May 5, 1978: A’s beat Tigers in matchup of unexpected first-place teams in front of meager Oakland crowd

Two surprising first-place teams clashed at the Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum on May 5, 1978, when the Detroit Tigers played the Oakland Athletics.

Detroit, American League East Division champion as recently as 1972, had endured four straight losing seasons, but with many promising young players on the team, there was hope for the future. Five Tigers aged 23 or younger – catcher Lance Parrish, first baseman Jason Thompson, second baseman Lou Whitaker, shortstop Alan Trammell, and left fielder Steve Kemp – were in regular or part-time roles, and nine of Detroit’s first 20 games had been started by pitchers who had not yet reached their 24th birthdays (Dave Rozema, Jack Morris, and Mark Fidrych). The present, however, had them competing against the New York Yankees, Milwaukee Brewers and Boston Red Sox for the division crown.

The city of Oakland and the surrounding East Bay area wasn’t sure it would even have a major-league team in 1978, let alone one that would be competing for a division crown. Athletics owner Charlie Finley had attempted to sell the club to Denver oilman Marvin Davis in the 1977-78 offseason, but the deal collapsed in January. Shortly afterward, Finley traded star pitcher Vida Blue to the San Francisco Giants, further dismantling a team that won three straight World Series titles earlier in the decade.1 With the threat of relocation, and star players leaving town, there seemed little hope for the future.

Based on the uncertainty surrounding the franchise, disgruntled fans stayed away in droves. The average attendance in Oakland’s first 15 home games was a paltry 4,605.2 The emergent Athletics won 12 of those contests, and with the equally ascendent Tigers in town, the Friday contest drew 14,612 fans to the Coliseum – the biggest crowd since the home opener.3 A’s outfielder Bill North, who joined the team in 1973, acknowledged the increased turnout to witness the first-place encounter. “This is getting to be fun and we were glad to see that crowd,” he said.4

John Henry Johnson, one of seven players acquired from the Giants in the Blue trade,5 was pitching for Oakland. The 21-year-old lefty was making the fifth start of his big-league career. He was originally scheduled to face the Toronto Blue Jays earlier in the week, but A’s manager Bobby Winkles adjusted his rotation to have Johnson face Detroit. “The Tigers have been platooning a lot and I’d rather face their right-handed hitters than the left-handers,” said Winkles.6

Opposing Johnson on the mound was 35-year-old Jack Billingham. The veteran right-hander was acquired by Detroit in a spring-training trade with the Cincinnati Reds. During his six prosperous seasons with the Reds, Billingham won 87 games and was part of two World Series champions. Six years earlier, he had pitched in three games, including two starts, in the 1972 World Series for the Reds against the A’s, picking up a 1-0 win in Game Three in Oakland with eight three-hit innings.

Johnson retired the first two batters of the game on grounders, then surrendered a base hit to 34-year-old designated hitter Rusty Staub. A six-time All-Star, Staub was a veteran leader in Detroit manager Ralph Houk’s lineup. Cleanup hitter Thompson bounced a grounder to short and Staub was forced at second.

Oakland scored an unearned run in the bottom of the first. Switch-hitter North, batting right-handed, stroked an opposite-field single to left but was tagged out trying to steal as Mike Edwards struck out. Mitchell Page walked and advanced to third on Gary Alexander’s single to left. Mario Guerrero bounced a grounder up the middle toward second baseman Steve Dillard, who gloved it but made an off-balance throw to first, allowing Page to score on the error and Alexander and Guerrero to advance.7 Both runners were stranded when Dave Revering flied out to left.

Detroit went quietly in the second, then came close to tying the score in the third. Aurelio Rodríguez, who entered the game batting .392, reached second on a throwing error by third baseman Wayne Gross. Rodriguez had been a disappointment at the plate since joining the Tigers as a 23-year-old in 1971, but had thrived under new hitting coach Gates Brown’s tutelage.  “Right now I’m hot, and I’m really happy the way things are going,” he said.8

Rodriguez took third on Dillard’s sacrifice, then raced toward home on Ron LeFlore’s fly to right. Right fielder Miguel Diloné caught the liner and uncorked a strong throw, nailing Rodriguez at the plate to complete the double play.

Oakland was held scoreless in the second and third but stretched its lead with two runs in the fourth. Revering walked and, with two outs, catcher Jim Essian launched a long home run to left. The round-tripper was Essian’s second of the season, and the first allowed by Billingham in a Tigers uniform. Fans shot off fireworks from the stands in celebration.9 It was a 3-0 game.

“It was a mistake pitch,” Essian said. “I think he wanted it to go in on me a little more but it didn’t.”10

The A’s threatened to score again when the speedy Diloné singled and stole second. North stroked a base hit to left and Diloné took off. As he rounded third, coach Jack McKeon held up the stop sign, but Diloné kept going and was tagged out at home. “When I saw Jack say stop it was too late,” explained Diloné.11

Oakland did expand its lead in the fifth. Edwards led off with a single, then took off for second with Page batting. Rookie catcher Parrish’s throw got away and Edwards advanced to third. Page grounded out, but Alexander’s fly to center was deep enough to score Edwards with the fourth A’s run.

Trailing 4-0 after five innings, Detroit got on the board in the sixth. LeFlore led off with a double, becoming only the second Tigers hitter to advance past first base. Mark Wagner grounded out, then Staub placed a single into right field, driving in LeFlore. Johnson regrouped to strike out power-hitting lefties Thompson and Kemp.

Oakland got the run back in its half of the sixth. Revering and Gross hit back-to-back singles, putting runners at the corners. Revering scored and Gross moved to second when Billingham uncorked a wild pitch. Gross went to third on Essian’s sacrifice but was thrown out at home by second baseman Dillard on Diloné’s grounder. North singled, but pinch-hitter Jerry Tabb struck out to end the inning.

Billingham was pulled after the sixth and reliever Jim Crawford easily retired the A’s in the seventh and eighth. Johnson pitched the final three innings, surrendering only a single to Thompson in the ninth, and the A’s won the opener of the three-game weekend series, 5-1.

The four-hitter was Johnson’s third win and second complete game of the young season. “It was definitely the finest game I’ve had,” said Johnson. “I just let (catcher) Essian do the work.”12

Billingham surrendered five runs on 11 hits and suffered his first loss in a Tigers uniform. Houk

was not pleased with his team’s play as two of the A’s runs were unearned and a third scored on a wild pitch. “We played a bad game, our worst of the year,” Houk said.13

Detroit won the next two games in Oakland – both witnessed by crowds similar in size to the series opener – and finished the season with 86 wins in Houk’s last year at the helm. Whitaker and Trammell assumed larger roles as the season progressed. Despite the 12-game improvement from 1977, Detroit still came in fifth in the AL East Division. Sparky Anderson was appointed manager of the young team on June 14, 1979, and five years later, under his guidance, the Tigers became World Series champions.

The 1978 A’s held on to first place until June 14, then plummeted to finish sixth in the AL West Division with 93 losses. As the team regressed, attendance dropped. Oakland’s season record and average attendance were even more dismal in 1979. Finally, in August 1980, Finley agreed to sell the team to local businessman Walter A. Haas Jr. The purchase, which was finalized before the 1981 season, settled the uncertainty surrounding the franchise and assured that the team would play at the Coliseum in Oakland for the immediate future.

Acknowledgments 

This article was fact-checked by Bill Marston and copy-edited by Len Levin.            

Sources 

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author consulted Baseball Reference.com and Retrosheet.org for information, including the box score and play-by-play.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/OAK/OAK197805050.shtml

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1978/B05050OAK1978.htm

Photo credit: John Henry Johnson, Trading Card Database.

Notes

1 Outfielder Reggie Jackson and pitcher Ken Holtzman were traded prior to the 1976 season, and at the end of that season seven free agents signed with other teams.

2 The Coliseum seating capacity in 1978 was 49,649.

3 The A’s drew 17,283 paid for their 1-0 win over the Seattle Mariners on April 10. Otherwise, their biggest crowd had been 6,378 on Sunday, April 30, against the Cleveland Indians.

4 Stephanie Salter, “A’s March On,” San Francisco Examiner, May 6, 1978: 31.

5 Oakland also received Gary Alexander, Gary Thomasson, Dave Heaverlo, Alan Wirth, Phil Huffman, and Mario Guerrero from San Francisco in the March 15 trade.

6 Associated Press, “Rampaging A’s Embark on Tiger Hunt,” San Francisco Examiner, May 5, 1978: 54.

7 Page held at third on Guerrero’s infield single, but scored on Dillard’s wild throw to first.

8 Jim Hawkins, “Aurelio Has Blossomed at Bat,” Detroit Free Press, May 6, 1978: 1C.

9 Tom Weir, “A’s Fireworks Silence Tigers,” Oakland Tribune, May 6, 1978: 35E.

10 Salter, “A’s March On.”

11 Weir, “A’s Fireworks Silence Tigers.”

12 “A’s March On.”

13 “A’s March On.”