

Yet I know next year, when spring rolls around, I’ll be instantly hooked. I know I won’t be able to resist the temptation of checking out how the Giants’ spring training is going, how Jeff Kent looks this year, and whether Shawn Estes is finally going to have another good season.

I’ll think, “”I don’t know, this year could be the year, this year they could do it.”” And my 12-year relationship with baseball will renew itself, as it does every spring after our four-month hiatus, and my spirit will once again rise and fall in tune with the Giants.