May 28, 1980: A’s thieves steal home twice, run past Royals

While the biggest sports story of February 1980 was undoubtedly the US Olympic hockey team’s “Miracle on Ice,” the biggest baseball news was the uniting of two controversial personalities, as Oakland A’s owner Charlie Finley announced the hiring on February 21 of Billy Martin as his new manager. After five consecutive AL West divisional titles in 1971-75 and three consecutive World Series crowns in 1972-74, Finley’s franchise had been in a precipitous free fall since the advent of free agency and arbitration in the mid-1970s. The 1979 A’s finished 54-108 and barely attracted 300,000 fans. Their front office was skeletal, and the A’s used a scouting combine rather than employ full-time scouts.1 Finley always respected Martin’s baseball acumen and had considered hiring him as his manager in 1967 and 1970.2 The timing of their pairing was fortuitous, as Martin was unemployed and Finley was interested in selling the team and needed to create some excitement to increase the A’s marketability. Finley hoped to finish at least third in the AL West; Billy said he was aiming higher.3

Martin had completed mostly successful but always controversial tours of duty managing Minnesota, Detroit, Texas, and the New York Yankees twice. Martin said he looked forward to managing near where he grew up and played in the minor leagues, and teaching the young players on the A’s.4 Martin always had an aggressive management style. As a coach for manager Sam Mele at Minnesota in the 1960s, he emphasized, as he would in his managerial stops, good fundamentals, including bunting, hit-and-run plays, and assertive baserunning. He even had slower baserunners practice breaking for the plate from third base, to get them in the habit of trying to score on infield groundballs and wild pitches.5 Rod Carew credited Martin’s coaching in 1969 when he stole home seven times.6 Martin surprised his players, even future all-time basestealer and Hall of Famer Rickey Henderson, with his aggressiveness during 1980 spring training, saying the team would steal home several times during the year and would employ the triple steal.7 The young A’s players bought into Martin’s system. Perhaps pitcher Mike Norris described their feelings best when he said he had learned more in five weeks during spring training under Martin than in the past five years.8 Ralph Wiley of the Oakland Tribune tried to describe the brash, energetic style of the A’s, after seeing catcher Jim Essian steal home in an exhibition game, in his March 23 column, calling it Billy Ball. His editor thought the term was “corny,” but it stuck.9

The pugnacious Martin called out the defending AL West champion California Angels in spring training, telling Oakland Tribune sportswriter Tom Weir that the A’s would finish ahead of the Angels in 1980, despite finishing 34 games behind them in 1979.10 California’s Bobby Grich attributed Martin’s remarks to the effects of alcohol, further exacerbating the bad blood between the teams, stemming from a 17-6 humiliation the Angels put on Oakland July 4, 1979.11

In Martin’s second week as skipper, the A’s swept a four-game series at home against California April 18-20, stealing six bases, including Henderson’s steal of home in the second game of the April 20 twin bill. The strength of the A’s team was its outfield of Henderson, Dwayne Murphy, and Tony Armas, from left to right, as well as their five young starting pitchers: Norris, Brian Kingman, Matt Keough, Rick Langford, and Steve McCatty.

Future Hall of Fame right-hander Jack Morris and catcher Lance Parrish were victims of the A’s running game on May 3 in Oakland. Wayne Gross stole home with two outs in the second inning. With two outs and the bases loaded in the third, Morris took a full windup, and Murphy stole home as the lead man of a triple steal, with Mitchell Page swiping third and Gross taking second. Page ended the inning by trying to score from third base on the play. Morris and Parrish were visibly upset after the triple steal.12

The A’s met the Kansas City Royals in Kansas City for a four-game set May 19 to 22. While the A’s lost three of the games, two by one run, they torched the Royals for 10 stolen bases in the first three games, including five by Henderson. The teams met the following week in Oakland for a three-game series, May 26-28. Oakland won the opener, 4-1, without stealing a bag. The A’s were running again in a 4-2 loss on the 27th, with three stolen bases, including Henderson’s 21st and 22nd of the year. Gross was out at home on an attempted double steal in the second inning.

The Royals entered the rubber game leading the AL West at 25-17, and the A’s were in fourth place at 22-21, 3½ games back. Kansas City started right-hander Rich Gale, the 1978 American League Rookie Pitcher of the Year, as selected by The Sporting News, when he was 14-8, with a 3.09 earned-run average. In 1979 he slumped to 9-10, 5.65, and was 1-5, 5.78 at game time. His only win in 1980 was the previous week against Oakland, when he pitched seven scoreless innings in a 1-0 win, despite five steals by the A’s against him and catcher John Wathan.

Gale opposed fellow right-hander Langford, who was 3-3 with a 3.35 ERA. Langford gave up singles to the first four Royals batters and trailed 2-0 as the A’s came to bat in the first inning. With one out, Murphy singled and advanced to third on a single by Page. The pair pulled off a successful double steal, with Murphy swiping home and Page advancing to third on Wathan’s errant throw. Page scored on a passed ball to tie the score, 2-2. Gross walked and advanced to second as Gale delivered a wild pitch. Gross tagged and took third as Armas flied to right. After Jeff Newman walked, Martin called for a play he first pulled off while managing the Denver Bears in 1968.13 Newman broke for second base and deliberately stumbled. Wathan fired to first baseman Willie Aikens and Gross broke for home. Aikens’ awkward throw home was late, and Newman took second on the double steal, the second of the inning. Mickey Klutts singled in Newman, and Marty Pattin relieved Gale, finally retiring the side as the rattled Royals trailed 4-2.

Murphy walked and Page, Gross, and Armas singled for two more runs off Pattin in the second for a 6-2 A’s lead. The Royals concluded the scoring in the fifth inning when Willie Wilson doubled to right field to lead off the inning, advanced to third, and made it home on back-to-back groundouts, with George Brett getting the RBI.

Langford went the distance in the 6-3 victory, while Gale took the loss. The A’s stole seven bases in the game. The Royals and Wathan could take small consolation in catching Henderson trying to steal second after a leadoff walk in the second inning.

The Kansas City Times’s account of the game said the A’s running game was like a “stampede” and that Oakland approached the game, “with the flair and cunning of a carnival huckster.”14 The Associated Press account compared Martin to the characters played by Robert Redford and Paul Newman in the 1973 move The Sting, acknowledging that Billy liked to play a “sting” of his own on occasion.15 Jeff Newman said he deserved a Best Supporting Actor award for his part in the double steal. and Martin praised Gross for his “sensational” timing on his break for home. After two series with the division leaders, Martin said, his team was not afraid of the Royals.16 San Francisco Chronicle sportswriter Bruce Jenkins described Marin’s style of play as “brilliantly reckless” as he had to try different strategies with a “flawed” team.17 Oakland Tribune sportswriter Kit Stier noted that the A’s had already stolen home five times in the 1980 season, as opposed to four during the first 12 years of the franchise in Oakland.18

A’s catcher Mike Heath noted how the team connected with its working-class fans.19 The A’s more than doubled their 1979 attendance, ending 1980 with a respectable 842,259, although ranking only 12th in the AL. In August Finley sold the A’s to Walter A. Haas, Jr., a local businessman and philanthropist, ending speculation that the team would move. After a June slump, the A’s closed the season strong and finished second to the Royals in the AL West at 83-79, a 29-game improvement over 1979. Martin proved his team was unafraid of the Royals, as they won their season series 7-6, and he got the last laugh over Bobby Grich and the California Angels, winning their season series 10-3, as the Angels finished in sixth place at 65-95.20

Photo credit

“Billy Ball” manager Billy Martin’s aggressive style of play paid off for the Oakland A’s. (SABR-Rucker Archive)

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author consulted Baseball-Reference.com and Retrosheet.org.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/OAK/OAK198005280.shtml

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1980/B05280OAK1980.htm

Notes

1 Official 1980 Baseball Guide (St. Louis: The Sporting News, 1980), 132.

2 Dale Tafoya, Billy Ball: Billy Martin and the Resurrection of the Oakland A’s (Guilford, Connecticut: Lyons Press, 2020), 53, 72; Bill Pennington, Billy Martin: Baseball’s Flawed Genius (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2015), 178.

3 Billy Martin and Peter Golenbock, Number 1 (New York: Delacorte Press, 1980), 272.

4 Martin and Golenbock, 272.

5 Pennington, 151.

6 Rod Carew with Jaime Aron, One Tough Out: Fighting Off Life’s Curveballs (Chicago: Triumph Books, 2020), 54.

7 Pennington, 353. Martin told Henderson in spring training that he would break the American League record for stolen bases in a season, which Henderson knew was held by Ty Cobb at 96, and “we will not stop” until Henderson had 100 steals.

8 Tafoya, 85.

9 Tafoya, 88.

10 Tom Weir, “Trade Winds Whisper in Essian’s Ear,” The Sporting News, April 5, 1980: 47.

11 Tafoya, 92.

12 Tafoya, 99-100

13 Pennington, 157.

14 Mike DeArmond, “Steals Help Daring A’s Whip Royals,” Kansas City Times, May 29, 1980: 57-58.

15 Associated Press, “Major League Roundup,” Gettysburg (Pennsylvania) Times, May 29, 1980: 11.

16 Associated Press, “A’s Steal Victory,” Santa Cruz (California) Sentinel, May 29, 1980: 40. The A’s now had 53 stolen bases as a team, with Henderson leading the AL with 22.

17 Tafoya, 101.

18 Kit Stier, “A’s Thieves Drive Their Foes Nutty,” The Sporting News, June 14, 1980: 37.

19 Tafoya, 102.

20 Including their May 28 thievery against Kansas City, the A’s pulled off 14 double steals, one triple steal, and seven steals of home in 1980. Rickey Henderson stole 100 bases, breaking Ty Cobb’s AL record of 96 in 1915. Mike Norris, who had never won more than five games in a season with Oakland, was 22-9. Matt Keough was voted AL Comeback Player of the Year, with a 16-13 record, after going 2-17 in 1979. The Oakland pitching staff accounted for 94 complete games, the most since the Detroit Tigers staff had the same number in 1946. Official 1981 Baseball Guide [St. Louis: The Sporting News, 1981], 143). The excitement over Billy Ball carried over to 1981, when the A’s drew over 1,300,00 fans. They won the AL West in the first half of the strike-shortened split season, and swept the second-half champion Royals before losing to the New York Yankees in the ALCS.