Piscotty shows what he can do for A’s

By Art Spander

MESA, Ariz. — This was Stephen Piscotty the ballplayer, the man talented enough to be picked in the first round of the major league draft. He still was the humanitarian, the loving son, helping nurse an ailing parent.

But for a short while, he could be viewed like any other big leaguer in spring training, for his performance.

The Piscotty story is sad and heartwarming. The St. Louis Cardinals traded him to the Athletics so he could be close to his mother, who has amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, the disease that struck Lou Gehrig in the late 1930s, and for whom it was labeled.

Piscotty came to bat Saturday with a man on in the second and hit a shot over the fence in left in a Cactus League game at Hohokam Stadium that Oakland eventually would lose to the San Diego Padres, 10-4.

It could be glossed over as just another of the many home runs in the desert during the exhibition schedule. Except it wasn’t. And Piscotty, 27, is not just another ball player, as you must be aware.

This was his first homer of the spring, his first, unofficial as it might be to many, since coming to the A’s in December. A trade that showed that big-time sport, all dollars and show, has a very human side.

“He takes good approach to hitting,” A’s manager Bob Melvin said of Piscotty. “This is spring training, but a home run like that with a new team makes it easier on yourself.”

For the past several months, since Piscotty’s mother, Gretchen, was diagnosed, nothing has been easy. With the loss of muscle control, she requires round-the-clock attention.

She has been attended to by Piscotty’s father, and his two younger brothers, and after the Cardinals consented to send him to Oakland — “That’s what makes the Cardinals one of the class organizations in sports,” A’s executive Billy Beane told the Bay Area News Group — and until spring training began, by Piscotty.

“I knew I’d be gone a few months,” Piscotty said, “but I’ll be back home, Before (at St. Louis) it would have been hard going into the season, leaving and not coming home for eight months.”

A’s management has always wanted Piscotty, who played his high school ball at Amador Valley, over the hills from Oakland, and then developed at Stanford. The opportunity to get him was serendipity.

Maybe it shouldn’t have been a surprise that Piscotty would do well against the Padres. As a rookie in 2015, he hit two homers on a Sunday against them at Petco Park. Asked that day if it was his best game as a pro, he responded in classic understatement, “Probably.”

When home, Piscotty is back in the room he once shared with his brothers. “Although,” he said, chuckling, “they’re out of there now.”

Piscotty became engaged in February, and his fiancée helps at the family home. A bad situation, a terrible situation — there is no known cure for ALS, but Piscotty has helped create a fund for research — has become tolerable.

He is playing his sport, and for a team for which he cheered as a kid, and he has been able to reconnect with his mother.

"I thought, if I were to get traded, this is the absolute best option for me and my family," Piscotty told MLB.com after the transaction. "I think the best word that sums up a lot of our emotions is bittersweet. We're pretty emotionally tied and invested in [the Cardinals'] organization, so it's sad to kind of cut ties with that. But I think family comes first, obviously, and sometimes there are things more important than baseball.”

For Austin Jackson, a new team and old values

By Art Spander

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — He was out there for the first time this spring training, and Austin Jackson, whose career includes a World Series — against the Giants, no less — and a catch so spectacular it’s a YouTube staple, went about it as the major leaguer that he is.

A new team, a new season, but old values. Only an exhibition game, but in effect a way of life. You’re always on display.

In his final season, 1951, Joe DiMaggio was asked why he played so hard when at his age, 36, and with a bad leg he could have eased up a bit. “There may be some kid who never saw me play before,” supposedly was DiMaggio’s answer.

Austin Jackson understands. His teams, a half dozen of them — the Giants, with whom he signed in January, are his sixth — have been winners. “I take a lot of pride in that,” he said. “Anytime you’re on the field, you want to win. You’ve got to have passion and respect for the game. It’s ingrained in us.”

In Jackson’s first Cactus League game of 2018, the Giants were not winners. They were beaten by the Angels, 11-4, in a game that was 0-0 in the fifth. Jackson, starting in center field, went 0-for-2.

“It’s kind of funny,” he said in the postgame clubhouse, “me signing with the team that beat us in the World Series.” That "us" was Kansas City in 2012. “But that’s how it goes. Every game, I think about getting back to the Series.”

Jackson turned 31 in January. He’s young, but at same time in experience and attention he’s old. Back in 1999, Baseball America named Jackson the best 12-year-old player in the country. Three years later, he was the best 15-year-old. At Ryan High in his hometown of Denton, Texas, he also played basketball and was ranked by Athlon Sports the No. 10 prep point guard in the nation.

Then, after being offered a basketball scholarship to Georgia Tech, he signed with the Yankees. A journey that took many by surprise has not changed his attitude. He’s doing what he wants to do.

“The first game,” he said of his play on Thursday, “is exciting, like the first day of school. It was difficult. My legs got heavy, because I hadn’t played for so long. But it felt good.”

Life, we’re told, is about timing, about being in the right place and then making the best of where you are. Jackson undeniably did that last August when, playing for the Cleveland Indians, he chased Hanley Ramirez's deep shot to the right-center bullpen wall at Fenway Park. He reached up with his gloved left hand for the ball, reached out with his right hand for the barrier and then flipped upside down into the bullpen.

He traveled a reported 97 feet, probably got as much TV time in replays as imaginable and became a part of what Major League Baseball declared “the play of the year.” It was one of those plays that no matter how many times you view it — and Jackson said he has seen it maybe 100 times — seems impossible.

“Most people talk about the catch,” Jackson said, “but my friend noticed I was hanging on to the wall for dear life. I just kind of flipped over and landed on the ground, my arm still on the wall.”

He won’t be able to do that at AT&T Park, where the fences are higher, but what he can do is bring the skills that help a team.

“I’ve learned a lot being with great players,” he said. ”When I’m out there, I want to trust the guy beside me.”

The way teams have put their trust in Austin Jackson.