World Series Will Have Golden Hue Once Again

Gov. George Deukmejian must put in an appearance at baseball’s second annual Californians-only World Series. When Will Clark of San Francisco steps up to the plate from the left side, and Rickey Henderson of Oakland steps up from the right side, the governor should be standing right between them, arms around their shoulders, swaying to and fro, singing: “We’re Willie, Rickey and the Duke.”

Next year: Padres vs. Angels. Be there.

Since the summer of ‘88, a San Francisco team has won a Super Bowl, a Los Angeles team has won a World Series and a National Basketball Assn. championship, and a San Diego team has won-lost-won-lost-won an America’s Cup yacht race. Not too shabby. We all must be eating our California raisins and growing up big and strong out here. At least, that’s how I heard it on the grapevine.

But, as Robin Williams would say, let’s take a timeout for a little reality break. There are bigger worries by the Bay, for instance, than who is going to win a shiny baseball trophy. Not everybody cares whether the Giants turn out to be more athletic than the Athletics in the first World Series in three decades to which one can commute fairly cheaply by taxi, St. Louis vs. Kansas City notwithstanding.

See, there are troubled waters all around that bridge. Oakland police are hard at work trying to nail a serial killer that is stalking local prostitutes. More than 250,000 uninsured Californians who are dealing with AIDS, heart disease, diabetes and other life-threatening health matters must wait until 1991 to qualify for a state-subsidized insurance program recently signed into law by Deukmejian.

Yet, the wide world of sports keeps right on spinning, for some. Even when two UC San Francisco scientists found out Monday that they had won the Nobel Prize in medicine for their work in cancer research, they interrupted their celebration to attend the Giants’ pennant-clinching game against the Chicago Cubs at Candlestick Park. Evidently, there are prizes and there are prizes .

One day apart, Oakland and San Francisco took the pennants, thanks to two of the truly awesome, totally bitchin’, really rad (might as well speak Californian here) performances in baseball since the invention of, well, baseball. Will Clark, Rickey Henderson, get real, willya? Nobody on Earth could have had a better year with a bat, with the possible exception of Michael Keaton.

Whatever these guys have been eating for breakfast, spoon me some. Mark Grace of the Chicago Cubs batted .647, and in the process probably became the third most valuable player of the playoffs. Clark and Henderson--or, as I now call them, Mr. Hit and Mr. Run--tore through Chicago and Toronto as if playing against American Legion teams. You couldn’t get them out, couldn’t throw them out. At their hotels, there probably was trouble checking them out.

Will Clark sounds like a question. You know: Will Clark? But it turned out to be the answer. Clark will. As in: Who will win the game for the Giants? Clark will. Who will get the clutch hit? Clark will. Even in the on-deck circle before Monday’s bases-loaded game-winner against the Cubs, Kevin Mitchell asked his teammate if he would get a hit, whereupon Clark replied: “It’s done.” And so it was. No Giant ever did it any better, not even Will Mays or Will McCovey.

As for Rickey Henderson, well, next time you call Jose Canseco’s 900 phone number, soon as Jose answers, ask if you can speak to Rickey instead. This guy ought to have a 901 number. He singles, he steals, he homers, he fields, and he also might be the only player in baseball next to whom Canseco seems shy. Nowhere outside of boxing exists an athlete who sings his own praises the way Rickey Henderson does. He’s great and he says so. Rickey is the sort of guy who would yell, “I’m going to Disneyland!” after the third game of a World Series.

Should be some Series, shouldn’t it?

One side has Canseco, who hits baseballs in California that come down in Canada. It has Dave Parker, who could eat a shark and then floss his teeth with a sting ray. It has Dave Stewart, who once took someone named Lucille into his merry Oldsmobile. It has Dennis Eckersley, who is secretly Rollie Fingers without the mustache wax.

The other side has Mitchell, who eats Vicks VapoRub (kids, don’t try this at home) and occasionally drops flyballs because he makes the mistake of trying to catch them with his glove . It has Matt Williams, who fouls off more pitches than Luke Appling. It has Jose Gonzalez Uribe, or is that Jose Uribe Gonzalez? And it has Rick Reuschel, who could go out for Halloween dressed in a white suit and a red bow tie, disguised as a 10-pin.

Then, there are the managers, virile young Tony La Russa, who works with a computer, and vital old Roger Craig, whose computer is between his ears. These may be bridge games, but we’re fresh out of dummies.