OAKLAND -- Make no mistake, Saturday's Interleague showcase featuring San Francisco's Tim Hudson and Oakland's Barry Zito is very much about baseball. It offers a classic complement of craftsmen: the right-handed Hudson flinging sinker after sinker -- the lower the better -- while the left-handed Zito seeks strikes at odd angles, changing speeds and eye levels with his assortment of deliveries.
Yet to reduce this game to a pitching matchup is to miss the point, like a hitter flailing at a vintage Zito curveball or a darting Hudson cutter. This is a homecoming mixed with a farewell, the kind of emotion-provoking event that sports generate so poignantly.