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.

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.