AMERICAN LEAGUE NOTES : A’s in 21st Century, Red Sox Are in 19th

In the ninth inning of Oakland’s 3-1 victory over the Boston Red Sox Wednesday, a television camera scanned the Athletics’ dugout and caught third base coach Rene Lachemann and pitching coach Dave Duncan sitting on the bench and making notebook notations.

Those notations will soon be lodged on a computer disk and stored in a video room behind the A’s clubhouse.

“No organization is more thorough, no team is better prepared,” A’s relief pitcher Dennis Eckersley said after the A’s had wrapped up a third consecutive American League pennant with a sweep of the Red Sox.

It was the computer age vs. the stone age, the difference in talent compounded by a vast difference in approach.

“You can start with the talent because they have a lot more than we do, but there were other factors,” veteran Boston infielder Marty Barrett said.

“The game has become a science, but this is a traditional organization that doesn’t want to conform. We have an old-fashioned hunch manager who doesn’t believe in computers, and we have very few meetings to discuss pitching and defense. In some ways, against a team of the A’s caliber, we’re beaten before we take the field.

“I mean, the other day (shortstop Luis) Rivera can’t get to a ball in the hole (hit by Harold Baines in the sixth inning of Game 3), and the A’s end up scoring two runs. Rivera should have been over two or three steps to start with. It should have been routine, but we’ve got guys playing out of position all the time.”

Said Joe Morgan, the old fashioned manager: “To be honest, I don’t even know if I could tell you what a computer looks like. I don’t think I’ve ever seen one, but we’ve won (the division) in two of my three years, so we must be doing something right. I mean, to each his own.”

Barrett was ejected Wednesday when he reacted to the ejection of Roger Clemens by lifting a Gatorade container off the dugout steps and dumping it on the field.

Coach Dick Beradino attempted to restrain Barrett but was pushed away by Barrett, who then threw another Gatorade container and pail of sunflower seeds onto the field.

“Dick was doing his job,” Barrett said. “He didn’t know I had already been ejected. It didn’t matter what else I threw out there.”

Barrett said he was angered by the hasty ejection of Clemens from an important game and felt that umpire Terry Cooney was out of line.

“You don’t throw a guy out from 60 feet away,” Barrett said. “He should have gone to the mound, gotten in Roger’s face and asked if he had heard him correctly.

“I think they were probably tired of hearing Roger bitch earlier in the series, but you don’t carry that from one game to the next, you don’t eject someone on the basis of what they said yesterday.”

Once friends, always friends: Dwight Evans, who had struck out twice against Eckersley and complained about Eckersley showing him up, came into the Oakland clubhouse Wednesday to hug and congratulate Eckersley, who smiled when Evans walked away and said, “I thought he was going to hit me.”

The A’s swept the four games even though they hit no home runs. La Russa said he didn’t care.

“If we can score nine, four, four and three (runs), it doesn’t matter,” he said. “The way I understand it, it’s how many times the guys in our uniforms cross the plate. They don’t have to be trotting (as after a home run). They can be sliding.”

Starting pitchers will top the Red Sox’s priority list this winter, should they venture into the free-agent market, according to General Manager Lou Gorman. That need could become more pressing should right-hander Mike Boddicker decide to try free agency.

“We’d take whatever we can get our hands on,” Gorman said. “If we could sign two, that would be marvelous. You don’t like to give up draft choices, but we gave up a draft choice to get (catcher Tony) Pena and we felt that was justified.

“I don’t think there will be a lot (of free-agent signings) because of the collusion payoff and because of a couple of clubs getting burned last winter.”

Times staff writer Helene Elliott contributed to this story.