Photo credit: halloffamememorabilia.com
By: Amaury Pi-Gonzalez
The Athletics are visiting Dodger Stadium for a brief two-game inter-league series for their first interleague series of the year.
In 1988, the Dodgers turned the baseball world upside down with a huge upset of the A’s in the World Series. That season, the A’s were one of their best teams in history as they won the American League pennant with a 104-58 record.
The team made history when Cuban-born Jose Canseco became the first 40/40 man in baseball with 42 home runs and 40 steals. He also ended the season with a .307 batting average and drove in 124 runs. Not only that, he was the American League MVP.
Canseco recently told me during the A’s 50 Players in 50 Years reunion at the Oakland Coliseum: “Mi mejor temporada.” English translation: “My best season.”
When Canseco first came to the A’s, he was afraid to speak Spanish, but after a couple of years, I had no trouble speaking to him in Spanish. After he retired, he told me his Spanish was terrible. Well, it wasn’t completely terrible, but it wasn’t the greatest either.
For the record, the interview I did with him on that day this season in Oakland, I began asking questions in Spanish, but after two minutes into the interview, he listened to my questions in Spanish, but replied in English. I decided not to play it on our pregame show that night. Yes, that’s Jose for you.
During that 1988 World Series, Manolo Alvarez of WQBA radio in Miami was covering it, and I had to convince Canseco to finally give an interview for the Spanish-speaking folks in Miami to Alvarez. Jose refused to talk to Alvarez, so I had to convince him to give that interview because it was important. Years later, when the Marlins were born in 1993, Alvarez started doing color for Spanish radio in Miami with Rafael “Felo” Ramirez.
Rickey Henderson, who started his Hall of Fame career of 25 years, started with the A’s in 1979 and played there until 1984. After that, he went to the Yankees, so he was not part of that championship team.
In 1988, Mark McGwire had a huge season with 32 home runs and 99 runs batted in, Dave Stewart won 21 games (his second of four consecutive years winning 20 or more games), Bob Welch ended with 17 wins, Storm Davis won 16, Curt Young 11 and Todd Burns won eight games, and the great Hall of Famer and Fremont native Dennis Eckersley–arguably the best closer of his time–saved 45 games.
The first game at the end had the feeling of a seventh and deciding game when Kirk Gibson won the National League MVP that year and hit that memorable home run to the right field seats a pitch in the ninth inning from Eckersely, that would leave the A’s on the field as the Dodgers scored two runs and won it 5-4. After that first game, the A’s won only one game and lost the series in five.
I share many stories on the field prior each game at Dodger Stadium and the Oakland Coliseum with many reporters from all over the country and were talking about a sweep by the A’s, because on paper, they were a highly-superior ball club.
I remember Evo Luis Alonso, a reporter for Voice of America, on an interview. Before the first game, he asked me if I thought the A’s where going to sweep. That was the talk then, because if you really compared both teams, the A’s were the better team and almost nobody disagreed with that. Well, maybe Tommy LaSorda, who’s never at a loss for words, and told me in his unique Spanish prior to the series that his team had a great chance. And he was right! But that’s Tommy and how he communicates with others.
Interestingly enough, the Dodgers who are hosting the A’s for this brief, two-game interleague middle of the week series in Los Angeles, have not won a World Series since 1988 since they beat the A’s.
For anybody that was with the A’s in 1988, that was probably the most unfortunate story, to lose to the Dodgers. The A’s went on to win the 1989 World Series vs. Giants, which was interrupted by the Loma Prieta Earthquake, but the A’s were the better team beating the Giants before and after the earthquake, then went to Cincinnati in 1990 and the Reds won that World Series.
Baseball is a funny game. In retrospect, I believe the A’s could have won three straight again like they did in 1972-74, but the baseball Gods were not in the Atleticos’ favor.
I will never forget the 1988 World Series or the two that followed for that matter. I felt fortunate that I was with the A’s during those three consecutive World Series. I mean, not a lot of teams would go to three World Series in a row. We do not see a lot of that today. Anyways, there were lots of memories and people I met during that 1988 World Series, one of them was the great Spanish tenor, Placido Domingo, who came to my broadcast booth at the Oakland Coliseum prior to a game there and told me he was a big baseball fan and a fan of Jose Canseco.
A few of us are still with the A’s and remember that 1988 was a very special and successful year, which ended with a very bad memory. I do remember saying something after that first game lost to the Dodgers at Dodger Stadium like, “I hope this is just not the precursor of what is going to happen the rest of the series,” because that first game felt like it was the seventh and deciding game. Many historians consider the 1988 World Series as one of the greatest upsets in World Series history.
