Idiots Write About Sports

The A’s celebrated the 30th anniversary of the 1974 World Series champions while I was up in the Bay Area last weekend, which was both nice and mildly depressing to see. Nice, because baseball is the one area of my life where I tolerate nostalgia, and the A’s managed to reunite the entire starting lineup of the ‘74 squad along with Catfish Hunter’s widow. And depressing because this was the last of the three-consecutive World Championship teams, meaning Oakland will be hurting for old-timers to celebrate until about 2009 when it’s time to recognize the 20th anniversary of the ‘89 champs. I mean, really, who can the A’s fete between now and then? All the star players who left as free agents in the mid-to-late ’70s? The 1977 team that finished behind the expansion Seattle Mariners? The 1979 edition that lost 108 games?

Come to the Coliseum this Saturday, fans, to see A’s legends Rob Picciolo and Dave Revering! All 306,763 fans who actually attended Oakland home games in 1979 will throw out the first pitch!

Anyhow, back to the 1974 team, which, you may remember, was managed by Alvin Dark. (And if you’d like to learn more about the 1974 Oakland A’s, you can find plenty of books at your local library. Or you could just read Ron Bergman’s piece from last week’s Chronicle.) I think my three favorite Alvin Dark moments, in no particular order, are:

1) The time after a tough loss resulting from a dicey Dark decision during that 1974 season when Sal Bando stormed into the locker room screaming that Dark “couldn’t manage a meat market.” During Bando’s rant, Dark was standing right behind him. Whoops.

2) The time toward the end of the 1975 season whe Dark gave a speech at his local church, noting that the only way to make it to heaven — no matter whether you were a fan, a player, or even the owner of the Oakland A’s — was to accept Jesus. A reporter for one of the local papers happened to be in the congregation that day, leading to the classic headline Dark: Finley Going to Hell. That Dark’s contract to manage the A’s was not renewed soon thereafter is probably coincidental.

3) This passage, which I shamelessly lifting directly from A Flag for San Francisco by Charles Einstein. (Digression: This is a odd little out-of-print book, which I happened to pick up at a used bookstore one day, since it chronicles a 1961 season for the Giants that wasn’t particularly memorable, especially in light of the fact that they won the pennant the very next year. Nevertheless, Einstein — who wrote for the Examine back in the day — is a pretty entertaining writer, and a few of his other baseball books are working their way back into circulation) Say, I promised you a passage, didn’t I:

…once the season was over, a sometime shortstop and excellent cricket player named Andre Rodgers was traded to the Braves to get him, and [Alvin] Dark was announced as the new San Francisco manager.

“What’s he like?” the city’s leading disc jockey, a man named Don Sherwood, asked of a co-worker who attended Dark’s first press conference.

“Well,” the fellow said, “he was the star shortstop for the Giants when they won the pennant in 1951 and 1954 —”

“In New York?” Sherwood broke in.

The man nodded. “And he doesn’t drink, or smoke, or swear. And he’s a tithing Baptist —”

“From the South?”

“Yes, Louisiana. And he says he’s going to love San Francisco with those cute cable cars and he doesn’t think that it’s important that he never played or managed in the Pacific Coast League, and —”

“Stop right there,” Sherwood said. “I’ve already counted eight insults to our city. There can’t be any left.”

Star player, arrived with some serious New York baggage, clean cut, from the South.

Willie Mays?

I enjoy reading your blog.

I forget what writer said this about San Francisco -- it may have been Jim Murray, it may not have: "What a town. They cheer Krushchev and boo Willie Mays."

A quick search of the Internet -- thank you, Google -- reveals that it was Frank Conniff and not Jim Murray as I guessed above.

Khrushchev’s temper came to a boil when he was in L.A. on Friday, September 18, 1959. Evidently, he wanted to visit Disneyland, but the security arrangements were not worked out. He was also treated less than diplomatically by Norris Poulson, the mayor of Los Angeles. When he introduced the Soviet leader at a dinner, he mentioned Khrushchev’s “We will bury you” remark.

When Khrushchev arrived in SF, Mayor Christopher, probably loving the opportunity to contrast himself with mayor Poulson, welcomed him in a more friendly manner. Security was more lax and the San Francisco crowds, “motivated by a spirit of fair play,” greeted him kindly.

It would have been great if the Giants could have won the battle with their rivals. They were hosting the Dodgers that very weekend. The Giants got swept, fell out of first and did not recover.

Maybe the quote should have read, … “and they boo the Giants.”