All right, I have to admit it. I have some friends who are A's fans. I can't begrudge them their choice of teams to root for. (I just tease them mercilessly for it. No, wait. They do that to me...) But I also find it interesting the cross-bay rivalry between Oakland and San Francisco, as my exposure to A's fandom has shine light upon. I decided to take a look at the musings of San Francisco Giants blogs to see what the reactions were a day after their team signed Zito to the largest contract given to a pitcher in major league history. (And then I decided to look at some A's blogs to see if A's fans are distraught or if there is no love lost between the casual A's fan and Messr Zito..)

McCovey Chronicles is in shock, calling it the "Blurst of times."

Only Baseball Matters wants to believe, as he attempts to justify the Zito signing, despite pointing out that two weeks prior the following was written on the blog:

We're supposed to believe that Barry Zito will come here, to pitch with this kind of horseshit team behind him, with our waiver wire bullpen? Are these people out of their fucking minds?!?..... Who's to say Zito doesn't continue the decline that he seems to be on? Sure, he could get motivated and pull a Clemens, but how many times has that happened?

But over at Bleeding Black and Orange, they say they finally have something to "smile" about.

Their team got duped into signing what could very well be the worst contract in history, and they want to smile? Perhaps A's fans are on to something about the thick-headedness of Giants fans....

And how are A's fans responding to the cross-bay defection of Zito?

Athletics Nation is supposedly dealing with the five stages of grief, but ends of looking for someone to take his Zito jersey off his hands for cheap.

In four sentences, Elephants in Oakland sums up with "Zito is gone, but not forgotten" and "now its time to move forward with A's baseball."

But the best A's reaction might belong to Most Valuable Network, who said that he never thought the Giants would actually sign Zito, after crying wolf yet failing to sign Vladimir Guererro, Alfonso Soriano, and others. MVN also makes a case that Roy Oswalt and Johann Santana should fire their agents if they allowed a onctract such as Zito's pass through their fingers. And in the end, MVN states:

I think not having enough money to sign Zito may have prevented the A’s from making an expensive mistake, something that it also prevented the A’s from doing with Jason Giambi. Only time will tell, but I don’t anticipate the A’s looking back at this failure to sign a player with the same regret that they do with Tejada.

So there you have it.

In perhaps their biggest signing since 1993, the Giants pirated away the ace from the cross-town rivals. Yet their home-town fans are ambivalent about it, not sure if they got chicken salad or chicken shit. Meanwhile, the woebegone A's fans appear to be partaking in a collective shrug. Yet another piece of the one-time erstwhile "dynasty" has fallen away. I guess A's fans are used to it by now...