Roger Craig

If you’re like me, you grew up familiar with the Humm Baby Roger Craig who seemed to be a cheery elderly uncle for the motley Giants crew, knew how to guide them toward excellence, and was always optimistic. But here’s a shot of him when he was on the other side, pitching for the Dodgers in 1959. This is Craig juggling some baseballs while waiting to find out whether the Dodgers would play the Milwaukee Braves in a three-game playoff for the pennant. He’d pitched a complete-game, 1-run game against the Cubs to put the Dodgers in position for the playoff.

Rickey Henderson Coming Back to Oakland

Rickey said this about being traded from the Yankees to the A’s on June 22: “It was in my best interest to approve the deal. Oakland was the only place I would accept a trade. My wife wanted to be in Oakland, but I wanted to stay in New York.

”I felt it was time. There were rumors that I’d be traded, and then they came to me and asked if I would take a trade. Oakland was the only place I knew I’d like to go.

“I knew that if we didn’t come to an agreement by the All-Star break I’d be a free agent anyway, and we had the opportunity to do it now, so I decided to go back home.”

A’s General Manager Sandy Alderson: “We expect great things from him, both for the rest of the season and in the future. He’s extremely excited. We did not make the trade with the short term in mind. We have somebody who is enthusiastic about coming back to Oakland.

He agreed to come to the A’s without agreeing to anything, without talking to me, without talking to Tony (La Russa), without talking to anyone.”

La Russa: “The reaction I’m getting from the clubhouse is that he is a force that is going to help us win ballgames.”

Rickey had been in a slump with the Yankees. He said: “It’s just a matter of time before I started to hit better. I’ve been hitting the ball hard, but right at people. I got off to a slow start but I knew it would get better.”

Yankee Manager Dallas Green: “I hated to give up Rickey. He played very hard and busted his tail. But this trade was for the betterment of the Yankees. We desperately needed pitching. It’s been our Achilles heel.”

Dave Righetti, the San Jose native and Yankees pitcher: “Before he got here, we were a good team. When he got here in ‘85, we became a damn good team right away. He had that try-to-get-me-out arrogance. Our whole lineup was like that last year. I hope he doesn’t come back and beat us. But you know he will someday.”

The Yankees were actually trying to trade Rickey to the Giants, but Syd Thrift, their senior vice president, said Henderson didn’t approve the deal. Thrift: “I met with Rickey last week, and it was obvious then that he was interested in going to only one other team. I had put it out of my mind that he would go anywhere. Then Monday morning, they called.”

Kevin Mitchell

Mitch wasn’t quite a one-year wonder, but at this point it seems like he was, and yes, it was a wonderful 1989 season. Read some of the Chronicle’s game story for a 7-6 win over the Braves in Fulton County Stadium on June 2:

Kevin Mitchell hit the longest ball of the evening, but the biggest run of the Giants’ 7-6 win over Atlanta last night came off a walk.

On a night when balls and fielders were pounding the outfield walls of Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium, it was Ernest Riles’ bases-loaded walk in the top of the ninth that ended up scoring the deciding run in a game that Mitchell seemed to have guaranteed and the Giant bullpen seemed hellbent to return.

Mitchell hit two homers – one coming within 10 feet of being only the 10th ball ever to clear the first deck of the stadium – to steal the show from Rick Reuschel, who won his 10th game of the year; Robby Thompson, who homered and doubled to improve his average to .282, and Riles.

Mitchell doesn’t mess with ground balls. He aims for the stratosphere, sometimes pushing the envelope a bit. His second homer, which followed [Robby] Thompson’s sixth homer of the season and fourth in 11 games, was an enormous thing, one which bounced off the bottom of the auxiliary scoreboard in left and soberly was estimated at 440 feet.

“”That wasn’t my longest,” Mitchell said. “”Nothing was as long as the one I hit against Fernando (Valenzuela on April 12). His (pitch) was a fastball. This was a changeup.”

He did allow, though, that it might have been the longest home run he ever hit off a changeup. The victim was Tom Glavine, who was pounded for six runs in four-plus innings.

“”I love hitting here,” Mitchell raved. “”The ball really carries here. You don’t have to be a strong man to hit a ball out of this yard. If you don’t get out of here with 20 homers a year, you’re not going to hit 20 in any park.”

Mitchell’s season total currently stands at 17, with 51 RBIs.

1-900-234-JOSE

I don’t know how many people remember 1-900-234-JOSE, but it’s obvious now that Jose Canseco was probably the first pioneer in the effort by pro sports players to forget the media and talk directly to fans with blogs, Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, etc. The difference is that Canseco actually made money from his communications: it cost $2 for the first minute and $1 for each minute thereafter to hear Jose talk, and you got daily updates from Canseco. It’s as though somewhere deep inside he knew he’d need the extra income someday.The hotline started about a month before the Loma Prieta quake. On September 21, 1989, the S.F. Chronicle reported:

Jeff Borris, Canseco’s Beverly Hills agent, said public response has been “overwhelming” since Monday, when the Oakland A’s star started filing daily reports on a 900 number. Callers pay $2 for the first minute and $1 for each minute thereafter.
Yesterday, fans learned what kind of pitch Canseco hit in the first inning of Monday night’s game (a curve ball down and away that he lined past the third baseman) and what he had for lunch (Italian food at the mall). They also learned that their hero feared for his safety when a bat – the live version – circled above him in the outfield in Cleveland and that he faced the prospect of going hungry because there was no room service in his hotel after 10 p.m.
It was “basically kind of a boring game,” he mentions twice in the recorded message, even though the A’s won in extra innings. The pennant race notwithstanding, it also was a “boring” day on the road with a first-place team, Canseco says in a recorded five-minute message.
Borris said Canseco is the first sports figure to make a personalized phone message work to his financial gain, although he did not want to talk about how much the slugger stands to make.
“The telephone company says they’ve never seen a 900 number with the “hang time’ Jose is getting,” Borris said. “Most of the callers are on for five minutes or longer.”
Frustrated by baseball writers who refuse to see and write the truth as he sees it, Canseco decided that the 900 number was the best way to speak directly to the fans.
“How it originally came out was, the media stuff was happening with the speeding and the guns, and people weren’t getting the story from the horse’s mouth,” Canseco said. “I just wanted to tell my side of the story.”

He put out ads on ESPN, MTV and USA, leaning against his white Porsche 930 Cabriolet turbo on the track of the Malibu Grand Prix next to the Oakland Coliseum and saying: “Hi, I’m Jose Canseco. I want to speak to you, so call 1-900-234-JOSE . . . I’ll give you the latest scoop on baseball and what’s happening in my personal life. If you want to know if I take steroids, how fast I drive, or why I was carrying that gun, call me at 1-900-234-JOSE.”

Here’s what he had to say about a day in Cleveland: “It was boring, I guess, because there were only about 400 fans (actually 5,931) in the stands, sort of like one of those Triple A (minor league) games where no one shows up. I like it when there are 40,000 or more. The most exciting thing for me was, I looked up once and saw a bat that must have been three or four feet long flying over my head. I kept looking up because I thought it might come down and bite me on the neck.
“My personal life was kind of boring. I woke up late again – like I say, I like to sleep late – and went to a mall with my friend and ate Italian food. Then I came back and watched TV for a while. It was one of those boring days.
“But I guess the worst thing is happening now. This hotel where I’m staying doesn’t have room service after 10 p.m., and I could starve to death. I guess I’ll call out for a pizza.”

A lot of people made fun of Canseco for his 1-900 number, so it’s interesting to take a look at what ballplayers are putting out on Twitter now for comparison’s sake. Here are a few recent tweets from Barry Zito:
“Sitting on the plane about to fly to Seattle. We’ll be turning it around up North..”
“The bay area’s weather is more perfect than SoCal right now, call your friends and gloat.”
“I mean, we’ve heard all the theories but what’s really the cure to a hangover? Some say grease, I say B vitamins.”

And here’s Tony La Russa’s response to 1-900-234-JOSE: “I saw the commercial when we were in Boston, and I thought, ‘This is ridiculous.’ I once heard him say he was going to be very careful about the types of commercials and endorsements he does. In my opinion, I wouldn’t have done this.”

Canseco also tried to sell his dirty socks at about this time.

$150 for Jose Canseco’s Dirty Socks

It was a sign of the escalation of the baseball card and memorabilia bubble in early September 1989 when the San Francisco Chronicle sent Steve Rubinstein to the All-American Sports Memorabilia Show at the Moscone Center and he came back with this report:
A pair of dirty socks was selling for $150 in San Francisco last weekend.

Not just anyone’s dirty socks, but baseball star Jose Canseco’s dirty socks.

“They come with a certificate of authenticity,” said salesman Curt Wenzleff. “They haven’t been washed. They are just the way they were after Jose took them off in the locker room.”

Dirty socks are the latest item to be offered up as memorabilia. Most of the items at the show were more mundane fare – baseball cards, balls and bats – although an autographed bottle of Ted Williams brand root beer was fetching $75 and a dirty batting glove worn by Reggie Jackson was on the block for $150.

Wenzleff said he had considered washing the green-and-yellow socks before placing them on the market but decided it was too risky and might decrease their value.

At the far end of the giant hall, baseball players were greeting their fans and signing autographs, cash up front.

Nineteen players sat at tables, felt-tip pens in hand. You buy a ticket for the player of your choice and stand in line.

Baseball is as American as the free market system. Reggie Jackson and Jose Canseco each charge $15 to sign their names. Will Clark, Mark McGwire, Rickey Henderson and Steve Carlton are $10 apiece. Orlando Cepeda is only $5.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” said the man at the microphone, “may I remind you that Rickey Henderson must leave soon. In a few years he is going to be in the Hall of Fame, and the value of his autograph is sure to rise! And Roger Clemens, a future Hall of Famer for sure – there’s an autograph that can only increase in value!”

Kids wandered around, pockets full of tens and twenties. On everyone’s mind was the Pete Rose scandal, and its effect on the game.

“It’s real bad,” said Grant Hower, a 12-year-old fan from Larkspur. “I’ve got two Rose autographs. Now that he’s kicked out of baseball, they might be worth a lot less. I sure hope not.”

I wandered back to the booth with Canseco’s socks, to see if anyone had snapped them up. They were still available. Perhaps, I told Wenzleff, no one believed they were authentic. Wenzleff suggested I give them a sniff.

I sniffed. They were the real thing, all right.

It was a rare opportunity for a shrewd buyer, Wenzleff said. Only four pairs of Canseco’s dirty socks were on the market. Canseco is making no more of them available. When they’re gone, that’s it.

No, Wenzleff said, there is nothing odd about selling dirty socks, considering that he once sold Canseco’s dirty jockstrap. He wouldn’t say how much it fetched but he did reveal that it went to a misty-eyed woman who was very pleased to have it.

“Look,” the sock man said, “we couldn’t sell this stuff if people didn’t buy it. Someday, some player is going to come up with a limited edition autographed snot rag, and you know what? A fan will pay $100 for it, easy.”

Canseco also started his own 1-900 number late in the ‘89 season.

Chris Bando, Part II

He is the much younger brother of Sal Bando, although a casual glance shows that he entered the bigs in 1981, the same year as Sal’s last, so you’d think it was a father/son relationship.  Chris’ career with Oakland lasted for just a day (1-2 with a single), and you have to wonder whether the A’s signed him in January 1989 as a favor to Sal, given that he spent nearly the whole year in the minors. Or maybe the front office thought putting another Bando into the Coliseum, if only for the first day of October and the last innings of the game, would produce magic.

Anyway, he did drive in the winning run in that game in the 11th, and the fact is that no Oakland A’s team lacking a Bando has won the World Series.  Chris’ best season was in 1984, a half-year’s worth of games with Cleveland in which he showed solid power, had a nice average, and drew a fair share of walks. He followed it up with a miserable slump in 1985. Brother Sal could sympathize: he hit .190 between Opening Day and mid-August 1975. Sal said: “You feel as if you have no friends. Because you’re not contributing, you feel like an outsider.”

Dick Scott, Part II

Scott could well be the least-known member of this team: a shortstop with three pinch-hit at-bats in May, including a run-scoring groundout in his first game, against Boston. That 0-3 is it for his career: he never made it back to the majors. So, it seems important to note that he managed the Modesto A’s to a 96-40 record in 1994, and he won Manager of the Year in the California League for that performance. And he went on to become director of player development for the Blue Jays. And, he’s part of the 2009 induction class of the Maine Sports Hall of Fame.

Scott says: “I was with Oakland through 1996. Then I went to Arizona and got into major league scouting. I left Arizona in 2001 after they won the World Series and [Toronto senior vice president and general manager] J.P. Ricciardi called.

“It’s pretty much an all-day job this time of the year. I start each day reading game and injury reports, then talk to scouts and managers, get to the parks, watch games, and sometimes do it all over again later on. It’s like [the movie] ‘Groundhog Day’ every day.”

Bill Dawley, Part II

Dawley joined Brian Snyder in helping fill out the Oakland bullpen in later June and early July of ‘89, when Eckersley was still out with an injury and Greg Cadaret and Eric Plunk were with the Yankees.  Certainly his best performance of the season was a 4 1/3rd inning outing on June 23 against Toronto: he gave up no runs, one walk, and five singles. But Curt Young had started the game by giving up 7 runs in 2/3rds of an inning, and the A’s came back with 6 in the bottom of the first, but lost 10-8, and that was Dawley’s best chance to get a win before leaving the majors.

His last major league game came on July 4, and it was an ugly 2/3rds on Independence Day, as he was a homer shy of giving up the cycle to six batters, and saw Curt Young let his inherited runner score for a fourth run against his totals; still, Dawley did end his career by striking out Bo Jackson looking.  And, he had made the All-Star team in his rookie year with Houston in 1983 and came back in ‘84 by going 11-4, despite not making a single start in either season. In fact, he never made a start in the majors.

Ron Hassey, Part II

Hassey caught a perfect game for Len Barker with Cleveland in 1981 and left Oakland just in time to join the Expos and catch a perfect game for Dennis Martinez in 1991 before retiring: Hassey’s the only guy to catch two perfect games.  Which brings up the question: how much credit does a catcher deserve for catching a perfect game?  Hassey also caught the A’s near-perfect game on May 26 against the Yankees.

Hassey’s best season came in 1985 with the Yankees: .296 with a .509 slugging percentage on 13 homers and 16 doubles in about a half season. His reward was to get traded to the White Sox on December 12, essentially for Britt Burns, a promising starter age 26 whose hip problems kept him from ever pitching in the majors again, then get traded back to the Yankees next February 13, then get traded back to the White Sox on July 30, 1986. He still managed to put up a .406 OBP in 1986. With the A’s, he was a backup to Terry Steinbach: in 1989 he was a frequent late-inning replacement for Steinbach, especially late in the year, when Steinbach’s legs were presumably getting weary.

Mike Gallego, Part II

In 1989, when Walt Weiss went out with his knee injury in May, Gallego picked up for him and posted career highs in average (.252), at-bats (357), runs (45), hits (90), doubles (14), homers (3) and RBIs (30). Even before then, in late April, he had six doubles in the first 4 games, three steals, and the first steal of home plate by an A’s player in three years. C.W. Nevius reported: “Last Sunday, when the American League averages came out, there was Gallego at the top of the list at .457. He’s supposed to be cool about these things, but .457?

“I didn’t cut that one out to keep,” he said, “but I did clip the one the week before when Wade Boggs was right below me.”

Gallego hit .442 for the month. He’d come back from a diagnosis of testicular cancer in 1983: the New York Times reported:  “It was a frightening ordeal,” Gallego said. “You’re in your 20’s and you think you can’t be beat by anybody. You think you’re invincible. Someone is telling you that you have cancer and they’re not kidding. You realize you have a chance of dying.”

But baseball helped temper Gallego’s anxiety. After he had surgery and six weeks of daily radiation at a hospital in Whittier, Calif., he and his wife immediately drove to Tacoma to join the Oakland A’s Class AAA affiliate. Gallego was in a hurry to become a second baseman again.

“I was useless, but I was out there,” Gallego said, about his swift return. “I wanted to get away from hospitals and doctors and cancer and get back with the guys. I used baseball as a crutch to get away from everything. When you’re told you have cancer, that’s all you think about. You wonder, ‘Did they get it all?’ “

The Tacoma officials were stunned to see Gallego, who had lost 15 pounds. He said that when they heard of his illness, they chose another starter. Gallego clashed with Manager Bob Didier because he was not playing. He received two at-bats in a month before asking for a demotion to Class AA Albany-Colonie. So it was back in the car for the long drive to upstate New York, still trying to regain his status as a second baseman.

“I hit about a buck fifty,” said Gallego, who actually batted .223, “but it was one of the best seasons I ever had because I was out there.”

Gags was the unofficial MVP of the A’s in 1989, someone who helped keep the team together through an injury-filled season. After a rough 1990 with a .206 average, 34 RBIs, and 36 runs scored, Gallego came back in 1991 to post 12 homers, a quadrupling of his previous high, and stroll to 67 walks, putting up averages he’d improve on in 1993 with the Yankees. He’s now the A’s third-base coach, and the father of twins born at the end of 1988, and a daughter born in late 1990.