Gazing into October sans Giants, A’s
For the first time since 2008, both Bay Area teams are out of contention in early September.
In 2008, Barry Bonds’ first year as an ex-player and at the height of Bob Geren’s managing career, the Giants entered the final month 10 games out of first place, the A’s 20½ back. Neither could sniff the wildcard leaders.
A decade later, the teams entered the final month a collective 62 games out of first with nothing in September to look forward to except the certainty of making October vacation plans.
So we turn elsewhere for bigger story lines in the regular season’s final month: The Dodgers: They lost a season-high five in a row, hardly a detour on their road to October, especially with Clayton Kershaw ending the skid when returning from five weeks on the disabled list to pitch six scoreless innings in San Diego on Friday. The only question left in the regular season is how close the Dodgers will come to the record of 116 wins, and then the Kershaw-Yu Darvish-Rich Hill rotation and Cody BellingerJustin Turner-Corey Seager lineup will leap into the postseason gunning for the Dodgers’ first World Series title since 1988 but aware that just three of the past 11 teams with the best regular-season record went on to win it all. The wild cards: The Rockies were supposed to be automatic and join the Diamondbacks in the National League, but Colorado’s tailspin and Milwaukee’s emergence make it a race. The American League still is anyone’s guess with eight teams within 3½ games entering the weekend. The best team might be the Yankees, but the best story is the Twins, who owned baseball’s worst record last year. The trades: Two AL West teams were the big winners before the Aug. 31 deadline to set playoff rosters, landing big-name players to provide down-the-stretch momentum. The Astros, the AL’s best team, beefed up by adding starter Justin Verlander, a big move for a team that had a rough August in part because of rotation woes. The Angels added outfielder Justin Upton ,a boost for a team struggling to score runs. The homers: Can Giancarlo Stanton hit eight more home runs in September to reach 60? Shoot, he hit 17 in August. Can Aaron Judge hit three more in September to reach 40? Shoot, he had 30 at the break (before slumping). Can all hitters reach the 6,000 milestone for the first time? Heck, they surpassed 5,000 before the end of August. The Cubs: The defending champs were mediocre in the first half (43-45 at the break), showing signs of a World Series hangover and proving how difficult it is to repeat, especially from a league that hasn’t seen back-to-back titles since the ’70s Big Red Machine. Since then, the Cubs have played near .667 ball and added Jose Quintana to a rotation that’s not as deep as last year’s. Remembering: “We’re not in the mood for baseball. I don’t know if it’s in good taste to play.”
“Baseball is baseball; life and death go way beyond that.”
“With all that’s gone on, I could take it or leave it.”
They sound as if they could have been comments from the Astros as Hurricane Harvey flooded and decimated Houston. They were in fact comments from the A’s and Giants after the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake rocked Northern California shortly before Game 3 of the all-Bay Area World Series.
Twenty-eight years ago, baseball eventually was played as an afterthought, after a 10-day break during which players and teams assisted in the relief efforts, as is the case in Texas. A’s pitcher Dave Stewart visited the Nimitz Freeway rubble and brought supplies and food to workers and displaced families.
Stewart was one of countless in the community to chip in. As J.J. Watt of the Houston Texans, who has raised more than $15 million for hurricane relief efforts, said, “The worst times bring out the best in people, and we’re seeing that in abundance right now.”
Indy ball expansion: The East Bay city of Martinez is pushing for a new independent league team next season, and fittingly it would be named after Joe DiMaggio — the Martinez Clippers.
DiMaggio, a.k.a. the “Yankee Clipper,” was born in Martinez in 1914, and the Clippers would make it a six-team Pacific Association, which has been in existence with four teams since 2013. It’s the only West Coast professional independent league.
The Napa Silverados have already committed as the fifth team.
Former Giants legal counsel Mike Shapiro, who has run the San Rafael Pacifics since they joined the old North American League in 2012, said the goal is expanding to eight teams with two four-team divisions, all from the Bay Area.
Shapiro also spoke of a longterm idea of an independent league in Southern California; he has heard from folks intrigued by the Pacific Association’s format of playing mostly in small municipal ballparks, fielding teams in the same proximity to make it a commuter league and, of course, serving beer and wine.
“Independent baseball plays a very important role in the game,” Shapiro said, “sort of the last outpost for some players who have been drafted and released and couldn’t find their way back to an affiliated team or got overlooked in the draft.”
The league has been revolutionary for setting aside games with robot umps (Eric Byrnes doing the P.A.) and clocks that quickened the pace of play, along with signing female players, both with the Sonoma Stompers.
The 2017 season ended Friday when the Vallejo Admirals beat the Sonoma Stompers 11-8 in the championship game.
Where’s the emotion?: DiMaggio’s hit streak. Bonds’ home runs. Johnny Vander Meer’s consecutive no-hitters. Records that won’t be broken. Here’s another: Bobby Cox’s ejections.
Here are the top five: Cox (158), John McGraw (132), Earl Weaver and Leo Durocher (94) and Tony La Russa (87).