By eyleenn (71.131.19.97) on Sunday, November 08, 2009 - 03:32 pm:

A's angle: It wasn't long ago that Swisher and Joe Blanton were A's teammates and off-field running mates and had Gaudin as a housemate.

"It's pretty cool when you think about it," Blanton told the Philadelphia Inquirer. "To be young together, and talk about how maybe someday we would be in a World Series, and now here we are."

There was an outside chance all three would be in the same game, with a Blanton-Gaudin pitching matchup in Game 4. But the Yankees stuck with a three-man rotation, so Gaudin did not appear. In that game, Blanton struck out Swisher in their first duel, but Swisher walked the next two times, including leading off the fifth to spark a two-run rally.

The Yankees won 7-4 to take a three-games-to-one lead, too much to overcome for Philly.

Swisher said of Blanton, "Joe was my first buddy in pro ball." One year after Blanton won a World Series ring, so did Swisher.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/11/07/SPEA1AGD0G.DTL#ixzz0WJHKJLLs