Athletics Are Approaching Comfort Zone

As baseball rushes toward September, to those days when, as Reggie Jackson once said, “The ball grows smaller and the outfield fences move farther away,” the game’s best team does not call Shea Stadium home.

It does not have Alan Trammell at shortstop, and its manager does not have Frank Sinatra’s picture on his office wall.

Say hello to the Oakland Athletics.

With six weeks remaining in what has been a long, sweltering summer for most of the country, the Athletics noted in a recent news release that the average temperature for their last 11 home games has been an enviable 62 degrees.

It has been so comfortable that, after a mid-week steam bath at Memorial Stadium, Oakland slugger Jose Canseco said, “Sometimes we don’t realize how good we have it.”

He might also have been speaking about a team that has found its comfort zone as it has promised greatness. About a starting rotation with a front three--Dave Stewart, Bob Welch and Storm Davis--that has a dazzling combined 41-20 record. About a bullpen that is on a pace for a major league record 64 saves.

About a batting order that is built around Canseco, who at 24 has blossomed into one of the game’s most feared hitters. If it’s not the likelihood he’ll be the game’s first 40-homer, 40-stolen base player that gets pitchers, it’s the the sight of a 6-foot 3-inch, 230-pounder wiggling a 36-ounce Louisville Slugger like a carrot.

He’s a prime player on a team that has turned out as good as it was supposed to be, a team that was favored to be in this position before the first sit-up of spring training, and has delivered.

Last winter, Manager Tony La Russa’s answering machine promised the Athletics would win 100 games and draw two million fans, no small accomplishment for a franchise that had been above .500 twice since the Charlie Finley dynasty was dismantled 11 years ago, and even in those glory years, drew one million only twice.

Order the rings. Their 77-45 record is baseball’s best, and their eight-game lead in the American League West is the biggest of any division leader. The A’s are on a pace to draw 2.2 million fans to the once-deserted Oakland Coliseum. In the summer of ‘88, the glory days have returned to the Swingin’ A’s.

“Special people,” La Russa said. “We’re lucky to have a group that works hard and goes about its business in a very professional way.”

They were not assembled haphazardly. From the days when Finley seemingly ran the A’s on match sticks and rubber bands, this new generation reflects an organization that was carefully and slowly constructed. What other team can boast that both its general manager (Sandy Alderson) and its manager (La Russa) have law degrees? That its coaching staff appears to get more pleasure from 4 p.m. runs than 2 a.m. drinks?

Their overhaul began after the 1984 season when they sent superstar Rickey Henderson to the New York Yankees for reliever Jay Howell and four young prospects. Since then, they’ve done almost everything correctly.

Their farm system has been one of the game’s best, and has produced Canseco, Mark McGwire and Terry Steinbach to prove it. What they didn’t have, they traded for, making deals to bring Welch, Dave Parker and Dennis Eckersley, who has 34 saves and a chance to surpass Dan Quisenberry’s single-season record of 45, set in 1983.

“It has been the perfect move for me,” said Eckersley, who was acquired from the Chicago Cubs early last season and sent to the bullpen against his wishes. “It was a demotion at the time, but now, I come in and have to face the tough left-handed hitters one time. At this stage in my career (33 years old), that’s best for me.”

And what the Athletics haven’t produced or traded for, they’ve gotten lucky on.

For instance, Stewart (15-10), who was released by Philadelphia two years ago and couldn’t even get a tryout from the Baltimore Orioles. With a 92-m.p.h. fastball and an improved forkball, he has gone 44-28 for Oakland and might be about to put back-to-back 20-victory seasons together.

“I never lost confidence in myself,” Stewart said. “Maybe some others did, but I didn’t. I knew I only needed the chance, and I’m glad the A’s gave it to me.”

For instance, center fielder Dave Henderson, who was traded by the Mariners and Red Sox and let go by the Giants within two years. The Athletics promised him nothing, and as La Russa said, “He would have to earn his playing time.”

He has, leading the A’s with a .307 batting average and already reaching career bests in home runs (18) and runs batted in (71).

“I came here because I thought I’d have a shot to play, and that’s all I wanted,” he said. “I know how good I was even if the media and some others didn’t. I had to show ‘em I could play, and I was able to do that.”

Henderson is one more piece to a puzzle that has fit together nicely. The Athletics slipped into first place on April 21 and have been there ever since.

“Someone is going to have to play like hell to catch us,” La Russa said. “It hasn’t been easy, though. When you’re supposed to win, people won’t accept anything less. Then you get in front early, and it seems every series becomes a key one. We’ve handled it because we’ve got a real special club.”

La Russa also has proven that, at 43, he’s something special. His firing by the Chicago White Sox in 1986 has turned into a blessing of sorts, because while that organization has continued a steady downward spiral, he has caught on to a comet of success.

He also has proven that he can juggle, not only the talent, but also the egos and the temperaments inside a baseball clubhouse over a nine-month season. He is atypical in many ways--a law-school graduate, a rock-music buff and a runner.

Yet, in polishing his identity and style as a manager, he appears to have molded himself after Sparky Anderson, the pipe-smoking oracle of Detroit.

After the White Sox fired him, La Russa said he had many conversations with Anderson and was told: don’t burn bridges, learn from mistakes and be patient about accepting another job--wait for a good one.

La Russa has asked his team to treat the Detroit Tigers as more than opponents. Watch the way they take infield, batting practice and approach a game. They are pros, LaRussa told his team. And, he added, we’re pros, too.

“We’re a lot like that Detroit team,” La Russa says of the team his team might be playing in the American League playoffs. “I kid Sparky about that everytime I see him. Attitude is their biggest plus, and it’s our biggest plus.”