Our baseball season is officially over. Today, we trekked down to Phoenix Muni to watch the Olympic Qualifying Tournament for The Americas (a sub regional) as two teams that have no chance of making the Olympics—Panama and Guatemala-- squared off in front of 48 loyal fans (on an absolutely gorgeous day).

It was a 12-1 blow out, and it was a miracle that Guatemala scored. They were outmanned but not short on heart. A few of the Panama players are in the minor leagues—Jony Lasso, Avelino Asprilla and Donald Julio. The others are a collection of young talent and older players, still playing their hearts out for their countries.

Of note: they played both countries’ national anthems (no words) and the game was being broadcast back to Panama (as you see in the video). You can just visual millions of Panamanians sitting and hearing the accounts of their heroes thousands of miles away. As we learned after the game, the U.S. swept the five-game tournament and finished on top of the bracket with Canada and Nicaragua finishing in a tie for second at 3-2. The top four teams will advance to the Americas Qualifying Tournament to be held in Cuba in August 2006.

And so it goes. Our season comes to an end until next February in pre-spring training. It’s been a great nine months. We can hardly wait til 2006.

Players saying goodbye and acting very gracious to the fans who wait as they make their way from Phoenix Muni Stadium to the team bus.

On a sunny Saturday, we made it to the Arizona Fall League championship for the second consecutive year. Oddly, it was the same two teams as last year—Scorpions and Desert Dogs, although the players and MLB teams who made up the squads, were different. The results were the same as the Desert Dogs were the winners, this time 9-3.

Matt Kemp of the Dodgers was the star of the game with two home runs and Jamie Shields of the D-rays pitched seven strong innings for the win. Casey Daigle—with celeb wife Jenny Finch cheering him on—came on to pitch the ninth inning. It was a sloppy game with five errors between the two teams, a few of the errors leading to big rallies for the Dogs.

The game was as much about who was there as who played. In this clip, you will find Davey Johnson, former Mets manager, Braves second baseman as well as manager of Team USA Baseball, the Olympic team; the Big Bopper, Bob Watson, (former Astros star now MLB and Team USA exec) and Angels owner Arte Moreno. We saw but did not capture on video former Cardinals/A’s/Cleveland outfielder Georeg Henrdick, former White Sox exec Rollie Hemond and the father & son Garagiolas, Joe and Joe Jr.

Thus ends another season of Arizona Fall league. Who from this crop will vie for Rookie of the Year in ’06? Stay tuned!

Other other 2004 Fall League favorite, Ryan Howard, officially makes it 2 for 2. He was named NL Rookie of the Year. Props to him and Huston Street. Which 2005 AFL star will it be next year?

I called it. Tomorrow, it will be official, Huston Street is the AL Rookie of the Year! Back in February when the A's were in pre-Spring Training, you could sense that Huston Street was up to the challenge of being a big-league closer. He has the stuff plus the mental toughness of a veteran (or perhaps the toughness of the son of a former UT quarterback?).

In this clip, now close to eight months old, Street is signing autographs (saying "Thank your, sir" and "Thank you ma'am") for the handful of A's faithful at Papago Park in Phoenix. Later, I asked him how it felt to be the future "Rookie of the Year." He just smiled. My wife and I saw it coming; we saw him in Fall League last season when he saved the Championship Game.