COMMENTARY : A’s Eckersley Sets Relief Standard : Baseball: Using precision over power, he’s the benchmark that other top 9th-inning specialists use to measure themselves.

Dennis Eckersley is the closer’s closer.

Displaying toughness while hiding his insecurities and using precision over power, Eckersley represents the standard of greatness among baseball’s elite relief pitchers. He fills the finishing role for the world champion Oakland Athletics, cramming stress, style and soul into a workday that usually lasts no longer than three outs in the ninth inning.

“It’s just one stupid inning,” Eckersley said. “It seems so silly, doesn’t it?”

In a baseball season colored by the improbable (six no-hitters), the predictable (a lockout) and the mystical (the rise of the Chicago White Sox and the emergence of home-run phenom Cecil Fielder), it is easy to overlook the sustained success of Eckersley. With 27 saves in 28 opportunities, Eckersley is at the forefront of an extraordinary group of closers who dominate baseball’s late innings.

“I’m a control guy,” Eckersley said. “I’m not going out there as a dominating pitcher.”

Although Chicago White Sox’s Bobby Thigpen is tied with Eckersley for the league lead in saves and the Cleveland Indians’ Doug Jones, the Seattle Mariners’ Mike Schooler and the Minnesota Twins’ Rick Aguilera also may be on track for 40-save seasons, Eckersley commands the most respect from his peers.

“What’s impressive about Eckersley is the way he gets things accomplished,” Thigpen said. “He is as close to perfect as you want.”

Roger McDowell of the Philadelphia Phillies said: “The man throws strikes, but he doesn’t throw strikes. He doesn’t give a batter anything to hit, yet he doesn’t walk batters. Amazing.”

Ask any reliever who baseball’s best closer is, and the short list--which usually begins with the likes of the New York Mets’ John Franco, the Cincinnati Reds’ Randy Myers, the Boston Red Sox’s Jeff Reardon, the St. Louis Cardinals’ Lee Smith, the Toronto Blue Jays’ Tom Henke, the Baltimore Orioles’ Gregg Olson, Cleveland’s Jones and Chicago’s Thigpen--invariably ends with Eckersley.

“When Eckersley is in the game, you feel like it’s over,” Olson said. “That’s the ultimate compliment for a short man. If you can have someone guarantee you 40 saves, Eckersley is the man.”

In this age of increasing specialization in baseball, closers such as Eckersley are the essential men of any pitching staff.

The throwing relay of starter to middle man to closer was perfected only in the last decade.

Baseball’s first generation of great closers, Joe Page, Hoyt Wilhelm and Elroy Face, resembled today’s middle-inning relievers. They would replace the starter in the sixth, seventh or eighth inning, yet unlike today’s middlemen who give way in the ninth, the rubber-armed relievers of the past would complete a long day’s work. Rollie Fingers of the A’s redefined the closing role in the 1970s, emerging as the ninth-inning specialist who would snuff out an opponent’s final rally. He finished his career with 341 saves, No. 1 on the all-time list.

The 1980s turned into a bull market for closers, from the side-armed trickery of the Kansas City Royals’ Dan Quisenberry to the fastball heat of Reardon, the New York Yankees’ Dave Righetti and St. Louis’ Todd Worrell.

“In this era, we look to the closer even more,” Mets pitching Coach Mel Stottlemyre said. “We sometimes play the game trying to get to the closer. We want him to finish the game. More guys are accepting that role in a positive way because they can become stars.”

Players such as Olson, Thigpen and Mike Henneman of the Detroit Tigers head the new breed of closers--young pitchers who were developed especially for this special task. Eckersley fits the classic role of reliever, a former starter who went to the bullpen to preserve his career.

Eckersley, 35, hit bottom both competitively and emotionally in 1986, when he was 6-11 with the Chicago Cubs. In the off-season, he confronted the source of his problems, alcoholism, checking himself into a treatment center.

The next season, renewed physically and spiritually, he landed with the Athletics. Manager Tony La Russa moved Eckersley to the bullpen, seeing a right-handed closer who could cut the corners of the strike zone.

“The majority of the credit for Eck is Eck,” La Russa said. “Mentally, he uses his experience. He has a great appreciation for his success. The game has humbled him several times before. You have a guy pulling as hard now as he did two years ago.”

Eckersley’s numbers--16 saves in 1987, 45 in 1988 and 33 in 1989--only hint at his greatness. He has blown only eight save opportunities since the start of last season, and during one stretch had a streak of facing 185 consecutive batters without giving up a walk.

“You can’t be too high-strung in this role,” Eckersley said. “I’m emotional on the mound, but you can burn out quickly.”

Eckersley, of course, faced down his own baseball nightmare in 1988, giving up Kirk Gibson’s game-winning home run that helped launch the Dodgers to a five-game World Series triumph.

“People think, Kirk, and I’m going to fold,” Eckersley said. “But my circumstances were so much different. I appreciated what happened to my life with the battle against alcoholism and how I turned my life around. I saved 50 games that year, including the postseason, and I blow one game. What am I going to do, kill myself? How can you be bitter? It was the law of averages, and I fell out of a tree.”