truebluefan

He was the spacey kid. He was the loopy left-hander with a yen for the bright lights, a surfer boy who happened to fling curveballs like they were dropping off a mountaintop.

No question, Barry Zito was the least likely guy to turn out to be the A's most dependable, most durable, most essential ace.

``The only thing I knew about Barry when he was young,'' Eric Chavez said Monday, ``was that he was weird.''

And yet, here Zito is, at the end of his A's contract but the beginning of the American League championship series against the Detroit Tigers.

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