August 12, 1996: Geronimo Berroa outduels A’s teammate Mark McGwire, knocks 3 home runs

Over the course of Mark McGwire’s long, explosive, historic, and controversial career, there were very few occasions in which any other player outdid him on the long ball … save for maybe José Canseco.

On August 12, 1996, for example, as the Oakland Athletics routed the Minnesota Twins 11-1, McGwire hit two home runs, his 40th and 41st of the year, and had four RBIs. Both moonshots came en route to an American League-leading 52, nine shy of Roger Maris’s AL record of 61, while missing 32 games.

And yet, somehow Geronimo Berroa managed to outperform McGwire that same night, hitting three homers and driving in five runs to leapfrog his burly teammate and steal the spotlight away for one evening.

“They have to realize my turn to eat was coming,” said Berroa after the game.1

Berroa, however, was not keen to boast over his teammate’s achievements either; after all, he knocked the first home run on the very first pitch he saw in the first inning, mere seconds after McGwire cracked the game open with a 442-foot three-run blast off Twins left-hander Rich Robertson, and later said McGwire’s feat “inspired him” to follow up.

“McGwire’s my hero,” he said. “What do you think I’m thinking when I walk up to the plate after that first-inning bomb he hit? I want to hit one too. There’s no one that strong in baseball. He makes us go.”2

On his next at-bat, with both McGwire and teammate Scott Brosius on base, Berroa took just one pitch before smacking Robertson’s next one to left-center, breaking open the game for the Athletics, 7-0.

From there, it almost seemed like friendly competition; McGwire, after walking in the fourth inning, took to the plate in the sixth and knocked in his 41st on a line drive to right field. Berroa, hitting right after McGwire, struck out looking.

While McGwire was lifted the following inning for a defensive replacement, Berroa was not quite finished; he took to the plate once more in the eighth inning and worked a 1-and-2 count to his favor, smacking his third of the evening to straightaway center.

Even though it was a career night for Berroa and yet another in a string of highlight-reel performances for McGwire, somehow the home runs were only seen as business as usual for both dugouts. Berroa seemed more excited about supporting struggling starting pitcher Ariel Prieto, who watched the Oakland offense struggle in his previous three starts.3

“It’s fun to pitch when you have guys like (Berroa and McGwire) in the lineup,” Prieto said. “With one swing, they can make the difference in the game. For me, that’s always a good feeling.”4

Berroa said of Prieto, “That’s the first time I’ve hit one when he’s pitched. After the game I told him, ‘I’m glad I finally did something when you pitched.’”5

The offensive outburst was also not unusual for the A’s: The game was the seventh time in 1996 that they hit five or more home runs, and their new total for the season was 193 … just six shy of the franchise record of 199 with 42 games to go.6

The 1996 A’s also had several players with more than 20 home runs, including third baseman Brosius (22), catcher Terry Steinbach (35), and a young Jason Giambi (20). Despite the Coliseum’s harsh environment for hitters, somehow the Athletics had found a way to overcome the cold marine air.

Perhaps it was part of a larger trend across the league. In 1996 the total home-run record in major-league baseball was shattered: The previous record of 4,458, set in 1987, was eclipsed, with teams smacking 4,962 home runs; an eye-popping difference of 504. It was later revealed and alleged that many major-league players had begun using steroids at this time, which may have led to such a dramatic increase.7

While pundits watching Berroa’s performance at the Coliseum also noted that the team was now just 47 home runs shy of breaking the 1961 Yankees’ single-season record of 240, the Athletics were actually just one of three teams to break the record that year with 243, and hit the least of the three; the Orioles (257) and the Mariners (245) both hit more.

It wasn’t even the first time that season that Berroa hit three home runs in a game. The first came on May 22 at Yankee Stadium, where the New York native – who grew up in the Washington Heights neighborhood, a mere train ride from The Stadium – put on a show for his family and friends in attendance.

“Three home runs, I can’t believe it,” he said softly. “It was an unbelievable day for me. I don’t know when I’m going to have a day like this again.”8

The 31-year-old had struggled to break into a regular roster spot for years before finding a home in Oakland in 1994, having appeared in only 115 games over four seasons in the majors. Even in this breakout year, he struggled at points; before his explosion over Minnesota, he went 15 games without a home run.9

“I watched the video last night,” Berroa said after his feat. “That three-homer game [at Yankee Stadium] was on the tape. After watching it, I moved a little off the plate.”10

The second three-home-run game catapulted Berroa into historic company, as he became just the 11th major leaguer to have two three-home-run games in a season.11 It was also the Athletics’ third three-home-run game of the season, with Ernie Young having the other.12

Within all this context, Berroa’s historic night was quickly lost in the shuffle. The losing Minnesota manager, Tom Kelly, looped Berroa in with the other Oakland sluggers.

“Trying to pitch like that to their people in this park – Ohhh! – what a nightmare,” Kelly said after the game. “We were real nice to (Berroa). We kept throwing him lots of nice fastballs down the middle. I thought we were going to throw him a breaking ball (in the third inning, for Berroa’s second home run) but it was another fastball. We’re nice people.”13

While the A’s enjoyed the win and got back to .500 at 60-60, Berroa and McGwire’s mini-competition in the Coliseum went unseen by most people … including the Oakland faithful. Just 10,071 fans showed up for the Monday night game, during a season in which the A’s would finish dead last in American League total attendance with 1,148,380. Even though the team was having a record-breaking year at the plate, the fans in Oakland just weren’t coming.

“I feel the attendance problem does not lie with the team or the Coliseum,” one fan, Jerry Axtell, wrote to the Oakland Tribune one day after the game. “The team is playing excellent ball, and the Coliseum is as good as it was when they were drawing close to 3 million fans a season. The problem lies in the new ownership.

“It’s hard to feel a sense that this team is ours when the first thing the new owners did on taking control was talk of moving. It’s hard to build up affection for a team that may be gone in two years. We need to know this team is ours for keeps and not just playing the field.”14

While the A’s stayed in Oakland for another 28 years, the home-run power Berroa and McGwire symbolized that August evening became a thing of the past. Berroa was traded to the Orioles the next season, while McGwire was famously traded to the St. Louis Cardinals. Berroa, however, always spoke fondly of the A’s, who gave him his first big opportunity in the majors.

“Sometimes you try to do too much and you can’t do anything,” Berroa said. “I’ve worked too hard to get to my position. I spent a lot of time in the minors. I told one of my friends three or four years ago, ‘I don’t think anyone is going to give me a chance to play every day in the big leagues.’ But the A’s did.”15

Berroa credited A’s hitting coach Denny Walling for his turnaround and eventual success. Walling, when hearing this after one of Berroa’s three home-run nights, said only the following:

“He had a night for all time. Great players have nights like that.”16

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/OAK199608120.shtml

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1996/B08120OAK1996.htm

Notes

1 Pedro Gomez, “Geronimo! Berroa Slams Three More.” Santa Cruz (California) Sentinel, August 13, 1996: B1.

2 Gomez.

3 John Hickey, “Berroa, Mac Attack Twins with Homers,” Oakland Tribune, August 13, 1996: B1.

4 Hickey, B7.

5 Associated Press, “Oakland’s Berroa, McGwire Gang Up on Twins,” Duluth (Minnesota) News Tribune, August 13, 1996: B1.

6 Hickey, “Berroa, Mac Attack Twins with Homers.”

7 ESPN, “The Steroids Era,” ESPN.com, December 5, 2012: https://www.espn.com/mlb/topics/_/page/the-steroids-era.

8 Steve Kettmann, “Berroa’s 3 Homers Power A’s,” San Francisco Chronicle, May 23, 1996: https://www.sfgate.com/sports/article/Berroa-s-3-Homers-Power-A-s-2981087.php.

9 Hickey, “Berroa, Mac Attack Twins with Homers.”

10 Hickey.

11 Johnny Mize did twice, once in 1938 and once in 1940.

12 Gomez, “Geronimo! Berroa Slams Three More.”

13 Gomez.

14 Jerry Axtell, “Team May Just Disappear,” Oakland Tribune, August 13, 1996: A12.

15 Kettmann, “Berroa’s 3 Homers Power A’s.”

16 Kettmann.