Word: pitcher
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...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...
...topping off his Cy Young season with 59 scoreless innings -- one more than Don Drysdale's eternal streak -- he had blanked the blankety-blank Mets in the playoffs. But against Oakland, the hits that Hershiser allowed weren't as astonishing as those he accumulated: three of them. No Series pitcher had given as good as he got since the Yankees' Don Larsen went 0-for-2 in 1956. Orel yielded three singles but took two doubles and a single back. Stretching the ridiculous was a pregame portrait of his Rockwellian mom and dad, the Little League Parents of the Year...
...Angeles this year, the old catcher Rick Dempsey brought lessons and morals from two consecutive basement jobs at Baltimore and Cleveland. With a double here and there, in the dugout, anywhere, Dempsey has been a triumph. "My child, my baby," he says of the rookie pitcher Tim Belcher (his particular protege), the famous player-to-be-named-later from so many months ago, when Oakland took reliever Rick Honeycutt in the fabled trade that benefited both sides. The Dodgers and A's appear to have fundamentally rebuilt from each other: seven men have served both...
...from shore, of Los Angeles outfielder Kirk Gibson limping out the grand home runs on a frayed leg injected with cortisone (in the spirit of the times, a steroid; "It's amazing what drugs can do," he said), or of National League president A. Bartlett Giamatti sniffing Dodger relief pitcher Jay Howell's glove for pine tar or caramel ("I felt there could be some amelioration by me," said Giamatti, sounding like Casey Stengel). But the memory is of Jefferies botching a bunt, booting a double play, running into a ball on the base paths, hitting .333 and looking like...
...Lasorda when he first joined the club. Lasorda was concerned that Hershiser's lack of tenacity might hold him back from challenging hitters with his ability, which Lasorda anticipated could be the best in baseball. In nicknaming Hershiser "The Bulldog," Lasorda hoped to instill that tenacity in his young pitcher...