Closed Case as Blue Jays Seal Off A’s : SkyDome Roof, Mouths of Players Shut During Win

Taking a cue from SkyDome’s roof, the retractability of which was retracted Friday night, the Toronto Blue Jays also shut up and reacquainted themselves with the preferred method of making noise during a baseball playoff series.

No more complaining about how Rickey Henderson didn’t slide into second base.

No more complaining about how Dave Parker didn’t run after hitting his home run.

For once, the Blue Jays actually did some sliding and running of their own. Some scoring, too. A four-run fourth inning and a three-run seventh inning were worth more than a thousand words for Toronto, which ruined Oakland’s designs on a sweep by beating the Athletics, 7-3, in Game 3 of the American League Championship Series.

More than that, the maligned Yellow Jays, that lily-livered, weak-in-the-intestine Canadian club, rallied from a 3-0 deficit, stranded six Athletic baserunners in scoring position and received, yes, clutch relief pitching from Jim Acker and Tom Henke to cut Oakland’s series advantage to 2-1.

For a while, however, it appeared as though the hotdogs were about to put the Blue Jays through the grinder again. Rickey Henderson walked in his first at-bat, doubled his next time up, stole third base--his seventh steal of the postseason--and ended up scoring two runs. Dave Parker hit another home run, his second in as many games.

By the middle of the fourth inning, the Blue Jays trailed, 3-0, and the A’s weren’t above flaunting it.

As Parker chugged past second base--attention, Blue Jays: the Parker home-run trot doesn’t get any faster--he began jawing at Kelly Gruber, the Toronto third baseman who’d suggested that a few Toronto pitches be directed at Parker’s person as a response to his Game 2 “showboating.”

This time, Gruber said nothing.

In the first inning, before his first at-bat, Henderson turned to his verbal sparring partner in Oakland, Blue Jay catcher Ernie Whitt, and picked up where the last taunt left off.

This time, Whitt also said nothing.

But let Henderson tell the story, which is always more fun, anyway.

“I said hello to him,” Henderson said. “He didn’t say hello. Each day is different. You do what you have to do.

“I told him I was going to steal off him, but he knows I’m going to steal off him. I’ve probably stolen 75 bases off him. He can be ticked off. I’m going to have fun.”

Henderson got his stolen base, a steal of third before scoring on Carney Lansford’s third-inning single. He also got a hot dog thrown at him, courtesy of some literal-minded Blue Jay fan.

But worse than that, the A’s incurred their first defeat in an American League playoff game in two years. Last season, Oakland swept its way to the World Series, defeating Boston.

The end of the streak began in the fourth inning when A’s starter Storm Davis, perfect through three innings, walked leadoff hitter Lloyd Moseby.

He gave up singles to the next two hitters, Mookie Wilson and Fred McGriff, to load the bases.

He yielded a sacrifice fly to George Bell.

He gave up a double to Tony Fernandez, who accounted for two Blue Jay runs when Oakland right fielder Jose Canseco bobbled the ball for an error.

He surrendered a final bloop single to Whitt, which scored Fernandez to break a 3-3 tie and cap a four-run Toronto inning.

Three innings later, Davis would stray into further trouble, and this time, unlike most of 1989, the A’s bullpen would be unable to bail him out.

After a leadoff double by Fernandez and a one-out intentional walk to Gruber, Davis was replaced by Rick Honeycutt, the Oakland set-up man who faced three Blue Jays in Game 2 and couldn’t set one of them down.

In Game 3, Honeycutt duplicated the feat.

First, he gave up a single to Manny Lee to load the bases.

Next came another single to Junior Felix, which scored Fernandez.

And then a walk to Moseby, forcing home Gruber and breaking the game open.

Wilson added a run-scoring single against Honeycutt’s replacement, Gene Nelson, and then spent most of his first postgame hour reprising the role he often played during his run with the New York Mets--Philosopher Mook.

And with Wilson, none of this stuff about hotdogs ever cut the mustard.

“I always thought hotdogging was just a sign of confidence or cockiness or whatever you want to call it,” he said. “I think it’s been overplayed a little. These guys have been doing it their whole career.”

Wilson did approve of how his teammates took this time to put up and shut up.

“More than anything else,” he said, “I think it’s important to forget what opposing players do and what’s gone on in the past. The important thing is scoring runs--not how many bases you steal or what you do when you steal them or what somebody says.”

Thinking along those same lines, Gruber and Whitt observed moments of silence when confronted by their Oakland foils, face to face, Friday night.

“I’m not intent on carrying on something,” Gruber said. “I’m not interested in any squabbles. That’s not me.

“A guy just asked me a question (in Oakland), and I answered it truthfully. I guess you can appreciate that. I guess I could’ve lied.

“I just stated the fact that I don’t like hotdogging and that Dave kind of took a day to get around the bases. When I was asked about it again (at a news conference Thursday), I didn’t want to back away and look like a coward to you guys.”

Gruber chalked it up to “the heat of the battle. Some things are said and some things are done.”

Meanwhile, Whitt, who loudly complained of Henderson’s tip-toeing into second base on a Game 2 stolen-base attempt, was the one doing the tip-toeing after Game 3.

“Give him credit,” Whitt said. “That’s his style. I don’t like it, a lot of people don’t like it. But it’s his style . . .

“The game is different than when I broke in. There’s more showmanship all around. It might be (because of) TV, it might be to get the attention of the fans. We’ve got some guys on this team who hotdog, and the fans love it. They’re the ones who pay to watch us, so be it.”

Whitt’s version of his home-plate exchange with Henderson also differed a tad from Rickey’s.

“He said hello and I said hi,” Whitt said. “We exchanged pleasantries.”

And what of that game-winning single off Davis in the fourth inning? Did Whitt, 0 for 11 against Oakland basestealers, feel any sense of vindication?

“I didn’t even think about it,” Whitt said. “My job is to drive the run in.”

Quotewise, the Blue Jays were a lot more interesting when they were losing.

Jimmy Key wound up the winning pitcher after weathering six wrenching innings. He gave up seven hits and walked two and let the leadoff hitter reach base three times--twice on doubles.

But he finagled his way long enough to get Manager Cito Gaston to the seventh inning, where the Toronto manager could turn to his relief-pitching ritual--set-up man Acker for two innings, followed by closer Henke for one.

Acker also yielded a leadoff double, to pinch-hitter Ken Phelps in the seventh, but then came back to retire the next three A’s in order. Likewise, Acker walked Mark McGwire to open the eighth inning, then retired the next three hitters he faced.

Henke worked a perfect ninth inning, and Toronto had extended one of the more nonsensical winning streaks of this season: With the retractable SkyDome roof closed, the Blue Jays are 11-0--13-0 if one counts games when the roof was rolled shut while the game was in progress.

American League President Dr. Bobby Brown has instructed that the roof be closed for Games 4 and 5, too, so maybe the Blue Jays really do have a chance after all.

At any rate, for one night, they proved what can be accomplished when they shut their mouths and concentrate instead on shutting the other guys down.