With mother sick, outfielder happy to return home
Stephen Piscotty, the newest member of the A’s, loved his time in St. Louis and gets choked up thinking about his memories there. Ultimately, though, he’d rather be near his mother, Gretchen, who was diagnosed with ALS in May. Thursday’s trade brought the outfielder home. “Sometimes there are things more important than baseball,” Piscotty said on a conference call Friday. “This opportunity here is a great combination of family and baseball. I think it’s really the best thing for myself and my family. A lot of good is going to come out of it.”
Piscotty, who lives at his parents’ home in Pleasanton during the offseason, said things have become more challenging with his mother’s condition. But he noted that his father, Michael,
Pleasanton native Stephen Piscotty, who was traded this week to the A’s from St. Louis, now will be closer to his ailing mother, Gretchen, who was diagnosed with ALS earlier this year.
has been out in front of things — making sure Gretchen Piscotty has all the right medications and equipment as she deals with the increasingly debilitating nature of ALS, which is also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease.
“I feel like we’re in a really good place,” Piscotty said. “We’ve got things pretty dialed in; we can move around, go places. We were just in St. Louis last week checking out the Budweiser Clydesdales because my mom absolutely loves horses; that was just so special.
“I think it will be easy and convenient and frequent for her to be able to come out and watch me play and that will give me a lot of comfort and peace of mind, knowing I’m close. That will take some pressure off me and I can relax and have fun.”
A’s general manager David Forst emphasized that the A’s sent minorleaguers Yairo Muñoz and Max Schrock to the Cardinals for Piscotty for baseball reasons — the teams had first discussed Piscotty in July. But the fact that the move brings Piscotty back to the Bay Area while the family is dealing with such difficult circumstances does resonate with Oakland’s front office, and Cardinals officials have discussed their desire to send Piscotty home if a trade made sense for them.
“It’s a huge credit to them,” Forst said. “That’s why (A’s executive Billy Beane) said everyone considers the Cardinals a classy organization from top to bottom. I’m thrilled this worked out for (Piscotty) on that level. I can’t imagine what it’s like for him being away from home with those things going on.”
Piscotty was a popular player in St. Louis, known especially for hitting three homers in a Division Series game in 2015, and he is aware that Cardinals fans have been overwhelmingly positive about the trade because of his family situation. “It’s been a huge outpouring of support . ... It’s really humbling and cool to see,” he said. “Our family feels so loved at a tough time.”
Piscotty didn’t have a great season in 2017, hitting .235 with nine homers, and many around baseball believe that his mother’s illness had contributed
“Sometimes there are things more important than baseball.” —Stephen Piscotty, A’s outfielder
to that.
Piscotty said Friday that news was tough to process.
“She got the news in May and I remember kind of feeling, ‘OK, they diagnosed it a certain way, but it’s going to wind up being something else.’ I didn’t want to believe it,” he said. “I kept playing for a couple of days, but I was just so distracted, I couldn’t focus, I just really didn’t care what was going on on the field.”
The team allowed him to go back to Pleasanton for a few days, and Piscotty said that when he returned to the Cardinals, “It was a little bit of a struggle but it was a lot better than if I didn’t go home. It was tough. But I don’t know if my performance struggled because of that. I was given an opportunity to make my mom happy. I know she loves watching me play so I was trying to do all I could to make her proud and get a smile on her face by playing.
“It was a roller-coaster year. I wound up on the (disabled list) a few times. I got sent down. It was a bit of a year to forget but I learned a lot and I’m going to tap into those experiences and hopefully have a more successful 2018.”
Piscotty grew up an A’s fan — Tim Hudson was his favorite player, and he said meeting then-Cardinals hitting coach Mark McGwire when he signed out of Stanford was a surreal experience.
“That was my childhood, the Oakland A ’ s .… I have a lot of good memories of that stadium,” he said. “I’ve never set foot on that field. I’m sure that will be a very special moment.”
Thursday morning, the A’s were eager to get the deal completed. The problem was that Piscotty was playing golf at Pebble Beach, a longscheduled outing with friends.
So team doctor William Workman drove down to the Monterey Peninsula and did the physical at an Air BnB rental.
“That was a different logistical issue than anything we’ve dealt with before,” Forst said. “Huge credit to Dr. Workman for getting this done. We didn’t want to let this deal slip away — but instead of being at home in Pleasanton, 10 minutes from the doctor’s office, (Piscotty) was down in Pebble Beach.”
Forst said Piscotty’s position is yet to be decided. He primarily has played right field, as have Matt Joyce and Chad Pinder, but all three can play left, too. The matter probably will be decided during spring training.
Piscotty doesn’t really care where he’ll be playing. He’s just happy to be home.
“If I was going to get traded, this was the absolute best option for me and my family,” he said. “It’s a dream in the sense that I get to play for my hometown team, and not a lot of people get that chance.”