When Aces Were Wild: The A’s of 10 Years Ago

It was like one of those old-West portraits you have taken at the Ponderosa Ranch while you’re waiting for your Hossburger to grill.

They posed stoically in their green and gold in Anaheim Stadium’s visiting locker room, the fastest guns in the West, rewriting record books and making “BillyBall” the rage of the ages.

Individually, they were Mike Norris, Matt Keough, Steve McCatty, Brian Kingman and Rick Langford. Together, as they appeared on the cover of Sports Illustrated on April 27, 1981, they were The Five Aces.

“We’re going to go down as one of the best teams of all time,” Mike Norris said after going 22-9 in 1980. “And I’m going to be one of the greatest pitchers.”

And a decade ago, no one would argue.

In 1980, the five combined for 78 victories and 93 of a major-league record 94 complete games. They averaged 251 innings apiece.

The A’s were a budding dynasty with Norris (25), Keough (24), Kingman (25), McCatty (26) and Langford (28). In the strike-interrupted ’81 season, The Five Aces combined for 56 complete games. It was a pace that would have given them a record 104 over a 162-game season.

Under manager Billy Martin, the A’s won their first 11 games in ’81 with The Aces going the distance nine times. From there, they went 17-1, won the A.L. West and figured to be winning titles into the ‘90s.

SI’s Ron Fimrite called them “inexhaustible.” But they weren’t. The Five Aces had only 37 complete games in ‘82, five in ’83 and four in ’84.

By 1985, only Langford remained. And he was released that season after a 1-10 start.

Fimrite wrote that Martin and his drinking buddy-pitching coach Art Fowler, “are most agitated by suggestions that they are burning out the arms of their young pitchers.”

But they didn’t have much choice. The bullpen featured such luminaries as Bob Owchinko, Jeff Jones, Tom Underwood, Dave Heaverlo and Craig Minetto. Jones and 21-year-old Dave Beard led the team in saves with three apiece.

“If we had Dennis Eckersley in our bullpen that year, we would have won it all,” said A’s coach Dave McKay, who was an infielder on the ’81 team. “And we’d have won it by 20 games.”

Martin squeezed 1,046 innings and 93 complete games from them in 1980. Then in the strike-shortened 109-game season of 1981, he squeezed harder, getting 694 innings and 56 complete games. When Martin was fired, Tony Kornheiser of The Washington Post wrote: “All that was left of them was pulp.”

By 1983, The Five Aces were a memory. In just two years, Oakland’s pitching had become its downfall. The club went through 21 pitchers, 10 of them rookies, resulting in a staff earned run average of 4.35 and a total of 22 complete games for the season.

They flamed out like a match in a windstorm. And a decade later, only Keough is still in the game.

They were The Five Aces. But 10 short years later, they are mostly five memories.

MIKE NORRIS

A brash youngster, Norris went 22-9 in 1980, finishing second to Steve Stone in Cy Young balloting. He completed 24 of 33 starts and pitched 284 innings.

“We were relentless,” Norris says now. “We had heart, pride, a feeling of invincibility. We were taught how to win by Billy (Martin) and how to relax by Art (Fowler). We basically knew that winning the pennant depended on us, so we had a lot of burden.”

In ‘81, he went 12-9, blaming the 50-day strike for his woes. “After that long, I don’t care who you are, you’re not going to pitch like King Kong,” he says.

A bad shoulder restricted him after ’81. He went 7-11 in ’82 and was 4-5 in ’83 when he injured nerves in his right shoulder during a brawl in Seattle. Following surgery, his name began surfacing in various skirmishes with the law, linking him with cocaine and alcohol abuse and he was out of the game by 1984.

He hit bottom in 1985, when he was arrested for driving under the influence of alcohol and drugs. Later that year, he was implicated in drug-possession charges in the Dominican Republic.

“I was wild,” he told Fimrite in the SI story. “I couldn’t wait to get off the field and have a good time. I wondered why I wasn’t pitching well. I’ve learned now that you can’t expect to do two things well.”

But he didn’t learn.

It took four arrests and five stints in drug-treatment centers before Norris came to grips with his problem.

“Drug addiction cost me millions of dollars,” Norris says, “but I finally quit beating myself up over that. It got me nowhere but bitter. I’ll never know how much I might have made, but let’s face it -- I was earning $800,000 before I left the game, and I left in the middle of what should have been my prime years. ... It doesn’t matter now. I can’t go back and do it over.”

Norris still has a blown-up, framed picture of that SI cover in his game room at home. “A lot of times, that kept me going in my absence from the game,” he says.

He started another comeback in 1986 with the independent Class-A San Jose Bees. He struck out 54 and walked only four, but just as he was about to be sold to the Yankees, he was nailed for another drunk-driving ticket and everything was undone again.

He says he’s been dry for four years.

Last summer, he got another chance, pitching in Tacoma, the A’s Triple-A farm club. And this year, he made it back.

Norris says he’s still close with members of that staff. He sees McCatty often. He visited with Keough at Martin’s funeral and Kingman made a point of congratulating him on his comeback during spring training.

“We all had a love for each other,” Norris says.

And Norris insists that Martin didn’t burn out any arms.

“Billy had very meticulous programs for us,” Norris says. “McCatty was the only guy to go over 150 pitches (a game). ... I kind of sit back now and I can’t really remember that much difference (between the Norris of ’80 and the Norris of ‘90), except for the velocity. I know the velocity’s still there, it’s just not as consistent.”

Norris was released last week by the A’s and is a free agent.

RICK LANGFORD

Langford was a rising star in 1980, going 19-12 and finishing an incredible 28 of his 33 starts. He worked a league-leading 290 innings and was rewarded with a six-year, $3 million contract, which included a $250,000 signing bonus.

He managed to hold on a little longer than the rest, but he was never the same pitcher again.

In ‘81, he slipped to 12-10 but led the league again with 18 complete games. In ‘82, though completing 15 of 31 starts, he slid to 11-16 and a 4.21 ERA.

Langford underwent elbow surgery in 1983 and suffered through a long rehabilitation process. He spent many hours alone, long before teammates arrived at the ballpark, going through the process of rehabilitation.

“I was at a point when I could barely lift five-pound weights,” Langford remembers. “I had normal use of my arm, but the act of throwing a baseball was strenuous. I had to build back the strength.”

Still, Langford does not blame his injuries on Martin despite pitching 61 complete games between 1980-82.

“I don’t blame anyone for it,” he says. “I’d been throwing a baseball since I was 6 years old. Part of that process is the building up, part of it is the tearing down.”

He started just 11 games the next three years and was released in July of ‘86, after losing 10 of 11 decisions to go with a 7.36 ERA.

Most recently, he was general manager of the Bradenton Explorers of the Senior Professional Baseball League. He left after a falling out with management and will become general manager of the Port St. Lucie Legends this fall. In the meantime, he runs a sports marketing firm out of Bradenton.

MATT KEOUGH

Keough completed 20 games in 1980-81, winning 26 times. His arm going bad, he lost 18 in ’82 and was traded to the Yankees for a couple of nobodies in ’83.

He underwent rotator-cuff surgery in 1984 and went to Double A, where he developed a knuckleball. He resurfaced in St. Louis in 1985 and Chicago and Houston in 1986.

Despite appearing in just four games, St. Louis gave him a World Series ring. And he went 4-3 down the stretch when Houston won the N.L. West in 1986. This time, however, he wasn’t kept on the postseason roster and was released in October.

In St. Louis, he knocked heads against a “loaded” pitching staff. In Chicago, the Cubs used him in long relief. “That means you only get used on days the wind’s blowing the wrong way at Wrigley,” Keough said.

His future changed in late 1986. Pitching for the Astros, he started a game in Atlanta. It happened to be a night when Japanese scouts were in town to watch Braves right-hander David Palmer throw.

Keough picked that night to throw five innings of no-hit ball at the Braves. That impressed the Hanshin Tigers enough to offer Keough a two-year contract.

In 1987, he took his pitching arm to Osaka, Japan. Now in his fourth season there, he’s one of the few American pitchers to stick.

Keough has had success overseas. Entering this season, Keough had fashioned a 38-35 record for the perennial cellar-dwelling Tigers. The 38 wins represents the second-highest total in the Central Division for that time period.

After suffering knee and thumb injuries, he’s 5-6 this season with a 4.10 ERA.

“All of sudden, I’m popular again,” Keough says. “People are calling from all over because I was Cecil Fielder’s teammate last year. ... I told my dad (Cardinals scout Marty Keough) that it’s too bad they had Pedro Guerrero because this kid’s the real thing.”

Keough thinks Fielder’s success with the Tigers this year is the best that could happen to Japanese baseball.

“There is still this misconception that only crippled lepers come here to play,” Keough says. “That all Japanese pitchers are 5-foot-8 and throw sidearm. But the truth is, for every 50 Americans who come over here, 40 don’t make it.

“It’s tough. I enjoy the game and the competition. But it wears on you. One year here is like three in America. It’s so much of a mental game here.

“With fewer teams, there is no element of surprise when you play a team 26 times a year. And every time you pitch, they’re watching and video-taping. They’re trying to pick up your pitches.

“They do that to an extent in America, but (in Japan) they yell, ‘Fastball! Curve!’ And if you knock them down (for it) they’ll get rid of you.”

Keough still carries a soft spot for “BillyBall.”

“I can remember taking that picture and (equipment man) Frank Ciensczyk managing to get his name taped above the locker,” Keough says. “But that wasn’t a great team. We had a great outfield (Rickey Henderson, Tony Armas and Dwayne Murphy), a platoon infield. Just good enough that if (the starters) stayed healthy, we could win.

“I don’t buy that (Martin) broke all our arms. Here, guys throw 150 pitches on days between starts. And on nights they start, they throw in the outfield. We just weren’t aware of weights and conditioning. It was a lack of knowledge that hurt us.”

Keough lives between March and August outside of Osaka with his wife and two young children. During the offseason, they live in Southern California.

BRIAN KINGMAN

The summer of 1980 was a bittersweet year for Kingman. While Norris was winning 20 and Langford 19, Kingman won just eight and lost an American League-high 20 games.

But he completed 10 games and had a respectable 3.84 ERA. The A’s just didn’t score runs for him, averaging 2.86 in his 30 starts, including five shutouts.

“I kept thinking, ‘What the hell’s wrong with me?’ ” Kingman says now. “But thinking back on it, it’s not so bad. I didn’t at the time, but I get some enjoyment out of it now.

“Hell, that’s my claim to infamy. I’m the last one to lose 20. In fact, I thought you were calling about the 10th anniversary of my 20-loss. I find myself looking in the papers and watching (Mark) Langston (4-12) and (Jack) Morris (8-12) and thinking, ‘They’ve got a shot.’

“My friends say I ought to give out an award every year, like the last guy drafted in the NFL every year. Give it to the guy who loses the most games. Of course, it would have to be sponsored by an insurance company. For losses, you see.”

After 1980, things didn’t get much better for Kingman. In ‘81-82, he won just seven games total. He was sold after going 4-12 in ‘82, and soon disappeared from the bigs. He finished up his career in San Francisco, posting a 7.71 ERA in three appearances in 1983.

Kingman’s not sure if Martin was to blame for the burnout or not.

“We didn’t have a bullpen, but the worst part is that we didn’t even try to develop one,” Kingman says. “We enjoyed it 90 percent of the time, me less than others because they were winning, but there was a feeling of accomplishment, pride. It was a macho thing. But we also knew it would translate into money.

“I never thought all the work hurt our arms, but history says maybe it did.”

Kingman spent 1984 in Phoenix, pitching for the Giants’ farm club. And then he retired.

“It was time to get on with my life,” he said. “I don’t miss it much until I see how much money they’re making. Every time I see a guy like (Jose) Canseco signing a big contract, I start my arm circles and run around the block -- getting ready for a comeback.”

Kingman is now involved in real estate and a financial services company in Phoenix, Ariz., where he lives with his two sons, Matthew (7) and Alex (5).

“They’re just starting T-ball,” Kingman said. “The spitter’s next.”

STEVE McCATTY

The Cat won 14 games in 1980 and Martin toyed with the idea of making him the stopper.

“Billy told me to go through the league one time, learn the hitters and then I was going to the bullpen,” McCatty says. “I ended up pitching better than the rest and he couldn’t do it.”

In ‘81, McCatty completed 16 of 22 starts, led the A.L. with four shutouts and posted a 2.32 ERA.

“I understand the nature of the game,” McCatty said during spring training in 1984, when he was the lone “semi-healthy” member of the Aces. “But you hate to see something like that rotation we had broken up. There was a time when I thought the five of us would be together for a real, real long time.

“Everybody kept saying we were five starters capable of winning 20 apiece. But everybody got hurt. You learn to accept it. It’s part of the game.”

He lost 10 mph on his fastball. And after ‘81, he won just six, six, eight and four games and was a memory by 1986.

McCatty, however, won’t blame Martin.

“I never believed that,” McCatty says. “Sure, if we’d had any kind of bullpen in those years, it would have been better to pull us in late innings. But I don’t think any physical damage came because of all that work.”

McCatty cites other reasons.

“Maybe we were all so brainwashed into going nine that if we didn’t go the full game we’d think we failed. It became, in my case, a feeling that I had a responsibility to go the distance. Like I was programmed. If you’d go eight, somebody would say, ‘Oh, you can’t go nine?’ With our bullpen, you’d go a little longer than you should.

“I remember in spring training in ‘82, my arm was a little tender and needed rest. But I didn’t say anything to anybody. I didn’t want anybody to think I was babying my arm. So what happens? I end up on the disabled list for a long time. All because of my little macho trip.

“I don’t think it was the work. Heck, we had 50 days off that year. Keough slipped on the mound in Baltimore. Langford’s elbow went out. Norris got knocked down in a fight in Seattle. His hand went numb and he ended up needing shoulder surgery.”

In 1986, McCatty signed a Triple-A contract with the White Sox and spent a half-summer in Buffalo. “That’s the first time I didn’t mind getting released. A summer in Buffalo? I said, ‘Great. Good-bye.’ ”

He finished up that season pitching for the San Jose Bees, the co-op last-resort team in the California League. McCatty made the Cal League All-Star team and also began his broadcasting career, doing color for Bees broadcasts on days he wasn’t pitching.

The Angels bought his contract in ‘88, but he was released when the team decided to “go young.”

In 1988, McCatty started working A’s radio broadcasts when Bill King and Lon Simmons were away doing football. And he was given a contract when SportsChannel America signed to do A’s baseball this year.

In the meantime, McCatty has started a business in Dublin called “ProVision” along with ex-teammates Dwayne Murphy and Mike Davis. It’s a marketing company with a novel approach. It’s basically a consumer catalog service, except that 7 percent of every purchase goes into an annuity that can be collected upon retirement.

McCatty lives in San Ramon with his wife and 3-year-old son. “He can’t throw a curveball yet. But he can hit one,” McCatty says.