Bay Area Native Norris Out to Deny A’s Sweep

The headline is from MLB.com.

My real-time reaction:

“Oh, cool. An article about Derek Norris. He’s off to a crazy good start.”

“Wait a second. Norris is on the A’s. Why would he be trying to stop the A’s from sweeping the series? Wouldn’t he want his team to win?”

“Hold on another second. I’m pretty sure Jaso started yesterday. Maybe Norris is annoyed he’s not playing every day, and doesn’t want the A’s to win when he’s not playing? That doesn’t seem like it makes great sense. I mean, it would be totally understandable, from a human perspective, if he wanted the team to do better when he’s playing, but he probably doesn’t want the team to lose. And even if he did feel that way, why would he ever say it to a journalist?”

“Stop. I must be misunderstanding something. Could ‘A’s sweep’ be interpreted another way? Like, the A’s being swept? Did the A’s lose yesterday? No? Are they starting a new series today and he wants to pre-emptively deny them being swept? Would that make any sense? Maybe the headline was translated from another language?”

“A moment, please. Is Norris injured? A brain injury, maybe? No?”

“Wait, wait, wait. Who are the A’s playing? The Astros, right? Oh, okay! Maybe the writer is calling the Astros the ‘A’s,’ since Astros does start with an ‘A’ — and even though that’s probably super-confusing, maybe he just means that Norris wants to deny the Astros a sweep. Which would make sense… if the Astros had won the other games in the series. Which they didn’t. So that doesn’t make sense.”

“Maybe Wikipedia can help me. Norris was born in Goddard, Kansas. Interesting. I wonder what bay is in that area, such that the headline writer would describe Norris as being from the Bay Area. Google to the rescue. Uh… Google not to the rescue. There doesn’t seem to be much of a bay in this area, although Emerald Bay Estates is a private community in Wichita, which isn’t far from Goddard. Man, MLB.com is totally messing with my head with this headline.”

“I guess I should just click on the article and see.”

“Oh. Bud Norris.”

“Oh.”