Word: hitters
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...over 108 games (in which his appearances often lasted only 3-4 innings) is equivalent to 93 rbi's over a full season--all while hitting only .249 with 12 homeruns on a cellar-dwelling team. Those stats make Schmidt, if not consistently good, then a needed clutch hitter on a team which sorely lacked offense...
...points below his career average. He also made 19 errors while playing in only 108 games. If you looked at those stats, you'd never know you were dealing with a three-time MVP, a 10-time Gold Glove winner, and the seventh best home run hitter of all time...
...hair first captures attention with his power. When he hits a drive the ball gets small in a hurry, as though some invisible agent is pulling it into the far reaches of that vault of air that is the golfer's working space. Nicklaus calls him the "longest straight hitter ever...
...start things off, on consecutive nights in Los Angeles, something close to the ultimate hitter's and pitcher's daydreams were played out in such implausible detail that it strained decency. The A's led in the ninth inning of the first game, 4-3. Had there been one out instead of two, two on instead of one, that would have been enough. But the win-or-lose situation was perfectly framed, as that stubbly spirit Gibson emerged from the infirmary to take his only hack on crippled legs that said home run or nothing...
Manager Tommy Lasorda's prescience began with his use of Hatcher. Besides making a concert of the hit and run, Lasorda also let the A's alumnus Mike Davis ("a buck-ninety hitter," as Dennis Eckersley moaned) swing away in the fifth game on a 3-and-0 count -- for a homer, of course. Wisest of all, he persisted with Hershiser in the treacherous moment of that last 5-2 victory, when the choirboy was so spooked he actually sang hymns. "Today I'm living out the dream," Hershiser had said, "of a kid who was funny looking, wore glasses...