Romo off, Reddick on: Baseball is back

By Art Spander

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — The sun was shining, and the A’s and Giants were playing ball. What else do you need to know? That Sergio Romo couldn’t find his changeup pitch? That Josh Reddick twice reached over the right-field fence to steal away home runs? That 6,498 fans were living it up?

An exhibition, the opener, the two Bay Area teams. And every time they play, for real or not — although isn’t baseball the truest form of reality even when the game doesn’t count? — in our minds it’s the 1989 World Series once again.

Time passes, baseball remains eternal.

It’s all about anticipation, about the new kids on the block, about the veterans, about the players — and the plays. When baseball comes around, we’re all young again, remembering what was, wondering what will be.

Strike three, ball four, go the lyrics from Damn Yankees, “walk a run you’ll tie the score.” 

Other lyrics, from South Pacific, “ . . . her skin is tender as DiMaggio’s glove . . .”

A sport, a metaphor, an ideal.      

The greatest mass dream America ever had. The great Frank Deford said that of spring training, a time of myth and magic, when winter melts away and no one has a care.

There used to be an eatery near Scottsdale Stadium, Pischke’s, where the posted admonition was “No Sniveling.” Easy advice. Nobody snivels during spring training.

They cheer. They laugh. They hope. They marvel.

“I don’t think I’d seen anybody go higher against the wall here,” Giants manager Bruce Bochy said of Reddick’s superb defense. “And he did it twice. Back to back. What do you think the odds were on that?”

Mike Morse, the new Giant, the guy they signed to play left field, to hit home runs, smacked both those balls, one in the second inning, the other in the fourth.

They were over the fence. They were in Reddick’s glove.

"He's known for doing that, man," Morse said. "I'm happy to help him work on it in spring training, I guess."

Reddick even got a standing ovation from Giants fans. They know special when they see it. Those were special.     

“When I looked up, it was probably two feet above my head,” said Reddick, “and I guess got lucky to throw my glove at it. I just quick-snatched it, I guess you could say. I was shocked, even being able to come close to it. No idea how I did it.”

The A’s did it to the Giants, 10-5. Four runs in the first for Oakland. Six in the fourth. “A rough day for Romo,” said Bochy of Romo who gave up seven hits and all the runs in that sixth. “He was off a little bit.”

Twenty-six players used by the Athletics, 26 by the Giants. Players with numbers like wide receivers (81, the Giants’ Adam Duvall, who homered in the bottom of the ninth). With numbers like defensive linemen (67, the Giants’ Andrew Susac).

It’s like Little League. Everybody gets in.

Before the game, Larry Baer, the Giants’ president, held court in the dugout. He said he wants to see the A’s get their ballpark. In Oakland.

“If we can help them get it, we will,” said Baer. Sharing AT&T for a while wouldn’t be out of the question, if that fits into the A’s plans.

He said he wants to see the Giants rebound after their awful 2013 season, so out of character for the franchise.

“It felt strange,” he said of not being in the race. “It was like that’s not in our DNA.”

He said he wants to see the Giants sell from 2.8 to 3 million tickets, which presumably they will do.

“Nobody has said the Giants can’t make it on the field because of money,” was Baer’s outlook. Yes, the Dodgers have billions, and won the National League West last year, but don’t think the Giants won’t spend when it’s needed — in August and September.

“Besides,” Baer pointed out, “it’s how the money is spent. Look at the A’s.”

Yes, look at the A’s, careful with their dollars, who won their division again, who in Nick Punto have a shortstop that solidifies the infield defense, who as it was shown Wednesday can be frighteningly aggressive at the plate.

The new signee, Sam Fuld, led off the game with a single to center. And away we went, without hesitation. Bang, boom, wham. In the end 16 hits, and only four walks.

The A’s weren’t waiting. The waiting was done for all. Baseball was back.

Newsday (N.Y.): Dominant Justin Verlander propels Tigers to ALCS

By Art Spander
Special to Newsday

OAKLAND, Calif. — By the time Justin Verlander was tired, it didn't matter. Not to the Detroit Tigers, who had enough of his near-perfection to win another playoff series. Not to the Oakland A's, who saw too much of him again.

Verlander didn't allow a baserunner until a one-out walk in the sixth and didn't allow a hit until a two-out single in the seventh Thursday night, pitching Detroit to a 3-0 win over the A's in Game 5 of their best-of-five American League Division Series.

Read the full story here.

Copyright © 2013 Newsday. All rights reserved.

Newsday (N.Y.): A's will start rookie Sonny Gray instead of Bartolo Colon in Game 5 of ALDS

By Art Spander
Special to Newsday

OAKLAND — Haunted by the past, the A's contend they are thinking only of the present, Thursday night's deciding Game 5 of the American League Division Series against Detroit at O.co Coliseum.

The A's, as many predicted, will start rookie Sonny Gray, 23, who pitched eight shutout innings in the second game of the series. Oakland skipped 40-year-old veteran Bartolo Colon.

Read the full story here.

Copyright © 2013 Newsday. All rights reserved.

Demons hover for the A’s

By Art Spander

They’re so close. Again. But the demons hover. Again. One game is all the Oakland Athletics need to advance to the American League Championship Series. 

As year after year, it seems all they needed was one game to advance.

A game they never could win.

Having taken two in the 2013 best-of-five division championship competition, the A’s appear to have the edge over the Detroit Tigers. 

History begs to differ. 

The statistics are notorious, the memories painful.

Last season they were a win away, against these same Tigers, well, virtually these same Tigers, tied at two victories apiece. Detroit went on to the World Series, the A’s back to the same question that has haunted them much of this brief 21^st century: What went wrong?

In 2000, they lost the fifth game to the Yankees.

In 2001, they won the first two from the Yanks – in New York – then came back to Oakland, to the Coliseum, with its raucous fans, and began a three-game losing streak. Adios.

Game 3 was when Derek Jeter grabbed a poor throw halfway up the first-base line and with a backhanded flip from foul territory cut down the plodding Jeremy Giambi at home. Final score, New York 1, bewildered A’s 0.

In 2002, the so-called “Moneyball” year, Oakland lost in five to the Twins. Not the Yankees or the Red Sox – to whom they would drop the series in 2003 by the inevitable total of three games to two. The Twins. 

It was in 2003 Mr. Moneyball, Billy Beane, the A’s general manager then and now, was heard to mutter to a few journalists after the 4-3 loss to Boston in Game 5, “If I had another $50,000, we would have won this.”

Of course, Beane’s image and reputation were burnished by the Michael Lewis book, subtitled, “The Art of Winning an Unfair Game,” for succeeding despite not having that $50,000.

Beane’s then-revolutionary ideas of going after unwanted, slow-footed bargain-basement sluggers didn’t hurt. Yet, what is conveniently overlooked about 2002 is that on the roster were three of the era’s finest pitchers, Barry Zito, Tim Hudson and Mark Mulder.

Oakland’s shortstop that season, Miguel Tejada, wasn’t bad either, voted the American League MVP Award over Alex Rodriguez, then playing short for the Texas Rangers. Zito won the AL Cy Young Award.

That hardly sounds like a roster scraped together from the Sunday rec leagues.

Beane knows his ballplayers. He also knows his budgetary limitations, which basically have prevented Oakland from retaining the biggest stars, such as Jason Giambi, who departed after winning the MVP in 2001. Still, sometimes it seems Beane delights in being forced to dig for pennies and solutions.

The real problem -- and this is as much a cause of the poor regular season attendance as playing games at O.co Coliseum, the last stadium shared by baseball and the NFL – is that fans never have time to identify with the best players. Here today, gone to New York or Washington or Phoenix.

Years ago, a columnist – well, me – knowing names make news, complained to Beane, “Your team has no buzz.” Without hesitation, he responded, “You call it buzz, I call it noise.”

The stories are litany. Oakland, the city, is in a bad way, with too much crime. The Coliseum, 48 years old, is antiquated, subject to overflowing sewage in clubhouses and dugouts. (Did anyone notice, across the Bay during the 49er game Sunday, there was a sewage leak at Candlestick Park?)

The A’s owner, Lew Wolff, wants to move the team to San Jose, because of the wealth and cachet of Silicon Valley.

A’s fans, few from April through September, numerous in October, are a stubborn, boisterous group, more so than those who follow the San Francisco Giants, where at AT&T Park the surroundings are lush and the concession menu includes sushi and garlic fries.

Giants fans attend as a diversion. A’s fans attend because of an obsession.

Oakland in 2012 made a huge (and expensive) leap, signing the Cuban free agent Yoenis Cespedes, who has been worth every dollar of his four-year, $36 million deal. That he won the home run hitting contest, prior to the All-Star Game, only gave him added status.

The A’s, as is every winning team, are built on pitching, from 40-year-old Bartolo Colon to 23-year-old Sonny Gray, who shut out the Tigers in Game 2. In Cespedes, Coco Crisp, Josh Donaldson and others they have enough hitting.

They’ll need both in Game 4 against the Tigers. History being what it is, they do not want to confront another Game 5.

Newsday (N.Y.): Stephen Vogt, Sonny Gray help A's even series with Tigers

By Art Spander
Special to Newsday

OAKLAND, Calif. — It was an hour after rookie catcher Stephen Vogt had taken a pie to the face and a bucket of Gatorade down his back. O.co Coliseum already was being converted to football for Sunday night's Chargers-Raiders game.

The Athletics were packing and scrambling, headed for a red-eye to Detroit, where Monday, almost too quickly, they will meet the Tigers again.

Read the full story here.

Copyright © 2013 Newsday. All rights reserved.