Nothing Could Save the Giants

They ought to invite the San Francisco Giants to a World Series some time. They missed this one although Lord knows it lasted long enough for them to show up--14 elapsed days between start and finish. But they spent the whole World Series like a guy who overslept trying to catch a bus. The Giants were in a “Hey! Wait for me!” mode the whole tournament.

If you missed the 1989 World Series, just go home and pull the wings off butterflies or go get a seat at a train wreck. Same thing. The Giants were about as competitive as a guy in a blindfold stood up against a wall in the Lubianka prison. Their only hope was a call from the warden.

There’s no truth to the rumor the Oakland A’s want to hire the Giant pitching staff for batting practice next year. They’re afraid their hitters would get overconfident.

The Giants had some quality players. They just didn’t have enough of them.

They got some help from an unexpected source--the Oakland A’s dugout, if you can believe it. A guy who never swung a bat, caught a ball or called a pitch for them kept trying to make the Giants competitive.

Tony La Russa is a very smart man. He’s got a law degree and a license to practice to prove it.

He has a reputation as one of the cleverest managers in the game and you would have to say coming off two successive World Series validates it.

But, in Series Game No. 3, Manager Tony had a 13-3 lead, he had one of the best pitchers in baseball going for him. And, he elected to take him out and turn the game over to a lot of guys whom nobody ever suspected of being the best in the game.

The 13-3 game had turned into a 13-7 game, guys few people ever heard of were hitting home runs off Manager Tony’s stoppers and, when the game ended, the home run leader of baseball ’89 was at bat with two on.

But that was nothing. In Game 4, La Russa had an 8-2 lead after six innings. He had a 19-game winner on the mound with a six-run lead pitching a five-hitter.

Mike Moore is only 29 years old. He had thrown only 86 pitches and, except for a mistake to Kevin Mitchell, had the Giants lunging and popping up all night.

La Russa took him out and turned the mound over to the collection of all-stars he had called in the night before. With similar, predictable results. One of the pitchers had an earned-run average of 54. He shortly beefed it up by giving up a walk and a home run.

So much for Laurel. Now, La Russa brought in Hardy. The Giants promptly hit him for a) a triple; b) a double; and c) a single. Before he got anybody out.

ABC probably loved it. La Russa had turned a rout into a cliffhanger. He should be writing Saturday afternoon serials or Saturday morning cartoons. An 8-0 lead had evaporated to the point where Mitchell, who had homered in his last time at bat, was coming up against a 26-year-old relief pitcher only a year-and-a-half out of the minors. Mitchell missed a game-tying homer by a few feet.

The question is: Is Oakland this good--or are the Giants that bad?

The 1989 Oakland A’s can look, in poor light, like the 1927 Yankees. They probably don’t have the depth of raw power--but in this age of expansionist baseball, you don’t need it. The Ruth Yankees would be overkill at its worst in today’s market.

The Oakland A’s are the World Series champions today because they know what to do with the world’s worst pitch, the gopher ball. A specialty of the Giants. The science of baseball has all to do with fielding and running and the strategy of the bunt. But, the success of baseball is, and has been since the advent of Babe Ruth, the three-run home run. Brute strength. It’s inartistic, winning ugly. It turns Series games into a shambles. It takes the second-guess, the lifeblood of baseball, out of the equation.

The Oakland A’s hit more home runs in a four-game Series than any team in baseball history--more than any of the Ruth-Gehrig Yankees or the DiMaggio Yankees.

So, if the Oakland A’s are going to be the Ruth Yankees revisited, a dynasty, a chapter instead of a page in the history books, the Ruth role probably falls to the man-child they also play in right field.

Jose Canseco is more than a star, he’s a franchise. It’s not only the prodigious home runs, it’s the attitude.

They used to say in Hollywood that something happened when certain players, actors or actresses hit the emulsion of the celluloid. Film loved them. It was star quality.

Jose Canseco radiates it. He plays the game like a kid in a schoolyard. He squabbles with the spectators, he brawls with rivals. He gets traffic tickets, he lives life off the field at Mach 1. All of these things Ruth did.

When Canseco comes to bat, a hum goes through the park, then a buzz, then the abuse starts. You have to remember it was a jeering crowd in Chicago that taunted Ruth into his famous called-shot homer. In Candlestick Park, the natives went into paroxysms of delighted rage when Canseco came up. “Ho-say!” they jeered happily. And then refined it into the vulgarity, “Ho-say Bleeps!”

Jose is not your 9-to-5 ballplayer. He’s an imposing figure, a World Trade Center in cleats. The game comes easy to him. He can hit--.307 with 42 home runs and 124 runs-batted-in his last full season), he can run (40 stolen bases). He loves the spotlight. No one in the game ever thought of getting a 900 number on his phone before. Most celebrities want to be as hard to reach as the Pope. Not Jose. He wants to reach out and touch someone.

His strikeouts are as great theater as his home runs--and he had 175 swishes one year.

He has star quality, in short. And in spades. As long as he’s in the middle of the Oakland lineup, they are going to be a force to reckon with. And maybe in an annual World Series. If he does nothing else, he gives the pitcher anxiety fits.

One day, the team may come to be known as the “Canseco A’s.” And the manager can even yank his star pitchers with three innings to go and 10-run leads. People may even think they named a city after him, San Jose.