Imagine your favorite meal lying on the table in front of you. Your stomach growls due to an undying hunger; you haven’t eaten a meal in days. You reach toward the food, mouth salivating, stomach aching in anticipation.

Then WHAM! An anvil drops from the ceiling crushing all of your limbs, leaving only your eyes in tact to watch everyone else eat the meal you crave so much.

As all hope withers away, a feeling of helplessness, desperation, sorrow and anger mix together inside you. Oakland Athletics fans know this feeling well.

Oakland fans have seen four years of regular season domination, only to fall in the postseason each time.

We didn’t expect to win in 2000, but when we took the defending champion Yankees to game five we had hope. Terrence Long squashed the dream of a World Series that year.

2001 was the A’s year. Billy Beane’s magic landed Johnny Damon, and Jermaine Dye and the A’s cruised into the postseason. The A’s won two road games in New York to begin the series, heading home to a sure series sweep. But a certain fatass designated hitter who wouldn’t slide and Dye’s broken leg killed all hopes of a World Series win in the cruelest possible way.

The A’s proved they didn’t need Giambi in 2002, winning 20 consecutive games. This time the A’s wouldn’t get the Yankees in the first round, and victory seemed almost certain. All the miggy magic in the world couldn’t save the A’s this time it, Billy Koch assured that.

I’ll admit, I thought the Red Sox would sweep the A’s. Theo Epstein is a genius in the making, and assembled the best offense in baseball in only a year.

But when the A’s won the first two games of the series in dramatic fashion, they gave me hope. When they lost game three, I remained confident. But it seems luck decided long ago it was no friend to the A’s. When Tim Hudson went down in the second inning in game four, it was like d