As soon as, way back, I had an image inside a 4 x 6 glass body, propped up by a stand atop my garments dresser. I’d see it day-after-day but it surely was solely from time to time that I actually checked out it. It made me smile, despatched the nice chills down my backbone, and it could all come again:
The Streak. The House Run. The MVP.
The Pitcher. The Highway Journey.
All of it.
Within the late summer time of 2002, the A’s gained 20 video games in a row. Twenty years later, simply writing that sentence is absurd. As a result of I imply, c’mon, no staff wins that many video games in a row. Not even by chance.
It was value a ebook and a film referred to as “Moneyball.”
That’s how Sunday’s gathering on the Coliseum and the reunion of that 2002 staff will really feel to me. Precisely like a film, as a result of till then, you possibly can’ve written 100 baseball scripts and never give you something as ridiculous as a staff going 3 1/2 weeks with out shedding a sport.
That’s why seeing Artwork Howe shall be so good. Moreover being one of many biggest gents I’ve ever met, let me remind the parents and inform the children that he gained 102 video games in 2002, didn't get a contract extension, then gained 103 extra in 2003. Should you assume that’s a simple factor to do with any set of 25 skilled athletes, go discover Brad Pitt and ask him to do it.
That’s why seeing Scott Hatteberg shall be so affirming. His profession was about over within the winter of 2001. By the autumn of ’02, he’d cemented his legacy. Life can activate a fastball.
About these 20 consecutive wins, the final was a 12-11 rollercoaster on the Oakland Coliseum and probably the most aggravating night time of my baseball-writing life. The joys of fifty,000 individuals when Hatteberg launched his walk-off dwelling run into the night time sky got here solely after the agony of 50,000 individuals as they watched an 11-run lead flip right into a zero-run lead.
At 11-0, I assumed it is perhaps one of many best nights of my baseball-writing life. Typical knowledge will get you nowhere with baseball.
Miguel Tejada would agree.
Few thought Tejada may very well be an MVP. Even fewer thought he may attain the higher echelon of AL shortstops, which on the time glittered with Derek Jeter (Yankees), Alex Rodriguez (Rangers) and Nomar Garciaparra (Purple Sox). After I superior these prospects in tales in regards to the staff, I’d been met with lots of pushback
On the Sunday earlier than Labor Day, Tejada batted with the A’s down a run with one out within the ninth inning in opposition to the Minnesota Twins and hit a three-run dwelling run — “TEJADA WINS IT! DO YOU BELIEVE IT?!” radio broadcaster Ken Korach bellowed — for win No. 18. The following day, he walked off the Royals with a scorching single up the center — “TEJADA WINS ANOTHER BALLGAME!” Korach roared — capping a 7-6 win in a sport the A’s as soon as trailed 5-0.
Tejada turned the AL MVP that weekend. And I used to be the Chesire Cat.
This brings me again to the image that used to take a seat on my dresser. In it, my son Clayton is 8 weeks previous and in an toddler seat close to me atop the eating room desk. I’m on the telephone, pen in hand, pocket book open, speaking to Tejada who had been introduced because the MVP that day.
Clayton’s mother took the image as a symbolic reminder of how life and a baseball season can take turns you by no means would have imagined.
So can a successful streak.
The streak started on Aug. 13, a 5-4 victory over the Toronto Blue Jays.with the A’s getting eight innings from Barry Zito and a three-run homer from David Justice. Within the third victory, the A’s bought seven shutout innings from Cory Lidle. Lidle, the fourth pitcher within the famed Large Three rotation, by no means allowed a run throughout the streak, a span of 32 scoreless innings.
The Large Three — Tim Hudson, Mark Mulder and Barry Zito — accounted for 57 of the staff’s 103 wins that yr, struck out 493 batters and posted an aggregated 3.05 ERA in 675 innings. It’s value noting that every one three had been unusual throughout the streak and obtained no love within the film.
The Streak was at 5 when the A’s went on the street for 4 video games in Cleveland, three in Detroit, three in Kansas Metropolis — three dangerous groups. Justice joked that the A’s couldn’t win all of them until they gained the primary one. They did.
He stated it once more the subsequent night time. Then the subsequent. Then the subsequent . . .
They gained all 10. In win No. 12, led by subs John Mabry and Greg Myers, the A’s overcame a five-run deficit over the ultimate three innings to beat the Tigers.
After extending the streak to fifteen with three wins in Ok.C., a labor dispute between the gamers and proprietor got here to a head. A strike loomed in 48 hours. The season and the streak had been in jeopardy.
Happily, the gamers and house owners reached a compromise. The A’s returned dwelling to brush the Twins in entrance of three of probably the most electrical crowds in Coliseum historical past.
I don’t know the place that image of me and my son has gone. Alongside the best way it bought caught within the tides of life and disappeared.
Tejada is 48, and that is the ninth season since he retired. He by no means gained one other MVP.
Most individuals know Hatteberg solely because the Chris Pratt character within the film. Lidle died in a airplane crash in 2006. Hudson and Zito gained World Collection rings for the Giants. Mulder bought his with the St. Louis Cardinals.
The A’s now not maintain the excellence of getting the longest successful streak. Cleveland gained 22 consecutive video games in 2017.
However that modifications nothing for me.
“. . . And that one is gone, and it’s 20 consecutive victories . . . “
What a second in time. As soon as. Way back.