Pablo and Zito: End of the bench to top of the world

By Art Spander

SAN FRANCISCO – They sat side by side on the dais, heroes on a heroic night, so near to each other and so far from the pain of 2010. That was the World Series that Barry Zito didn’t even get on the roster, the World Series that Pablo Sandoval only started one day.

That Series they also were also side by side, on the end of the bench, watching their Giant teammates, supportive but surely disappointed – one not even being allowed to play, the other having misplayed himself out the lineup.

But now it’s the Series of 2012, and on a wild and historic Wednesday night by the bay, everything changed.

Sandoval rang down the echoes of the Babe, of Mr. October, of Albert Pujols, hitting three home runs.

Zito pitched elegantly and tantalizingly, keeping one of the baseball’s top offensive teams to a single run before leaving.

And the Giants, the underdogs, the team nobody east of the Sierra Nevada understands or tries to understand, clubbed the Detroit Tigers, 8-3, in Game 1 of the Series.

That the other starter, the guy for the Tigers, was Justin Verlander, arguably the best pitcher in baseball, seemed make everything perfect – for Sandoval, for Zito, for all the Giants and maybe most of all for 42,855 fans engulfed in their own gleeful bedlam.

Four in a row now for the Giants, three over St. Louis in the National League Championship Series and then the opener of the World Series. Four in a row, in which the opposition scored a total of four runs – and two of those came in the ninth inning by Detroit. Four in a row in which San Francisco scored a total of 29 runs.

Sandoval got it going, a homer with no one on to dead center in the first. Then he kept it going, a two-run home to left in the third. Then he made it go some more, another solo to center in the fifth. Each inning climaxed with a playing of that long-ago song from the days of Mays, McCovey and Cepeda, “Bye Bye, Baby.’’

“To hit three home runs,’’ said Giants manager Bruce Bochy, “that’s always a surprise. But the guy can hit. He’s got great ability to get the good part of the bat on the ball and threw out some great at-bats . . . Just a tremendous night. A night I know he’ll never forget.”

Nor will anyone else. Sandoval, the Panda, the player replaced by Juan Uribe in the 2010 Series because he was overweight and underachieving, is the first ever to hit home runs his first three at bats in a Series game.  Babe Ruth, who twice hit three, Reggie Jackson and Pujols needed to come to the plate four times. In his fourth at bat, Sandoval singled.

“Man, I still can’t believe it,” was Sandoval’s opening statement of his accomplishment, even if everyone in the place could believe it.

“When you’re a little kid, you dream of being in the World Series, but I was thinking of being in this situation, three homers one game. You have to keep focused, keep focused and playing your game.”

Sandoval had a big hit off Verlander during July’s All-Star Game, where the National League's win gave the Giants the home field advantage in the best-of-seven Series, four games if it lasts the full seven.

“For me, I just go there and don’t think too much,’’ he said. “This means a lot. In 2010 I was part of the World Series. I didn’t get a chance to play too much. I’m enjoying this World Series. I’m enjoying all my moments. You never know when it’s going to happen again.”

Sandoval is 26. Zito, 34, may have wondered it was going to happen ever. He had that $127-million contract. He struggled. The fans booed. He was an outcast. Until 2012. The Giants have won 14 consecutive games in which Barry Zito started.

“I battled in September to make the postseason roster,’’ admitted Zito, haunted by his failure two years earlier. “The last thing I would have expected was to be starting in Game 1. Just the opportunity was magical. To be able to go up against Verlander and give our team a chance to up, 1-0, and the fact that we won, it’s just kind of surreal.”

Sandoval tried to stay cool about his night, unlike his teammates.

“When he hit his third,” Zito said, “man we were just going nuts in there. We were going nuts.”

A glance at the rally-rag waving, shrieking fans proved they weren’t the only ones.

“We didn’t know at that point if it ever had been done,’’ said Zito, “and we’re just like, ‘Oh, my gosh.’ “

Or, linking Sandoval and Zito, oh, good gosh.

“We got ups and downs in our career,” Sandoval insisted. “Not every year is going to be up . . . so I see my teammate, Barry, and I’m very happy for him. He started the first game of the World Series. We were sitting down on the bench in 2010.”

Now they’re on top of the world.

Fans Give the A’s a Last Hurrah

By Art Spander

OAKLAND – It was over, but it wasn’t over. Not for the fans, so appreciative, so loud. The Detroit Tigers had won, and were celebrating out there on the A’s mound, on Oakland’s mound. But that didn’t shut down or shut up the fans.
  
“Let’s go Oakland. Let’s go Oakland.’’ The chant kept repeating. Kept reverberating.
   
“Let’s go Oakland.’’ Even though Oakland, the A’s, weren’t going anywhere except to the finish of a season that never will be forgotten.
  
“Let’s go Oakland. Let’s go Oakland.’’ And there went Oakland, there went the A’s, out of the home dugout and onto the field, a last hurrah, a last thank you, waving their hats as the crowd, stubborn, persistent, grateful, waved those yellow rally towels in response.
   
A difficult ending, the Tigers winning 6-0 Thursday in the deciding fifth game of the American League Division Series. Domination by one of the most dominating pitchers in the sport, Justin Verlander, who never gave the A’s a chance. A tough climax to a rewarding season.
   
But in a way a great climax for fans who understood, for fans who wanted to show they understood.
  
“It was great,’’ said Michael Crowley, the A’s president, plopped into a post-game chair in the clubhouse office of equipment chief Steve Vucinich. “And they were all fans of the A’s.’’
   
Absolutely. No traitors in Red Sox or Yankee shirts, who during the regular season turn O.co Coliseum into one of their temporary homes. No Giants partisans who cross the Bay Bridge for the interleague games.

They were all fans of the A’s, all loud, all hopeful, all disappointed, all empathetic.

“They wouldn’t have been doing that in New York or Boston,” said Evan Scribner, who pitched the eighth and ninth for the A’s. No, they wouldn’t have. Not a chance.
   
“These fans are amazing,’’ said Scribner.
   
The word has been overused the last month, an adjective reflecting the surprising run of the A’s as they overtook the Rangers to win the AL West, as they came back from two games down – and two runs down in the ninth on Wednesday – to get equal with the Tigers.
   
They were the miracle workers, the youngest, second-lowest-paid team in the majors, winning games only the faithful dared dream they would win, bringing life to a franchise too long moribund, owned by a man too long determined to move to San Jose.
  
But eventually the slipper becomes a pumpkin. Eventually the miracles run out and a team with a Triple Crown winner, Miguel Cabrera, a team with a Verlander, both an American League MVP and Cy Young winner, a team with a $122-million payroll, more than twice that of the A’s, proves its worth.
    
The longer a series goes, the longer a golf tournament goes, the longer a Super Bowl goes, the greater the odds the favorite will prevail. As in this playoff, which went one game too many for the A’s, Detroit prevailed.
  
How the A’s even got to the fifth game seems remarkable. They had a combined 50 strikeouts – 11 alone Thursday against Verlander – in the five games, an average of 10 a game.
  
They needed that spectacular ninth-inning rally to win Game Four.  
   
They were courageous. They were selfless. They just weren’t quite as good as the Tigers.
  
Oakland, the maligned city, where the police have problems, where the murder rate is high, the blue-collar town with the blue-collar team, the town from which the A’s, the Warriors and maybe even the Raiders want to move, needed this team. This team needed Oakland, needed the whole East Bay, and finally it got it.
   
Suddenly there was hope. Suddenly there was joy. The franchise that in March was supposed to lose 100 games in October got close to winning 100, got close to winning a first-round playoff. That it did not, that it lost, was not lost on the fans, who know the game, who know their team.
  
“We didn’t think it was going to end today,’’ said Bob Melvin, the Oakland manager. “Not for a second.” He’s as special as the club, a Bay Area guy who went to Cal, who used to watch events at the Coliseum.
  
As much as anyone, he grasped the significance of this season of unexpected triumph – and inevitable defeat.
  
“We knew we were going up against a good pitcher,’’ agreed Melvin. “That didn’t mean we didn’t think we were going to win. We’ve gone up against good pitchers this year.
 
“Our crowd was looking for just about anything, a walk, a three-ball count. They were looking for anything to pick us up and try and help us out. We really appreciate it. They stayed there and kind of gave us a curtain call. We really appreciate that. It truly was the 10th man for us.”
  
One man for Detroit was too much for 10 men from Oakland. But that didn’t still the chanting. “Let’s go Oakland. Let’s go Oakland.”

No End to A’s Magic – Or Season

By Art Spander

OAKLAND – Seth Smith said it was nothing but good baseball. It was that – is that – and more.

It’s legerdemain. It’s mystery. It’s triumph conjured up by the most unlikely group of young men this side of Cooperstown.

Most of all, it’s amazing.

There they were, the Oakland Athletics,  three outs from the end of the season. And they were, sprinting around the diamond in unrestrained joy, stunning winners of the game they could not lose, and somehow did not lose.
   
The Detroit Tigers, with their $132-million payroll, were two runs ahead and bringing in super closer Jose Valverde to wrap up the American League Division Series and also wrap up the A’s season. So the rest of us thought.

But not the way the A’s, the $55-million A’s, think.
 
“What it’s done,’’ said Bob Melvin, the magician of a manager about a multiplicity of comebacks, “is give us a sense that we’re never out of it until the last out.”
  
And Wednesday night, that last out never was recorded. Instead, the A’s got a single by Josh Reddick, a double by Josh Donaldson and a single by Smith to tie the game, 3-3, then almost as the sellout crowd of 36,385 sensed it was about to occur, a two-out game-winner by Coco Crisp that sent Smith home to beat the Tigers, 4-3.
  
So, the A’s, destiny’s darlings, after their 15th walkoff victory of a season that even viewed up close seems impossible, have come back from a two-to-none deficit to tie the series at two wins apiece and force a deciding fifth game Thursday night at O.co Coliseum.
  
It was Kirk Gibson in reverse, revenge for a long-ago disappointment, when Gibson came out of the Dodgers dugout in the opener of the 1988 World Series and hit a game-winning home run off the Athletics' then-relief ace, Dennis Eckersley.
  
Different circumstances this time, but a memory is effaced. And another created.
 
“I guess to say the Oakland magic,’’ Smith explained in a calmness belying the moment, “our mentality is just that. I don’t really know how to describe the magic word. But when you go out there and give it your all, more times than not, good results will happen.
  
“Yeah, at some point it’s got to be just good baseball. There’s no magic recipe or anything like that. We go out there, and we play carefree and get the job done.”
   
If in the most dramatic and unsuspecting of ways. The A’s basically couldn’t do anything against numerous Tigers pitchers other than strike out 11 times in eight innings. And Valverde was the guy who was going to finish it off. Except he couldn’t.
  
On Tuesday night, Crisp stole a home run from Prince Fielder, his glove two feet above the fence. On Wednesday night, he helped steal a game, lining a Valverde pitch to right as Smith raced home and everyone else on the A’s raced to swallow Smith in a circle of bodies. This walkoff celebration took place at first, not at home.
   
Moments later, there was Crisp with a face full of whipped cream, the obligatory reward for walkoff heroism, and after that a back and head full of Gatorade, the drink having been dumped on him.
  
“He hits closers,” said Melvin of  Crisp, “and he hits good pitching. He always puts up a great at-bat. We don’t need a homer right there. All we need is a hit. I don’t think there’s anybody we feel better about.”
  
In the postgame interview room, Smith and Crisp sat side-by-side in front of two microphones, and when someone mentioned Melvin’s comment about relying on Crisp, Smith showed mock displeasure.
 
“I don’t know if I should be offended by that or not,” was Smith’s first response. Then he continued, “No, he comes through every time. Or it seems like it in the clutch.”
  
His face wiped clean but his undershirt still damp, Crisp, asked about his performance, fell back on the word now linked to the A’s of 2012, “Amazing.”
   
“Yeah,” Crisp said, “the guys in front of me obviously did a fantastic job of getting on base. Redd (Reddick, obtained from the Red Sox over the winter) came up huge.”
   
He had come to the plate 1-for-13 in the series, with eight strikeouts. “We try to keep his head in the game,” Crisp said. “He’s been battling the whole series. Balls haven’t been falling for him. J.D. (Donaldson) obviously got a bit hit. Smitty's huge hit gave me the opportunity to come up there and do something magical.”
   
Crisp did just that, but as he reminded, he wasn’t alone. He had hits from teammates, great pitching from teammates and, we must admit, a boost from fate.
  
“There’s a confidence,” Melvin insisted. “We’ve done it so many times.”
   
But only one time, this time, when they were three outs from the end of the season.

For A's, One Game Changes Everything

By Art Spander

OAKLAND – And so they’re back. Back in Oakland, back in the series. It could have been over for the Athletics, but somehow, you knew it wouldn’t be. The season that couldn’t be still is.
  
Because of the way Brett Anderson pitched. Because of the way Coco Crisp soared. Because of the way 37,090 fans screamed, shouted and reminded everyone how loud it can get in the once-silent Oakland Mausoleum.
  
A shutout for Anderson and the relievers, 2-0, over Detroit on Tuesday night. And as we’ve been taught, when the other team doesn’t score, you can’t lose. So after dropping the first two games of this best-of-five American League Division Series, after dropping six straight in the postseason to the Tigers, the A’s didn’t lose.

A remarkable catch by Crisp, who leaped high enough to reach over the centerfield fence some 400 feet from home plate to grab Prince Fielder’s apparent home run.
  
A rebirth by the A’s, who were one defeat from elimination and now, with a certain game Wednesday night and a possible fifth game Thursday, are a mere two games from moving on.
   
That’s the joy of baseball. One game changes everything. Back in Cincinnati, the Giants, awful at home, got one from the Reds, 2-1. Then a few hours later, the A’s followed suit. Gloom by the bay became glee by the bay.

“Well, they pitched and they played a perfect game,’’ said Jim Leyland, the Tigers manager, of the A’s. “Nothing you could do about it. (Anderson) had a good curveball and a very good breaking ball. I think Coco gave them a lot of momentum when he took the home run away . . . I think Coco’s catch really got them into it.”
   
A catch Anderson enjoyed immensely. “It was fun,’’ said the pitcher. “Not to give it up, but to watch it.”
   
Watching is what Anderson had done the past 20 days or so, since incurring a right oblique strain. Who knew what he might do when finally returning to the mound? Well, A’s manager Bob Melvin, a former catcher who had monitored Anderson during bullpen sessions, thought he knew. So did Anderson.
   
“We felt confident that he was simulating (games) enough to go out there and pitch accordingly in a game,’’ said Melvin. “I don’t know how you could expect more than we got out of him tonight.’’
  
What they got was six innings, 80 closely viewed pitches and, after he was about to be relieved having allowed only two hits and struck out six, an argument to be allowed to continue. Which Anderson lost.
  
“He wasn’t aware there was a pitch count,” said Melvin of Anderson. What most A’s fans were aware of is the fact that Anderson had Tommy John elbow surgery and missed 2011. The A’s were taking no extra chances.
 
“Earlier in the game,’’ Melvin agreed, “I don’t think he felt as good as he did later in the game. But 19, 20 days off, we weren’t looking for any more than that.”
 
Indeed, what they were looking for was the victory, and through a combination of fine defense – Yoenis Cespedes made a diving catch in the seventh almost the equal to Crisp’s grab in the second – and just enough offense, a run-scoring single by Cespedes in the first and a home run by Seth Smith in the fifth.
  
Through the three games of the series, the A’s have a cumulative batting average below the infamous Mendoza Line, .198, but they survive.
  
“The first inning was great,” said Melvin, “to be able to score a run and get the fans involved and get some excitement out there.”
   
Oakland doesn’t have a ballpark as impressive as San Francisco's, but it has hardcore fans. When they turn up, as they do in the playoffs, the noise is deafening. Imagine what it might be if those in charge took off the tarps that restrict stadium capacity to under 38,000.
  
“The atmosphere in Detroit,’’ said Leyland, “atmosphere in Oakland. If you look around all the teams have great atmospheres this time of year. (The A’s) played a perfect game. You tip your hat to them.”
  
The question is whether the A’s tipped the balance. So hot after sweeping Texas to win AL West, Oakland was ineffective in Detroit’s Comerica Park. Did the Anderson performance and the victory shift Old Mo, momentum?

“What (Tuesday night does) is gets us to tomorrow,” said Melvin. “We’ll go at in the same fashion as he did tonight. And we’ll go from there.”

They can’t do much else. Then again, the way Anderson pitched and Crisp stole a homer – “I thought I had a hit,’’ sighed Fielder – they didn’t have to do much else.

The season goes on.

RealClearSports: Old-School Sparky Was One of a Kind

By Art Spander
For RealClearSports.com

In later years, the school was one of the more dangerous in Los Angeles, a place of guns and occasional gang wars. Football games had to be cancelled. Police had to be called.

It wasn't always that way at Dorsey High, in another era recognized for its diversity long before the word became a meaningful part of the social vocabulary.

Read the full story here.

© RealClearSports 2010