OAKLAND -- Walking into a bad big-league clubhouse is like walking into a toga party wearing a Hawaiian shirt, only without the half-empty keg. There's a palpable tension in the air, and chances are that the whispering among the assorted cliques scattered about has little to do with the brutal pop quiz in Organizational Psych.
Walk into a good clubhouse, though, and it's, "Hey, what took you so long? Grab a cup. There's dancing upstairs in Zeke's room, but grab some chicken wings on the way. They're awesome." There are no cliques because everyone likes each other.
Which group of guys do you suppose might handle adversity better? The Twins and A's, who are collegial as clubs come, provided the answer last season. And although some of the faces have changed, the series that wrapped up Thursday with both teams sitting at 27-19 proved that little else has.
Minnesota lost the opener in a contentious little game that featured a couple of bench-clearings, but as soon as it was over, the Twins were over it. The same upbeat music that thumped before the game thumped afterward, albeit at a slightly lower volume.
The unspoken but clearly heard message: Tomorrow will be better, and tomorrow starts today.
In a bad clubhouse, losses are allowed to fester. Players sit glumly at card tables, silently picking at their pasta salad before rushing out the door. Someone could replace the CD player with a block of cheese and nobody would notice. Music is a definite no-no after a loss.
"Man, I can't imagine that kind of environment," says Minnesota's Torii Hunter. "There's enough negativity in this game as it is."
So true. Make seven outs every 10 trips to the plate and you're a rock star. Allow a run every three innings and you might win an award. Even the great teams endure 70 or so losses a year.
"And that," says Hunter, "is what makes the success so sweet."
It's even sweeter when you can share it with buddies, and the Twins and A's might be the tightest teams in the bigs. Neither club has the kind of coin to shop in the organic section of the free-agent market, so they rely on player development. That means a whole pack of guys have been teammates for some time before they reach The Show.
Among the Twins, for instance, Hunter, Jacque Jones, A.J. Pierzynski, Doug Mientkiewicz, Eddie Guardado, LaTroy Hawkins, Matt LeCroy, J.C. Romero and Corey Koskie were all minor-league teammates at one time.
There's a similar sense of familiarity in the Oakland clubhouse, but because the A's have had a few more fast-trackers, there are smaller, staggered groups. Nonetheless, Tim Hudson, Mark Mulder, Barry Zito, Miguel Tejada, Eric Chavez, Ramon Hernandez, Terrence Long, Eric Byrnes, Mark Ellis and Adam Piatt have all pretty much beaten the same bushes.
"It's big," says Long. "When you've been through the same situations, it makes you closer."
And when you're closer, you're far less likely to point fingers. In a bad clubhouse, a poor performance might get you privately stabbed in the back. In a good clubhouse, you get a public pat. So after Zito watched Oakland's struggling relief corps blow his seventh win of the season Wednesday afternoon, he did what any good teammate would do.
"You're not going to get the win every time you leave a game with a lead," he said. "Bullpen guys are human, too."
It's that kind of one-for-all attitude that allows teams such as the Twins and A's to weather just about any kind of storm.
How many excuses did the Twins have built in for failure last season? They were poor, their fan base was dwindling, and, if you believe everything you read, the guillotine of contraction was razor-sharp and poised inches from their necks. But rather than succumb to the obstacles, they played with a merry sense of obliviousness on the way to one of the more surprising seasons in recent history.
"You have to play the game or the game plays you," Hunter says. "We just kept playing the game and figured good things would happen."
Ditto the 2002 A's. They lost Jason Giambi, Johnny Damon and Jason Isringhausen in the offseason, and they stunk it up so bad early in the regular season that management made sweeping changes in May. A bad clubhouse might pack it in at that point. The A's rallied from 10 games out of first place to win their second AL West title in three years.
"When you're playing with friends -- and in here, we are --you play for each other," says Byrnes, who extended his hitting streak to 13 games Thursday with a solo homer. "And when you play for each other, things are usually going to work out."
This isn't to say hot cocoa and hugs win ball games. Talent still matters most and always will. You can share hair-care tips and video games all you want, but if you can't take a 3-1 fastball on the outside black the other way you're going to lose more often than not.
The Twins and A's can do that and then some. But when they don't, they don't dwell on it. Tomorrow will be better, and tomorrow starts today.