'Cats fall short, 11-10

Is Sacramento a minor league town? Depends how you look at it. It's not the biggest kid on the block, dwarfed by L.A., San Diego, amorphous San Jose, even puny San Francisco, which looks and acts like the Big Town despite its sub-million population. But Sactown is the locus of enormous power, the control center of California's $100 billion state budget, the place where decisions are made about what kind of light bulbs you can use and whether you can drive in the HOV lane.

For now it's still refreshingly minor league. Triple-A, to be sure, and on the cusp of major league status, with sprouting highrises, respectable rush hour gridlock and, as basketball fans try to tell me, an actual NBA team in the Kings. But the place remains smalltown and homey, and nothing drives home the point better than a trip across golden-spired Tower Bridge and the Sacramento River to West Sac and Raley Field, where the River Cats' rally in the ninth inning just fell short last night in the preseason exhibition game against the parent club, the Oakland A's.

They love their 'Cats in this town. Fans ate every single Dinger Dog (I missed out), and the food stands also ran low on salmon tacos and tri-tip. But no one seemed to mind as they watched Mike Piazza slug a homer. This was one of those games where you cheer for both teams--the hometown youngsters, and the guys like  Nick Swisher who graduated to the Show.

Who knows what kind of movers and shakers were sitting up in the luxury boxes--and yes, they have those at Raley Field. But there was not much evidence in the stands of the Other Sacramento--the electeds, the lobbyists, the political consultants. This was a Thursday night, after all, and those guys get out of town every Thursday afternoon, on the Southwest to Burbank, the I-80 to the Bay Area, or wherever else they spend their long weekends. This time they won't even be coming back for a week because it's spring break at the Capitol. Maybe they're in Palm Springs, or South Padre Island.

Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez went to Paris, by the way, killing any chance of hammering out a prison reform solution with Republicans before Easter. Now that's bush league.