Athletics’ Five-Year Run About to Come to an End

The starting lineup for the Oakland A’s in today’s sixth, and possibly, final, game of the American League playoffs:

Rickey Henderson, lf.

Carney Lansford, 3b. Two weeks to free agency.

Ruben Sierra, rf. Two weeks to free agency.

Harold Baines, dh. Two weeks to free agency.

Mark McGwire, 1b. Two weeks to free agency.

Terry Steinbach, c. Two weeks to free agency.

Willie Wilson, cf. Two weeks to free agency.

Mike Bordick, ss.

Lance Blankenship, 2b.

The starting pitcher will be Mike Moore, who will become a free agent when the A’s, as is expected, decline to offer him arbitration.

Moore is pitching two days after Dave Stewart, who can file for free agency in two weeks.

So can Ron Darling, who started Game 3 of the playoffs, and Jeff Russell, Rick Honeycutt and Kelly Downs, the valuable advance men for Dennis Eckersley in Tony La Russa’s tag-team bullpen.

If the American League playoffs end today, so, too, will Oakland’s reign of terror over the American League West--along with the Dynasty That Could Have Been, Should Have Been, But Never Really Was.

If the American League playoffs end today, which is likely, considering the site (vacuum-packed SkyDome) and the opposition (long-overdue Toronto), the last golden era of the Oakland Athletics--1988 to 1992--will have produced but one World Series championship, and a tarnished one at that.

The A’s had Jose Canseco and Henderson and McGwire, but they required an act of God to overcome the National League in a World Series. The Bay Area earthquake of 1989 forced the postponement of Game 3 for more than a week, rattled the home team (San Francisco), rattled the home park (Candlestick) and gave La Russa the opportunity to double-team the Giants by starting Stewart and Moore in Games 1 and 2 . . . and again in Games 3 and 4.

Before that, the A’s lost to the Dodgers and the weakest World Series batting order since the ’69 Mets, in five games.

After that, the A’s were swept by a team owned by Marge Schott.

The A’s haven’t been back to a World Series since and, barring a Blue Jay collapse that would make the chokes of ’85 and ’87 and ’91 seem like scratchy throats, they stand a good chance of not returning until the next millennium.

Thirteen A’s are eligible for free agency the day after the end of the World Series. More, such as Moore, can join them just as fast as Sandy Alderson can say “no” to arbitration.

Canseco is already gone. His was the trade that tipped Alderson’s hand, the hand that was waving farewell to the Canseco era and all it represented.

The Bash Brothers.

Trembling fear whenever Oakland rolled into town.

Four American League West titles in five years.

A $41-million payroll.

And for what?

One measly diamond ring?

Alderson figured he either needed to start buying his jewelry on the Home Shopping Network or start breaking up his baseball team. Alderson first took the chisel to Canseco’s $4.7-million salary, unloading it on Texas for Bobby Witt and free-agents-to-be Sierra and Russell.

A theme for the A’s and the final two months of the season had been delivered:

Win it all now, because that’s all there is.

Oakland consummated the Canseco trade with no real intent of signing Sierra or Russell for 1993. They are to the A’s postseason drive as David Cone is to the Blue Jays’--rented help, disposable heroes, to be discarded as soon as the ride ends, whenever and wherever.

Canseco could see the writing-off of the mid-90s on the wall. “It looks like the A’s are just planning to field a team next year,” he said with bitterness in his first press conference as a Ranger.

McGwire told Sport magazine that he was “surprised we stayed together this long. In 1992, the bottom line (was) W-I-N-S. Next year, it’s going to be M-O-N-E-Y. I would venture to say you’re going to see a whole new team.”

Lansford, the 2,000-hit man the Angels let get away, is as good as gone. At 36, with injuries chipping away at his skills, he is talking seriously about retirement.

Wilson, 37, is headed in the same direction. Stewart turns 36 in February. Baines turns 34 in March and is coming off a season in which he hit .253, the lowest average of his 13-year career.

The A’s are hoping to pool enough resources to retain McGwire and Steinbach, but after a 42-home run, 104-RBI season, McGwire knows he’ll never have this sort of bargaining power again. He and Barry Bonds and Kirby Puckett stand as the only three recession-free names on the free-agent market.

From the other end of the AL West, Angel Manager Buck Rodgers looks upon the commotion overhead and gives thanks.

“It’s hard to tell what this division is going to look like next year,” Rodgers says. “Oakland has what, 11 or 12 free agents? Minnesota’s got some key people they could lose--(pitcher John) Smiley, Puckett.

“So it’s really an interesting time. Things could go topsy-turvy in a hurry.”

Break up the Oakland A’s. That was the battle cry that sustained--and, more often than not, mocked--the rest of the AL West for half a decade. Now it is happening, and it is happening from within.

Nine more innings could do it. Unless the A’s have two more victories in them, unless they can complete a down-from-three-games-to-one rally in Toronto, the iron fist of Oakland unclenches here.

The united republics of California, Minnesota, Texas, Seattle, Chicago and Kansas City are about to be liberated.