But this is the playoffs and that doesn't happen. There's only one team who ends the season without tasting disappointment and for A's fans, they watched what had been a great, fully enjoyable season end with a four-game sweep by the Detroit Tigers. Everything that the A's had been, everything they accomplished over the season, gone just like that.

From baseballgirl on the Atheltics Nation blog:

"Congratulations to the 2006 Oakland Athletics. I really mean that. Despite the way it all ended; with more of a whimper than a bang, they managed to do something that no Oakland team has been able to do in fourteen years; be one of the four best teams in baseball at the end of a season....

But let's be honest. It still hurts. With any great love, there is great risk of heartbreak, and I don't think any of us have really recovered yet. Part of being a fan and falling in love with a team, while investing six solid months in them day in and day out, is the inevitable sense of loss that comes when the relationship is finished. And aside from the December game of musical baseball players at the Winter Meetings, our relationship with the 2006 Oakland Athletics is finished. Our hearts will heal; we'll start to form a relationship with the 2007 A's, and maybe when the wound is not so fresh, we'll look back at this season of successes with warmth and fondness.