In Cleveland, Rickey gets four steals after reaching on walks: two in the sixth and two in the seventh. Both times he scores on sac flies by Canseco. I realize it’s easy to go on and on about Henderson’s ability to create runs by himself, but still, four steals within two innings does make an [...]
Archive for the ‘Players’ Category
September 20: Birth of the Rickey Rally?
Posted in Players, The Season, tagged Rickey Henderson, Rickey Rally on September 24, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
Mark McGwire’s 1989
Posted in Players, The Season, tagged Mark McGwire, Tony La Russa on September 23, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
At the end of the ’89 season David Bush, an S.F. Chronicle writer, wrote up a summary of Mark McGwire’s season. What’s at least somewhat interesting about this story, aside from the picture of one slice of McGwire’s ballplaying days, is how it reflects the current attitude toward sabermetrics-type analysis by McGwire, La Russa, and [...]
Rickey on His Impact on the 1989 A’s
Posted in Players, tagged Rickey Henderson on September 23, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
Before the ALCS with Toronto started, Rickey Henderson said: “I can say I was the final piece of the puzzle. They were missing a leadoff hitter, they were missing a left fielder. When I used to look at the Oakland team, I’d think about what was holding them back from being a great team. Maybe [...]
Rickey Henderson Coming Back to Oakland
Posted in Players, The Season, tagged 1989 Oakland A's, Rickey Henderson trade on June 21, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
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. [...]
1-900-234-JOSE
Posted in Players, The Season, tagged 1-900-234-JOSE, Jose Canseco, Jose Canseco hotline on May 28, 2009 | 1 Comment »
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 [...]
$150 for Jose Canseco’s Dirty Socks
Posted in Players, The Season, tagged Jose Canseco, sports memorabilia on May 28, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
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 [...]
Catcher Ron Hassey
Posted in Players, tagged 1989 A's, catchers, perfect games, Ron Hassey on May 28, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
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 [...]
Mike Gallego
Posted in Players, tagged Mike Gallego, Oakland A's, testicular cancer on May 28, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
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, by late April he’d had six doubles in the A’s first 4 games, three [...]
Jose Canseco’s Wrist
Posted in Players, The Season, tagged 1989 Oakland A's, Dennis Eckersley, Jim Abbott, Jose Canseco, SkyDome on May 27, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
The ’89 A’s were the least powerful team of the A’s dynasty, and the injury to Canseco’s wrist that kept him out for the first half of the season was much of the reason why. On March 8, David Bush of the Chronicle described Jim Abbott’s spring debut and the last at-bat Canseco had before [...]
Jose Canseco and Strength Training
Posted in Coaches, Players, tagged Dave McKay, Jose Canseco, Strength Training for Baseball on February 9, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
This cover of a book Jose Canseco and Dave McKay put together after the ’89 season had ended, talking about Strength Training for Baseball:
