Men at Work

by George F. Will

  The fourth play is used against a left-handed pitcher. As soon as the pitcher comes to a set position, the runner on third initiates the play by breaking for home. The instant he takes off, the runner on first, who is watching him, breaks for second. The left-handed pitcher is facing the runner on first. The runner racing for second may draw a throw. If he does, even if he is out, the runner on third will score. Or a split second of indecision on the part of the pitcher may allow the runner from first to reach second and the runner from third to score.

  “Now,” says La Russa, mentally moving to the defensive team’s dugout, “here is how to defeat it. If, when the pitcher sees the guy breaking for second, he steps off [the rubber] and checks the runner on third, he just throws home and the runner is out.” If the runner has not broken from third and the pitcher throws to second, that runner should get in a rundown and the runner on third may score. But if the pitcher raises his arm and takes even one step toward the runner going to second, and only then throws home, it will be too late.

  The fifth play is a version of the fourth, but against a right-handed pitcher. The runner on first breaks for second. The runner on third, with the pitcher facing him, edges down the line toward home and breaks for the plate when the pitcher turns and commits to throw to second. If the pitcher does his job right, he hears his infielders shout that the runner behind him is going for second, he steps off the rubber, freezes the runner on third and throws to second.

  The sixth play is the “stumble start.” It is a tactic for freezing the catcher. The runner on first takes a few quick steps toward second and then pretends to fall. (La Russa demonstrates, sprawling on the carpet. His conversation could spoil the creases in his jeans if they had creases.) The catcher sees this stumble out of the corner of his eye. As soon as the catcher commits to throw to first to nail the floundering runner, the man on third, who has a long lead, breaks for home.

  The seventh play was a favorite of Billy Martin. It is used against a left-handed pitcher who has a slow move to first base. The runner on third takes a long lead. The runner on first takes enough of a lead to tempt the pitcher, who is facing him, to try to pick him off. As soon as the pitcher starts his pickoff, the runner on third breaks for home. If the runner on third has misread the pitcher’s intention and the ball goes to the plate, the runner usually can get back to third.

  The eighth play depends on getting the runner on first picked off and hung up with the ball in the first baseman’s hand. The runner heads for second and the instant the first baseman throws to second, the runner on third breaks for home.

  Other than as the front end of a double steal, the steal of home is a vanishing thrill. It never was common. Ty Cobb stole home more than anyone else, 46 times, but that was over a span of 24 seasons. Yet in olden times, even big men did it. Lou Gehrig stole home 15 times, Babe Ruth 10 times. In the postwar era, things have been different. Lou Brock, the all-time base-stealing leader (until Rickey Henderson breaks his record), stole 938 bases but never stole home. Through 1988 Henderson had stolen home only four times, and never since 1982. The man who may have helped kill the thrill was one of its most artful practitioners, Rod Carew. He holds the single-season record with seven steals of home. He was one reason why more pitchers began pitching from a stretch instead of a windup with runners on third.

  The increased willingness of even popular hitters to “show bunt” has caused third basemen to play closer to the bag, limiting the lead a runner can get. Furthermore, in this age of long careers and large salaries, runners do not relish the risks involved in slamming full tilt into catchers, who tend to be on the large side.

  Still, the first-and-third double-steal possibilities are so sweet that they once were a reason for stealing first base. In 1908 Germany Schaefer of the Tigers found himself on second with a teammate on third. To set up the double steal, the inventive Schaefer ran back to first, making it safely to the base, perhaps because of the element of surprise. On the next pitch he broke for second. The catcher threw to second. On the throw, the runner on third scored. Oh, yes: Schaefer was safe at second.

  Second base is the base most stolen. La Russa thinks that stealing third base is a neglected offensive weapon. “I get criticized for stealing third ‘meaninglessly.’ Usually that means there are two outs. But it can be a high-percentage steal. And I guarantee that if you do that 15 times over the course of a season, you will score 3 or 4 extra times.” One of the iron axioms in “The Book” (that unwritten code of baseball tenets that “everyone knows” are true) is that you never want to make the third out at third base. That axiom means, in practice, conservatism on the base paths with two outs. It means not trying to stretch a double into a triple, not trying to steal third. The theory is that second base is scoring position and third is not much better. The theory is wrong.

  If you get to third with less then two outs you have many more ways to score than you had at second: soft outfield single, infield hit, sacrifice fly, infield out, safety squeeze, suicide squeeze, error, balk, wild pitch, passed ball, steal of home. And you score on most of those with two outs. Furthermore, just the knowledge that your team sometimes steals third—that knowledge, plus convincing behavior by runners on second—improves your hitting. “Watch clubs play the A’s. You know what their shortstops and second basemen do? Jockey, jockey, jockey. Because they know we steal third. With our powerful hitters most infielders want to play back. But what we want to do as an offensive team is not let them have it both ways. If they worry about us stealing third and jockey to hold us on second, it’s going to cost them some range.

  “We were playing somebody—I forget who—and their pitcher was slow to the plate, so our guys started saying ‘We can go, we can steal third, can’t we, skipper?’ I said, remember there are two things necessary for a steal. One is the pitcher being slow to the plate. The other is the infielders forgetting the runner. In that game the shortstop came over, we couldn’t steal third because he was right behind our runner, so he’s not able to take a lead big enough to take advantage of the pitcher’s slow delivery. Later in the game, one of our slower runners, someone like [catcher Terry] Steinbach, was on second. They were so conscious of their pitcher being vulnerable to stealing and of us likely to steal third, that while they were busy bluffing him back to second, a little grounder, about a 15-foot hopper, was hit in the vacated hole between short and third and Stein-bach scored a big run.”

  Stealing third can be, and usually should be, easier than stealing second. It is, of course, true that the catcher’s throw is shorter to third. (The throw from home to second is 127 feet 3⅜ inches, or more than 37 feet longer than the throw to third.) However, the runner’s lead off second should be longer than his lead off first. The two important variables are the pitcher’s release time and the infielders’ awareness. “If these are going for you,” La Russa says, “then your slowest runner can steal third. Greg Luzinski could steal third.”

  La Russa managed Luzinski on the White Sox and explains how to make a Luzinski into, if not Mercury, or Maury Wills, at least a legitimate threat to steal third. Second is too hard. A left-handed pitcher is facing a runner on first base. Even a right-hander can, with reasonable peripheral vision, keep an eye on a runner at first longer than a pitcher can watch a runner on second. At some point a pitcher has to be done looking at second base and must look in the opposite direction, toward the plate. Most pitchers will have a pattern. They will look toward second once, or twice. In any case, it is generally possible to know when a particular pitcher is done looking. Regarding infielders’ awareness, usually either the shortstop or second baseman has responsibility for primary coverage of second base, keeping the runner close to the bag. If the hitter at the plate is right-handed, the second baseman will generally be keeping the runner close; if the hitter is left-handed, the shortstop is responsible.

  Now, says La Russa, suppose the batter is right-handed. That is the best situation for stealing third because the catcher will have t
o throw past the batter to get the ball to third. Suppose Luzinski is on second and Carlton Fisk, the Sox catcher, is up. Fisk is a powerful right-handed hitter. The shortstop will want to play over in the hole. He is not going to pay attention to Luzinski. The second baseman is supposed to, but he wants to play as deep as possible against the big, powerful and slow Fisk. Now, suppose the pitcher is a “one-looker.” Luzinski can start with a ten-step lead. Stealing third is easier than stealing second even if you have only one of the two variables (pitcher’s release, infielders’ awareness) on your side. Of course, a third variable is the ability to pick the right pitch to run on. By learning opposing pitchers’ patterns, you can guess, with reasonable confidence, a breaking ball or change-up.

  There are techniques that can be called semi-steals that can get a runner from third to home or from second to third. In one play, there is a runner at third. The batter lays down a base-hit bunt—that is, a bunt not anticipated and not intended as a sacrifice—toward third. The third baseman fields the bunt with the runner on third creeping in right behind him. If the third baseman tries to throw the runner out at first, the runner can stroll the rest of the way home from third. If the third baseman stops to drive the runner back toward third, the bunter will get a base hit out of it. The only danger to the team at bat is a rare one—a shortstop who can instantly diagnose the play and sprint to third in time to trap the runner from getting back to the base.

  The second variation begins with a runner at second and the batter faking a base-hit bunt. As soon as he shortens up on the bat, the third baseman charges in and the runner breaks toward third, which is momentarily unprotected. The batter takes the pitch and proceeds with his at bat with the runner 90 feet closer to home. “We’ve done that—accidentally,” La Russa remembers. The runner on second decided to steal, the batter decided to bunt, the batter shortened up on the bat to do so but did not like the pitch, and everyone marveled at the serendipitous result—a runner on third.

  Baseball history has many examples of what can be done by combining foresight, guile, brass and speed. Back at the beginning of the 1980s, when Billy Martin brought “Billyball” to Oakland as the Athletics’ manager, he used a play in which Rickey Henderson, as a runner on first, would set out to steal second while Dwayne Murphy, a left-handed hitter, would drop a base-hit bunt toward third. When Henderson broke toward second, the shortstop would race to cover second and the third baseman would charge the bunt. Henderson would turn second at full throttle and wind up at the unprotected third base. Murphy would either get a hit or, if he was out, his bunt was, in effect, a two-base sacrifice.

  That play is a cousin of one that Ty Cobb and his teammate Sam Crawford occasionally used when Cobb was on third and Crawford walked. Crawford would stroll toward first and then suddenly sprint around the base and tear toward second as Cobb was creeping down the line from third. If the startled team in the field threw to second, Cobb scored easily. Otherwise Crawford arrived at second with a two-base walk.

  What all such plays have in common is the constant push for a very slight edge. That push makes for edginess in both dugouts. La Russa’s base runners are taught to develop “antsy leads.” Most teams, when the other team has a runner on first, have a pitcher step off the rubber and hold the ball or throw over—all to give whoever is responsible, the manager or the coach, time to watch the runner to see if he tips off whether he is going. The “antsy lead” is a way of convincing the pitcher’s team that you are, indeed, going. The point of convincing them is to “work the count” by drawing a pitchout. If you draw it, you gain in the count and you may take the pitchout weapon away from the other team, at least for that runner. “But it’s important to take an antsy lead all the time, even if you are stealing,” says La Russa. “If you don’t, those guys [in the other dugout] will see the difference and say ‘He’s not trying to decoy us—he’s going.’ They’re smart over there.” He leans back in his chair, sighs contentedly and says, “There’s a lot of stuff goes on.”

  It will be going on again soon, come spring. Come on, spring.

  Spring Training is delightful everywhere but it is best in Arizona. The aridness of the region gives the green of the grass a particularly blazing brilliance. Some players complain that they can not sweat in Arizona’s dry climate but they are mistaken. They are sweating but the evaporation is virtually instantaneous. Others complain that because there is no humidity, the air is so thin that breaking balls do not have enough movement. There is a grain of truth to that complaint. However, aesthetics have their claim and the yellow cast of the sandy soil and the gleaming green make Cactus League baseball as pleasing to the eye as the Athletics’ green and gold uniforms.

  Mornings at the Athletics’ Spring Training camp begin with the team assembled in right field under the direction of a lean, limber man who places a boom box on the ground and fills the air with music. Under his guidance the team bends and stretches and generally works on baseball’s most recent fetish—flexibility. It is a sensible fetish. Baseball is a game of torque on the body’s trunk—swinging a bat, throwing, reaching to pick up the ground balls.

  This, then, is how to begin again, by getting the body ready for baseball’s suddenness. Baseball is not, like basketball or hockey or soccer, a game of steady flows. Rather, it is an episodic game of explosive exertions. They take a toll on muscles and can tear them and tendons and ligaments that are not patiently prepared for the ordeal. Hence this languorous 10:00 A.M. spring session with music, men slowly preparing for thousands of bursts of effort in the hard, hot summer.

  What La Russa has liked most about his recent Athletics teams was their “daily pushing, grinding.” Now it is March and the Athletics are tied with the Seattle Mariners and everyone else in the American League West. It begins again. Grinding can have different effects on different materials. It can dull some material by grinding it down; it can give other material a sharp edge.

  “Baseball,” says La Russa, “is the all-time humbler.”

  * In 1988 Walt Hriniak was the Red Sox batting coach. In 1989 he became the White Sox batting coach. The “Hriniak approach,” which will be discussed later, has a pedigree that traces to the late Charlie Lau. Lau’s name will crop up several times in these pages, as it continually does in baseball conversations. When La Russa managed the White Sox he hired Lau as a coach. La Russa has enormous respect for Hriniak as a teacher and he believes that the Lau-Hriniak style of hitting makes batters less vulnerable to pitchers’ wiles than any other style. It produces the best coverage of the plate by the bat. Also, it leaves pitchers with only a few ways to attack the batter, and those ways are difficult to execute.

  2

  THE PITCHER

  Orel Hershiser, In the Future Perfect Tense

  Minutes after Orel Hershiser won the fifth and final game of the 1988 World Series, Tony La Russa was asked to explain the defeat of his Athletics. In five games the Dodgers’ pitchers had held the Athletics to 2 home runs, 5 extra-base hits, 11 runs and a team batting average of .177. La Russa answered: “It’s been going on in baseball for 100 years. When pitchers make quality pitches, batters do not make good contact.” Not far from where La Russa spoke an Oakland fan spotted Hershiser walking through the bowels of the stadium. The fan shouted: “You were lucky, Hershiser.” Hershiser, without breaking stride, replied: “Oh, yeah? Grab a bat, kid.” Then, after a pause, he smiled.

  Hershiser had a lot of luck in 1988. One reason he had it is that he paid for it. He bought it with finely focused intelligence. “During the second game of the World Series,” La Russa recalls, “I was standing next to Dunc [Dave Duncan]. It was the first time I had been against Hershiser. About the fourth or fifth inning I said to Dunc, ‘We’ve got a problem. This guy reminds me of someone we both know. Watch him.’ Dunc said, ‘I think I know who you’re talking about.’ Just the way he was going about his business, competing, paying attention, his sense of what the situation was. He reminded me of Tom Seaver, the smartest pitcher I
have ever been around.” When Hershiser entered professional baseball he began hearing a refrain from older baseball people. It was: “I wish I knew what I know now back when I could still do it.” He decided to know it in time. For six weeks at the end of the 1988 season he seemed to know everything. The six weeks began immediately after August 24. And he knew a lot that night, too.

  On the evening of August 24 he lost a 2–1 decision to the Mets in Los Angeles. That was all the losing he would do for the rest of 1988. Midway through his next start, in Montreal, he would begin one of the most remarkable pitching performances in major league history. And he might have won on August 24 if the Mets’ Mookie Wilson had hit a home run rather than just a triple. Funny business, baseball. Sometimes less is more.

  With the Dodgers leading 1–0, Wilson hit a towering drive to the right-field fence, about two feet short of a home run. The Dodgers’ right fielder, Mike Marshall, got to the ball but could not catch it. Should have, but didn’t. He wrestled it to the ground and Wilson stood on third. If it had been a home run the score would have been tied but the Mets would not have had a rally going. The bases would have been empty; the pitching and defensive dynamics—they are interlocked—would have been different.

  In the clubhouse after the game Hershiser, his elbow in a tub of ice, told a cluster of writers and broadcasters, “If that ball is caught they probably don’t score any runs. I probably don’t walk [the next batter, Wally] Backman—I was pitching carefully to him to save the run. Then Hernandez hits a three-hopper to first, through the hole because we’re holding Backman on.” With Wilson on third, Hershiser walked Backman on a 3–2 pitch, a fastball away. Then Keith Hernandez hit a 1–0 slider, dribbling a dinky grounder past the first baseman, Tracy Woodson, who was holding Backman on. Even so, Woodson would have got to the ball if he had not slipped when moving for it to his right. If he had got to the ball he could have thrown the runner out at home or started a 3–6–3 double play.