April 17, 1972: Campus strike moves exhibition between A’s and Cal Bears to Oakland Coliseum

Those who took part in the April 17, 1972, exhibition between the Oakland Athletics and the University of California, Berkeley Golden Bears say the game was played to a nearly empty house at Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum.1

That’s unfortunate, because Bay Area baseball fans missed an interesting game. On the field, the Athletics – reigning American League West Division champions, and just beginning their first of three straight World Series championship seasons – had to muster three eighth-inning runs to hold off their college rivals, 7-5. The game also served as an Oakland tryout for veteran pitcher Joe Horlen, who’d been released by the Chicago White Sox earlier in the month and hadn’t even signed with the Athletics at game time.

Off the field, the game was moved to the Coliseum at the last minute because of a labor dispute at the college. As of 2024, it was one of only two in-season exhibition games known to have been played at the Oakland ballpark. The other was the 1987 All-Star Game.2

Cal, as the Berkeley college is known, had won an exhibition against the Athletics on May 24, 1971, at Evans Diamond on campus.3 The A’s brought their starters to that matchup, but manager Dick Williams made it known ahead of the 1972 game that he planned to start his second-stringers.4 Even first baseman Mike Epstein, who’d attended Cal and sometimes set up Bears players with A’s tickets, wasn’t in the lineup.5

Cal entered the exhibition on a four-game losing skid, including three defeats to the University of Southern California that sank the team to third place in the Pacific 8 conference.6 Coach George Wolfman, a former minor-league player7 in his 18th season, had led the Bears to the 1957 College World Series title but hadn’t reached the tournament since.8 After posting a 24-24 record and a seventh-place conference finish in 1971, Wolfman’s squad improved to 33-21 and tied for second in 1972.9

Cal’s big hitters included first baseman-outfielder Gary Hernandez and outfielder Dave Alderete. Hernandez had led the team and the conference in 1971 with a .459 batting average in conference play, received the team’s Most Valuable Player award, and earned recognition as an All-American. Alderete led in ’72 with a .294 average and was that season’s MVP.10

The game took place against a background of labor strife. On March 31 major-league player representatives and their alternates voted to authorize the majors’ first player strike, following disagreements with owners over pension benefits.11 The strike was settled in time for play to begin April 15; seven Athletics games that had been scheduled before then went unplayed.12 Separately, left-hander Vida Blue – coming off a dazzling 24-8 season and the American League’s Cy Young and Most Valuable Player Awards – was locked in a battle of wills with Athletics owner Charlie Finley over contract terms. Blue held out until May 2 and did not pitch until May 24.13

The university in Berkeley was having its own problems. Since January, its administration had faced increasingly vocal criticism from unions over wage adjustments and grievance procedures. On April 14 more than 700 campus employees left their jobs to participate in a labor rally.14 On the following Monday, April 17, the Alameda County Building Trades Council went on strike, asking other campus unions not to cross their picket line.15

Most news accounts reported that the Athletics – fresh from their own strike – chose not to cross the line, though the Oakland Tribune wrote that team and university officials decided on their own to move the game. Either way, the Bears and Athletics met at the Coliseum.16

News stories set the attendance at about 200 people in a ballpark with room for 50,000.17 This “crowd,” mainly family members of the players, included Hernandez’s 18-year-old brother, Keith, whose later baseball achievements included two World Series championships, 11 Gold Gloves, the 1979 National League batting title, and five All-Star Game appearances.18

Horlen took the mound wearing an A’s jersey with no name or number19 and carrying a grudge against his former team. In 11 seasons with the White Sox, he’d won 113 games, thrown a no-hitter during the epic pennant race of September 1967, and posted the AL’s best earned-run average (2.06) that same season. But after slumping to 8-9 in 1971 and giving up nine earned runs in 11 spring-training innings in 1972, he’d been released. Horlen speculated that he’d been pink-slipped as payback for his service as the White Sox player representative.20

Given a new chance by Oakland, Horlen started strong, allowing two hits and no runs in his first three innings of work.21

Wolfman opted to use a different pitcher in every inning. Starter Ray DelCarlo, a senior left-hander,22 allowed one hit in a shutout first inning. His successor, Dave Forster, found big-league hitters tougher to handle. Bobby Brooks walked and Mike Hegan singled. When Hegan’s hit got past Cal left fielder Neil Cummings, Brooks and Hegan advanced to third and second on the error. Larry Haney’s single brought both runners home for a 2-0 Oakland lead.23

The meat of Cal’s lineup got the Bears on the board in the fourth. Alderete hit a one-out single and took third on Hernandez’s double to left-center field. Cummings’ sacrifice fly scored Alderete to make the score 2-1. Catcher Brad Brian followed with a deep drive that sent Brant Alyea to the left-field wall to gather it in.24

Senior lefty Steve Lacki pitched the bottom of the fourth for Cal, giving up a hit but no runs. More than 50 years later, he recalled the pleasure of taking a major-league mound: “The mound was perfect. When that happens it makes pitching so much easier. … I remember just wanting to move the ball around the plate and not make a mistake. I remember [the A’s] were more free-swinging than college players. They had the confidence to hit the ball and didn’t wait for the perfect pitch. As such I got them to hit a couple of fly balls and groundballs. No strikeouts. It was fun, I was naïve, and it gave me the sense that I could possibly make a living there.”25

Three more runs in the fifth put the Bears ahead of the big-leaguers, 4-2. Shortstop Ron Coffman reached on an error by Curt Blefary, playing third base.26 A walk to pinch-hitter Bob Johnson and a single by second baseman Bob Tulk loaded the bases for catcher Roy Meisner, whose hard-hit single to left plated two runs. Hernandez’s two-out single to right field scored Tulk with the Bears’ fourth run.

Horlen departed after five innings, making way for another former AL ERA champion, Diego Seguí.27 The forkball specialist stymied the collegians, working two perfect innings and striking out four.

The Athletics tied the game in the fifth off pitcher Neil Ernst. George Hendrick started the frame with a triple and scored on a single by Alyea, who was retired on a fielder’s choice hit by Brooks. Cal center fielder Greg Warzecka28 reeled in Hegan’s drive for the second out. But third baseman Don Thomas mishandled Larry Brown’s grounder and then threw the ball away for two errors; Brooks came around to knot the game at 4-4.29

Lefty Jim Roland came on for the eighth and surrendered a run. Hernandez tripled to right with one out, narrowly missing a home run, and replacement catcher Will Ash hit an infield single that Oakland’s third baseman stopped but couldn’t make a play on.30 The Bears led, 5-4.

It didn’t last. Left-hander Charles Leoni came in for the bottom half, and leadoff hitter Haney reached on Thomas’s third error of the game.31 Roland struck out32 and Cullen singled to put two runners on base. Haney and Cullen moved to third and second base on Blefary’s groundout to first.33

Hendrick, up next, had already collected three hits, so Wolfman ordered an intentional walk to set up a force at any base.34 But Alyea crossed up the strategy, ripping a double off the left-field wall to score all three runners and hand Oakland a 7-5 lead.35

Roland shut down the Bears in order in the ninth, and the game ended in 2 hours and 18 minutes. Roland earned the win, while Leoni took the loss. The unofficial “win” was Roland’s only victory of 1972; he went 0-1 in 23 regular-season appearances with three teams.

Four Cal players – Hernandez, Lacki, Thomas, and substitute shortstop Randal Hooper – went on to minor-league careers.36 Thomas peaked at Triple A, Hernandez at Double A, and Hooper and Lacki at Class A. The campus strike that gave them and their teammates the chance to play at the Coliseum was settled on June 22 after 67 days.37

Of the A’s position players on April 17, only Hegan and Hendrick played in that October’s World Series victory over the Cincinnati Reds.38 Hitting hero Alyea was traded in May to the St. Louis Cardinals, who returned him to Oakland in late July; he played just 20 games combined in his two stints with the Athletics. Roland and Seguí weren’t around for the playoffs either. Roland was sold to the New York Yankees after just two appearances in April, while Seguí was sent to the Cardinals in June.

Horlen made the most of his opportunity. Signed by Oakland on April 19, he went 3-4 with one save and a 3.00 ERA in 32 games, mostly in relief. Horlen appeared in one game of the Athletics’ AL Championship Series win over the Detroit Tigers, as well as in Game Six of the World Series. It was his only career postseason experience.

Acknowledgments

This story was fact-checked by Gary Belleville and copy-edited by Len Levin. The author thanks former Cal Bears players Gary Hernandez and Steve Lacki for responding to research inquiries.

Sources and photo credit

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author used the Baseball-Reference.com and Retrosheet.org websites for general player, team, and season data. Baseball-Reference and Retrosheet do not provide box scores for most exhibition games, but the April 18, 1972, editions of the Oakland Tribune, San Francisco Chronicle, and Berkeley (California) Daily Gazette printed box scores.

Photo credit: Joe Horlen, courtesy of the Oakland Athletics.

Notes

1 Author’s email correspondence with former Cal players Gary Hernandez and Steve Lacki, October 2024.

2 “A List of In-Season Exhibition Games, 1921-2012,” Retrosheet.org, compiled by Walter LeConte and other SABR members and accessed October 2024, https://www.retrosheet.org/InSeasonExhibitionGames1921-2012.htm. A note by LeConte that accompanies the list on Retrosheet warns that it should not be considered definitive.

3 A story in the May 25, 1971, Berkeley (California) Daily Gazette reported that the 1971 game was the teams’ third meeting: Mike Hall, “Cal’s Two-Run Ninth Nips A’s, 6-5,” May 25, 1971: 9. According to the list of in-season exhibitions cited above, the teams played again during the 1976 and 1977 seasons, both times in Berkeley.

4 Ken Jacobson, “Tovar’s ‘Hit’ Edges A’s; Horlen Vs. Cal,” Berkeley Daily Gazette, April 17, 1972: 9.

5 Author’s correspondence with Gary Hernandez, October 2024. A list of the position players who started against Cal, followed (in parenthesis) by the names of the Athletics’ regular starters that season: catcher Larry Haney (Dave Duncan); first baseman Mike Hegan (Mike Epstein); second baseman Tim Cullen (Cullen); shortstop Larry Brown (Bert Campaneris); third baseman Curt Blefary (Sal Bando); right fielder George Hendrick (Ángel Mangual); center fielder Bobby Brooks (Reggie Jackson); and left fielder Brant Alyea (Joe Rudi). Cullen was not a starter at the time of the exhibition; he later claimed the starter’s role at second base after regular starter Dick Green had early-season back surgery.

6 “BatBears Host Oakland A’s” and John Gunn, “Bear Glovemen Drop Three, Fall to Third Place,” Daily Californian (Berkeley, California), April 17, 1972: 5, https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=ucbk.ark:/28722/h2n010622&seq=3. The Daily Californian is the student newspaper of the University of California, Berkeley.

7 According to Baseball-Reference, Wolfman played parts of two seasons in the Pacific Coast League, then a Double-A circuit, in 1934 and 1935.

8 2021 Cal baseball media guide: 42 and 44, accessed October 2024, https://calbears.com/documents/2022/8/3/2021_Cal_Baseball_Media_Guide.pdf. Cal next reached the College World Series in 1980.

9 2021 Cal baseball media guide: 72. The 1972 season marked Wolfman’s last winning season at Cal: He went 21-31 in 1973 and was replaced by former Cal star and 1958 AL Most Valuable Player Jackie Jensen.

10 “Clout King” (photos and caption), Berkeley Daily Gazette, May 17, 1971: 12; 2021 Cal baseball media guide: 45 and 49-50.

11 Denne H. Freeman (Associated Press), “Strike Hits Major League Baseball,” San Bernardino (California) Sun-Telegram, April 1, 1972: 1. Major-league umpires had previously struck for a single day, October 3, 1970, the first day of the American and National League playoffs. Those games went on using recently retired umps and minor-league arbiters, several of whom never worked in the majors again.

12 The Athletics had played only two games entering the April 17 exhibition. They won their opener against the Minnesota Twins, then lost the next day.

13 Rich Puerzer, “Vida Blue,” SABR Biography Project, accessed October 2024, https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/vida-blue/.

14 Richard Goering, “Issues Laid Bare at Turbulent Labor Forum,” Daily Californian (Berkeley, California), April 17, 1972: 1, https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=ucbk.ark:/28722/h2n010622&seq=1.

15 “Building Tradesmen Strike,” Daily Californian, April 17, 1972: 1.

16 The San Francisco Examiner, San Francisco Chronicle, and an unbylined United Press International item said the Athletics players decided not to cross the line. The Oakland Tribune’s Ron Bergman, in contrast, wrote that the A’s players “never had a chance to decide” whether to honor the picket line, saying the decision was made at “an administrative level.” Ron Bergman, “Horlen Jury’s Still Out,” Oakland Tribune, April 18, 1972: 43; Dick Friendlich, “Pickets-A’s Move Game to Oakland,” San Francisco Chronicle, April 18, 1972: 43; unheadlined item, Martinez (California) Morning News-Gazette, April 18, 1972: 7; “McLain Gets Big Chance Tonight,” San Francisco Examiner, April 18, 1972: 45.

17 “McLain Gets Big Chance Tonight”; Friendlich, “Pickets-A’s Move Game to Oakland.” In 2024, Hernandez guesstimated the crowd size at 400 to 500 people. His teammate Lacki didn’t put a number on the attendance but had a similar recollection: “There was no crowd. Just friends and family.” Author’s correspondence with Gary Hernandez and Steve Lacki. Seating information for the Coliseum obtained from the Seamheads.com ballpark database, accessed October 2024, https://www.seamheads.com/ballparks/ballpark.php?parkID=OAK01.

18 Author’s correspondence with Gary Hernandez. Keith Hernandez, who’d been chosen by the St. Louis Cardinals in the June 1971 draft, played his first minor-league season at Classes A and Triple-A in 1972. However, the younger Hernandez suffered a broken arm in spring training that year, and thus would have been available to attend this game. Tom Duffy, “New-Look Cards Open FSL Play,” St. Petersburg (Florida) Times, April 13, 1972: 1C. In another Cal-A’s connection, Gary Hernandez recalled that he’d chatted amicably with Oakland catcher Gene Tenace at the 1971 Cal-A’s game. A decade later, Tenace and Keith Hernandez were teammates on the 1981 and 1982 St. Louis Cardinals.

19 Bergman.

20 Bergman; Dick O’Connor, “The Strike Victim,” Palo Alto (California) Times, April 18, 1972: 28.

21 Bergman, “Horlen Jury’s Still Out.”

22 Gunn, “Bear Glovemen Drop Three, Fall to Third Place.”

23 Mike Hall, “Alyea’s Double Dumps Bears, 7-5,” Berkeley Daily Gazette, April 18, 1972: 9.

24 Hall.

25 Author’s correspondence with Steve Lacki, who went on to pitch three seasons (1973-75) at Class A in the California Angels organization.

26 Available game stories do not specify whether Blefary’s boot was a fielding or throwing error.

27 Seguí won the AL earned-run title in 1970 with a 2.56 ERA.

28 The Berkeley Gazette’s game story said Warzecka made “a great catch in left,” while also mentioning Cummings playing left. The Oakland Tribune’s box score has Warzecka in center.

29 Hall, “Alyea’s Double Dumps Bears, 7-5”; John Gunn, “Second String A’s Top BatBears,” Daily Californian, April 18, 1972: 4, https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=ucbk.ark:/28722/h27s7j536&seq=3.

30 Author’s correspondence with Gary Hernandez; Hall, “Alyea’s Double Dumps Bears, 7-5.” This story credits Cullen with the play at third, but box scores make no mention of Cullen moving from second base to third. The box score in the Oakland Tribune has third baseman Blefary and catcher Haney switching places at some point in midgame, making it most likely that Haney fielded Ash’s hit. In 480 regular-season big-league games, Haney made seven appearances at third base, none of them in 1972.

31 Bergman, “Horlen Jury’s Still Out”; Hall, “Alyea’s Double Dumps Bears, 7-5.” Again, game stories do not specify whether this was a throwing or fielding error. In Hall’s story, Wolfman described Thomas as usually one of Cal’s most dependable fielders.

32 It’s worth noting here that Oakland manager Williams used no substitutes beyond the two relief pitchers. Game stories do not explain whether Williams let Roland hit for himself because he wanted Roland to get another inning of work, or because he hadn’t brought a full complement of bench players with him. In email correspondence with the author, Cal’s Lacki said he believed that Reggie Jackson, Bert Campaneris, Sal Bando, and the Athletics’ starting pitchers were not present.

33 Hall. This story suggests that Cal should have been able to turn an inning-ending double play on Blefary’s grounder.

34 Bergman and Hall. Both Hendrick and Alyea were right-handed hitters against the lefty Leoni, so there was no advantage from that standpoint.

35 Both Bergman and Hall described Alyea as having been insulted by the intentional walk to Hendrick. But Alyea is not quoted directly in either story, so it’s not clear whether Alyea directly voiced his anger after the game or whether the writers were speaking figuratively.

36 Baseball-Reference.com, “University of California, Berkeley (Berkeley, CA) Baseball Players,” accessed October 2024, https://www.baseball-reference.com/schools/index.cgi?key_school=42a92ccb.

37 Steve Duscha, “UC Strike Is Over,” Berkeley Daily Gazette, June 23, 1972: 1.

38 According to Baseball-Reference, Cullen was eligible for the postseason but did not appear in the Series.