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 ‘The Season’ 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 [...]
The A’s and Giants Clinch Their Divisions
Posted in San Francisco Giants, The Season on September 22, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
It happened on September 27, 1989. The Chronicle reported: The Bay Area’s baseball dream – a World Series between San Francisco and Oakland – moved a huge step closer to reality last night when both the Giants and the A’s clinched the championship of their divisions. The A’s won the American League’s Western Division title [...]
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. [...]
Kevin Mitchell
Posted in San Francisco Giants, The Season, tagged 1989 San Francisco Giants, Kevin Mitchell on June 1, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
June 28
Posted in The Season, tagged 1989 Oakland A's on May 22, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
You could credit it to the loss of Eckersley, the prolonged absence of Canseco, maybe even the knee injury Walt Weiss was still suffering from, maybe even something else, but June was a dismal month for the A’s: a 13-14 record. They bottomed out this day, in the Twin Cities, by managing no runs on [...]
July 29
Posted in The Season, tagged Rickey Henderson on May 22, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
In what must be the best example of his ability to create value for his team without putting a ball in play all game, Rickey Henderson goes 0-0 against the Seattle Mariners, with Randy Johnson starting. He walks four times though, all of them against Johnson, and steals five bases. The end result of these [...]
