A’s All Stop Work When Canseco Steps Into Cage

Everything stops when Oakland A’s outfielder Jose Canseco steps into the batting cage at Phoenix. The 21-year-old Cuban, who stands 6-3 and weighs 220, has been hitting some monstrous shots this spring, and nobody wants to miss the next one.

“Everybody gets a kick out of it,” A’s third baseman Carney Lansford told Steve Kelley of the Seattle Times. “I’ve been around for a long time and I’ve seen a lot of good long-ball hitters, but I’ve never seen anybody hit a ball consistently farther than Jose. Not Jim Rice. Not Don Baylor. Not Dave Kingman.”

Said Kingman, the designated hitter for the A’s: “I’ve never seen a guy coming up who has as much potential to hit the long ball as Jose does.

“And that includes myself,” he added modestly.

Said Keith Lieppman, the manager when Canseco played at Tacoma last season: “He hit a home run in Las Vegas that was the longest in the stadium’s history. It went about 525 feet. It went over the wall; over the palm trees in back of the wall. Even the palm trees waved goodby to it.”

Add sluggers: General Manager Joe Klein of the Cleveland Indians, who held the same job at Texas, was not impressed when told that Ranger rookie Pete Incaviglia, the NCAA home run king from Oklahoma State, had hit a smash that tore through the left field wall at Pompano Beach, Fla.

“I could punch a hole in that wall,” Klein told the Cleveland Plain Dealer. “The Rangers are going to move their camp, so they haven’t made any repairs to the park in the last two years.”

Trivia Time: What does pitcher Ed Whitson have in common with former pitchers Dave Boswell and Jim Brewer? (Answer below.)

Wait a Minute: Said Chick Hearn during the Laker-Clipper telecast Wednesday night: “It’s 67-57, Los Angeles.”

Think about it.

Lyle Alzado, who played for Denver, Cleveland and the Raiders in the NFL, told Todd Phipers of the Denver Post that his favorite coach was Red Miller with the Broncos.

“He’s the best coach I ever had, bar none,” said Alzado.

From Herb Caen of the San Francisco Chronicle: “Gawd I miss the Raiders. I mean the old ones, like Stabler, Biletnikoff, Dave Casper, van Eeghen. Despite the ownership, a team with soul.”

Kevin Loughery, new coach of the Washington Bullets, and assistant coach Fred Carter have been around. They were first aligned with the 1972-73 Philadelphia 76ers, Loughery as coach and Carter as the star player.

The team finished with a 9-73 record. It was the worst in NBA history and made Leroy Ellis the answer to a trivia question.

The previous season, Ellis had played for the Lakers, who finished 69-13. Thus, in one season, Ellis went from the winningest team in NBA history to the losingest.

Would-you-believe-it dept.: Whitey Herzog has tailored his St. Louis Cardinals for artificial turf, but last year they did their best work on grass. They were .643 on grass and .617 on artificial turf.

Trivia Time: All three got punched by Billy Martin. Quotebook

Don Larsen, asked if he ever got tired of talking about his perfect game for the New York Yankees in the 1956 World Series: “No, why should I?”