Santa Cruz Sentinel from Santa Cruz, California • Page 25

'Bw-Santa Cruz Sentinel Sunday, Oct. 16, 1988 Dodgers Gibson home run defeats A's -A McGwire CANSECO Bash, it's a smash High fives don't cut it anymore Ww 3M -J I I I r5? TP Former A's outfielder Mike Davis who, Eckersley noted scornfully, "hit a buck 90 in the season" (.196) came to the plate to hit for Alfredo Griffin instead of waiting to hit if Griffin got on. And the Dodger dugout started to realize that Gibson wasn't out of this game at all. Tracy Woodson turned to Hatcher and suggested he get a load of the crowd reaction when the next hitter came on deck. Hatcher, thinking Dave Anderson was the next guy, wondered, "Why, does Andy own this guy or something?" Said Hatcher: "The whole bench felt something was going to happen." Maybe Eckersley and catcher Ron Hassey thought so, too.

Maybe that's why they forgot to get Davis out and walked him instead on just five pitches. "Terrible!" moaned Eckersley, who throws strikes even at his worst. "Then I heard the crowd say, "Ya The crowd said its Ya Hoo at Gibson's appearance in the circle. He limped to the plate feeling rusty, and he fouled off a couple of pitches. "I tried to visualize a relaxed feeling," Gibson said.

"I tried for an easy swing. I didn't want to over-swing. He gave me some good pitches to hit early in the count." "I threw him a lot of fastballs away and he didn't have good swings," Eckersley said. Eckersley threw more fastballs away that just missed the strike zone, and the count filled. "I was thinking: "This is the situation every little kid who's ever played the game puts himself A's first baseman Mark McGwire said.

"You close your eyes and see yourself in the bottom of the ninth inning, a World Series game on the line, a 3-2 count and the best reliever in baseball on the mound. "Then, you hit a game-winning home run." Gibson was that little kid. He hit a low slider a miscalculation, Eckersley said later, a bad choice, something that Gibson could hit out that he knew, Eckersley knew, Hassey knew, the BALLPARK knew, was gone at the crack of the bat. The final scene, of Gibson going around the bases so slowly and so happily, will be playing on your sports channel for years to come. "It was," McGwire said, "as if this night was written for Kirk.

And there's nothing you could do about it." Continued from Page Bl leadoff single by second baseman Glenn Hubbard in his first at-bat since Sept. 28 putting to rest early the theory that the A's would be rusty from the five days off before the Series. With one out. Stewart then did something no pitcher had done in a World Series game since 1981. He walked and this after falling behind In the count 0-2.

Former A's farmhand Tim Belcher, the rookie on the mound for the Dodgers, apparently was showing why his old club traded him a year ago instead of demonstrating why he's so much better now. He also walked Carney Lansford before striking out Dave Henderson. Up came Canseco. He lined Belcher's 1-0 pitcher off the center-field camera it looked as simple as it sounds for his first career grand slam. "It was a big hit for us, brought us back from being down 2-0," Canseco said.

"I thought we were going to win in the ninth with Eck in there." The A might have had a better chance to do just that if they hadn't blown a couple of other scoring opportunities one with two on in the third and another following a double by Henderson and some confounded base-running in the fourth. After the fourth, they stopped hitting, mustering only an infield single by Stan Javier in the ninth. "That was a key," A's Manager Tony La Russa said. "A lot had to do with the quality of the relief pitching of the Dodgers." Relief is the forte of the A's, but the Dodgers sent out an impressive troop that included Tim Leary, Brian Holton and, for the eighth and ninth, Alejandro Pena. Stewart got the A's that far by himself, although the Dodgers had scored once off three successive singles in the sixth to narrow the lead.

Now, he passed the torch to Eckersley, just as he has done so confidently so many times this season. How could they worry when Mike Scioscia popped up on his 1-0 pitch? How could they worry when Jeff Hamilton struck out looking at three fastballs? Eckersley was throwing smoke. "He was throwing fastballs they were doing nothing with," La Russa said. But now the game changed. Lasorda had been told what Gibson wanted, and so he changed tactics.

I ft In a takeoff on the Blues Brothers, the bad, bad Bash Brothers (Jose Canseco and Mark McGwire) posed for a poster. APSentlnel Ale I 1 I I 1 I I 5 I 5 By STEVE WILSTEIN -The Associated Press BEFORE THE Bash, players celebrated homers by patting the batter's fanny, 'slapping his back, tapping his shoulder, shaking hands and giv-, ing "high fives," "low fives" and "double fives." Back in the fanny-patting and handshake days. Babe Ruth hit 714 home runs and the only bash he knew about was a beer bash. Hank Aaron broke the record with 755 homers in a career that lasted into the give me-five years. In the era of Jose Canseco and Mark McGwire, the young sultans of swat on the Oakland Athletics, the home run ritual has evolved into a clunking of forearms and wrists called the Bash, and it's a ballpark smash.

It began in the spring when McGwire and Canseco brought their massive arms together with closed fists after one of them, nobody remembers who, homered. The gesture seemed remi- niscent of Roman nobles or gladi-, ators greeting each other. "We were just banging arms in the dugout before a game (comparing their muscles after winter weightlifting) when we decided that might be good to do after a home run," Canseco says. "I don't remember which of us hit it, but the other one gave him a bash. Everybody noticed it right away." Says McGwire of the magic mo-' ment: "It just happened.

We had been looking for something that 'Would be all ours, that would symbolize the Oakland A's." It was a statement of strength, 'emphasizing their bulging biceps and Popeye-sized forearms. Yet it subtle, and oh, so Oakland, like the Wave that Athletics fans created in the Coliseum several years ago. The Bash was born, and soon so was a music video to the tune I i One man's tap, though, is another man's jolt, and when McGwire bashed catcher Ron Hassey after the A's swept Boston he accidentally followed through and bloodied the bridge of Hassey's nose. Inevitably, though, the home run celebration will change, and the future may bring such variations as; The Bat Bash, where bats are raised, chest high or overhead, and knocked together; The Double Bash, where players rap both their forearms and wrists; The Head Bash, where the forearm grazes the side of the head (be careful with this one). Where it would all end.

of the 1962 hit "The Monster Mash" (by Bobby "Boris" Pickett) and a poster of the bad, bad Bash Brothers holding giant bats, a takeoff on the Blues Brothers. McGwire says he is amazed by what happened; Canseco sees it as a reflection of the team's success and his own major league-leading total of 42 homers, many of them tape-measure shots. Little Leaguers started copying the Bash, cracking their skinny forearms together in macho fashion, and players in colleges and the minors did the same. Even the Cincinnati Reds bashed. At the Olympics in South Korea, the gold medal American team took the Bash international.

The Soviets, who are just learn ing baseball, found the Bash very Russian. "At autograph shows, the fans don't want to shake your hands now; they want to bash," says Terry Steinbach, who got bashed by Canseco and McGwire after his All-Star homer. McGwire, who hit 49 re-Bash homers in his 1987 Rookie of the Year season and 32 Bash homers this year, cautions bashers that the gesture is delivered with a light touch, not a crashing blow. Black and blue forearms are not a sign of manliness. "You don't do the bash hard," he says.

"I remember people saying in spring training that we were going to break our wrists, but it's just a little tap," he says. Eckersley Relief ace not sharp "It's the kind of job where you can redeem yourself," Eckersley said. "Thank heaven th's was not the seventh game. I have, and we have, a chance to recover. "I didn't do the job, and it hurts.

But that's going to happen. Too bad it happened in the World Series." And now, for the first time since last spring, the A's find themselves behind. How this team responds will decide whether this is just another very good ballclub or a team with some real character. "We'll see what we're made of," Eckersley said. "We'll see what I'm made of." 100TH ANNIVERSARY Continued from Page Bl ball one, and A's catcher Ron Hassey almost caught Davis off first with a pickoff throw.

Gibson fouled the next fastball off and then, before Eckersley could deliver again, called time and stepped out of the box. Eckersley's next pitch was a fastball, high ball two. He decided then to try to fool Gibson with an off-speed pitch, but missed with the slider to bring the count to 3-2. Davis stole second, and Hassey didn't even get a throw off. Eckersley made his mistake.

He threw Gibson a low slider, and it landed in the right-field bleachers. Five-four, Dodgers. I "It was stupid," Eckersley said. 'Obviously not the pitch to throw. wasn't real sharp.

If I could throw it again, I wouldn't throw the Weeper. I would've thrown the fastball. "I didn't want to give him too much to hit. Maybe that was the only ball he could hit out. I made a stupid pitch and I didn't get away with it." Said Hassey: "We knew what type of ballplayer he was In the American League.

We basically wanted to keep the ball away from him. It was a slider, down and away. "I don't think we can change our reactions on what we're going to do. One loss doesn't mean the Series is over." Eckersley said the walk back to the dugout took longer than it ever has. "Yeah," he said.

"Because of the importance of the game. It's not like it's the regular season. This is a new experience for me, giving up a home run in the Series." The only consolation, for Eckersley and the A's, is that there very definitely is a tomorrow. Win a trip for two to Pasadena's Rose Bowl Game. Ride in the Rose Parade.

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