By Jeremy Kahn

OAKLAND-It is hard to believe that 25 years ago this October, the Oakland A’s and the Toronto Blue Jays were on top of the baseball world.

Behind great pitching by Dave Stewart, Mike Moore and Bob Welch made it two consecutive American League Championships for the Green and Gold, as the A’s defeated the Blue Jays four games to one.

After taking the first two games at the Coliseum, the series switched to newly opened Skydome and despite the fact that the Blue Jays took game three from the reigning American League Champions, the A’s came back in the final two games to take the American League Flag for the second consecutive season.

It was in the fourth game of that series that two of the biggest home runs of the A’s eventual World Championship season by two legendary A’s players.

Oakland native Rickey Henderson hit a solo home run to deep center field, and later that inning, 1988 Most Valuable Player Jose Canseco hit a mammoth blast that landed in the fifth deck of the left field seats at the Blue Jays new home that opened on June 5, 1989 against the Milwaukee Brewers.

Stewart won game one at the Coliseum, as he defeated Dave Stieb by the final score of 7-3 before a sellout crowd of 49,435.

The next night, Mike Moore took to the Coliseum mound and left with a 6-3 victory, as Dennis Eckersley saved his first game of the series.

With the series moving to The Great White North for just the second time in American League history, Jimmy Key got the Blue Jays within one game of a tied series after the Blue Jays defeated the A’s 7-3 before a crowd of 50,268 at Skydome.

Welch got the A’s within one of their fifth American League pennant since moving to the West Coast in 1968, as he along with Rick Honeycutt and Eckersley defeated the Blue Jays 6-5.

Just one day later, the A’s took home the pennant, as they defeated the Blue Jays 4-3 behind stellar by another Oakland native in Dave Stewart, who went eight innings before giving way to Eckersley, who is also a Bay Area native (Growing up in Fremont) and picked up his third save of the ALCS.