It seems like yesterday, but Brian Johnson’s epic game-winning homerun took place nearly a decade ago, almost to the day. Has it really been ten years?
Johnson grew up in Oakland, attending Skyline High School. He lettered in the three major sports, and was even Gary Payton’s backup on the hoops team. Interestingly enough, his best sport was probably football, as he earned a full scholarship to Stanford, where he was the starting quarterback during his first three seasons. In the meantime, he led the Cardinal baseball team to a pair of College World Series championships. The fun part: he played seven positions–all but catcher and second base.
Johnson was drafted by the Yankees in the 1989 Draft. He soon returned to catching duties, despite not playing catcher since high school. He cracked the big leagues in 1994, with the San Diego Padres.
But his moment in the sun was September 18, 1997. We’ll let the Giants official site do the honors:
After more than four hours of baseball, the teams were still stuck at five runs each when Johnson came to the plate to lead off the bottom of the 12th. Reliever Mark Guthrie threw one pitch, and Johnson clobbered it. It rode toward the wall in left, but having already seen an earlier Dodgers blow to nearly the same spot look like a sure home run, only to be knocked down by the Candlestick Park wind, the 52,140 in attendance held their breath.
When the ball cleared the fence and landed in the left-field bleachers, the ballpark erupted. It’s possible cars on nearby Highway 101 thought an earthquake was happening as the frenzied crowd celebrated wildly while Johnson circled the bases. The catcher later said he didn’t even feel his feet hitting the ground as he ran, and when he crossed the plate, his teammates mobbed him. The scoreboard itself almost seemed alive as it displayed the current NL West standings, with the Giants and Dodgers in a flat-footed tie.
That was the season of Dustiny. And no one epitomized that feeling more than Brian Johnson.
Yeah, we’re sticking with the 1988 World Series nostalgia clips. Here we have the First Lady delivering a very important message to the youth of America and then tossing out the ceremonial first pitch.
Seeing that “pitch” makes us realize that Nancy Reagan was almost a real-life, female version of Mr. Burns (albeit not evil … probably).
[Kidding aside, we think she did a very nice thing in bringing the whole "Say no to drugs" campaign to the country and we wouldn't wish to imply otherwise.]
In so many ways, “Hendu” was the exact opposite of Rickey: a workmanlike, unassuming and underrated outfielder. And like the earlier-discussed Mike Aldrete, Dave Henderson had stints with both the Giants and A’s.
Born just south of the Bay in Merced, Hendu came up with the Seattle Mariners in 1981. Baseball fans around the nation probably best remember him for his ALCS-clinching home run in the ninth inning as a member of the 1986 Boston Red Sox.
During the tail end of the 1987 season, he was traded to San Francisco but after a mere 15 games in orange and black, he signed with the A’s during the offseason. In Oakland, he resurrected his career, setting career highs in average (.304), doubles (38) and hits (154). He was an All-Star in 1991 (when he hit behind Rickey Henderson).
He finished his 14-year career in 1994 after a season with the Kansas City Royals, which is enough to make anyone want to retire.
Hendu is currently a broadcaster for the Seattle Mariners. He also sponsors a host of “baseball adventures.” We will always remember Hendu for his slight resemblance to David Allen Grier.
Everyone who played youth baseball knows about the “Mike Aldrete” kid: the nice left-handed hitter who has a super sweet swing but no speed, power or defensive prowess.
Mike Aldrete was a Northern California kid. A Carmel native, he lettered in the three big sports at Monterey High, then went on to play ball at Stanford. He cracked into the bigs with the Giants in 1986 and had his best year in 1987, hitting an impressive .325 as the team went to the NLCS (stupid Jose Oquendo).
After his stint with the Giants, he did some traveling, making stops in Montreal, Cleveland, San Diego, Oakland, Anaheim (or, as it was known back then, California), New York and Syracuse. He filled in admirably for the injured Mark McGwire in 1993 with the A’s and later won a World Series ring with the 1996 Yankees.
In 2003, he scored the first base coach job with the Seattle Mariners, who were then managed by his good buddy and former Giant Bob Melvin. In 2005, when Melvin took over the Arizona Diamondbacks, he brought Aldrete along, and Aldrete is currently the DBacks’ hitting coach. He lives in Monterey with his family in the offseason.
Coming off the bench to pinch hit in those 1987 games, Mike was always a personal childhood favorite of ours.
Esteban! Loaiza led the A’s to victory and .500. Fresh off the DL, the vet pitched 7 2/3 innings and gave up a mere trio of hits to his Canadian feathered friends. Jack Cust homered, as he always does. [SFGate]
Like Jesus before him, Mr. Cust has been resurrected. [Rumors & Rants]
Just because the A’s are down and out, Billy Beane is not going to abandon Moneyball. Instead, he’s going to tweak it during the offseason. Look for a new and improved Moneyball 2.0 next year. [The FanHouse]
Maybe B-Beane should just schedule Wednesday games, because the A’s and Wednesday games? Well, they go together like peas and carrots. [Athletics Nation]
Frank Thomas lumbers around the bases, not unlike an apatosaurus, were it to get a single. [SFGate]
Rich Harden was transferred to the 15-day DL to the 60-day DL.
Usually we don’t share non-A’s news in this little feature, but the Texas Rangers beat the Baltimore Orioles 30-3 last night. [ESPN]
During the late 90s, behind the Rice-Owens-Stokes triumvirate lurked one Iheanyi Uwaezuoke.
Iheanyi Uwaezuoke, pronounced e-HaN-yee ooh-WAYZ-o-KAY (it was great when Sportscenter anchors had to try to pronounce it off the teleprompter), was the 49ers’ fifth round draft pick in 1996. In some ways, Uwauzuoke was a local boy, playing his college ball at Cal (and he had quite the stellar career at Berkeley), but in other ways–like being born in Nigeria–he really wasn’t that much of a local boy.
To this day, Uwaezuoke might hold rights to the worst debut in Niners history. In his first game, the rookie dropped the first pass that came his way, then dropped the first two punts that came his way, and to top it all off, he injured his shoulder and wound up on the injured list. Suffice to say, it was not a good first day in the office.
In two and a half seasons with the Niners, Uwaezuoke compiled 24 receptions for 323 yards. He was picked up by the Miami Dolphins during the 1998 season, and rounded out his career with Detroit and Carolina in the 1999 and 2000 seasons, respectively, though the majority of his playing time came on special teams. In 2000, he found his way back to the Bay and tried to land a spot on the Oakland Raiders’ roster, but that didn’t quite work out.
In retrospect, Uwaezuoke was a very speedy receiver/returner–probably the best deep threat on those teams–who really was just in the wrong place at the wrong time, considering he was behind a Hall-of-Famer (Jerry Rice), an up-and-coming superstar (Terrell Owens) and a big-name high draft pick (JJ Stokes).
We’re not sure of his post-retirement whereabouts, so if anyone has any info, feel free to share.
For someone who spent a mere three years with the Giants, Brett Butler certainly left his mark on San Francisco and its fans. From 1988 to 1990, Butler sat atop the lineups of those great Clark-Thompson-Mitchell teams. His presence on the basepaths gave the Giants the speedy leadoff hitter they had lacked for years. In each of his three years, he scored over 100 runs (leading the league in ‘88), hit over .280 and even received multiple MVP votes. He led the league in hits in 1990 as well.
We still remember Butler’s crouched, open stance, his drag bunts and his daring leads off first. In short, he was the prototype leadoff hitter.
Unfortunately, after establishing himself as a premier leadoff hitter with the Giants, Butler moved on to his best years with the Los Angeles Dodgers (1991-95). Interestingly enough, he became one of the few (only?) players to make that move without being completely vilified here.
In 1996, Butler discovered he had tonsil cancer. After surgery to remove the tumor and other treatment, he surprisingly–and triumphantly–returned to the Dodgers’ lineup that same year and again for one more go-round in 1997.
Since retiring after the ‘97 season, Butler found himself in coaching. He was a coach on the 2005 Arizona Diamondbacks and then became the manager for a D-Backs minor league club, the Mobile BayBears.
On July 29th, Butler was hospitalized for a stroke. He’ll probably miss the rest of the year, but held a press conference earlier this week and said he’ll be undergoing therapy three times a week. Our best wishes to him. Here’s hoping for a quick and full recovery.
Chris Gatling was the Warriors’ 1st round selection in the 1991 NBA Draft. Out of Old Dominion, the 6-10 forward spent four solid years as the Warriors’ energy guy, gobbling up loose balls more quickly than a Hungry Hungry Hippo. Gatling’s four-year stint with the Warriors was his longest stay with any team of his career, though he may be best known for shaking Shawn Kemp’s hand after Kemp viciously dunked on him. Indeed, GAT’s time with the Dubs was nearly longer than the big scar atop his head.
The man with tattoos of the Energizer Bunny and the Tasmanian Devil became the ultimate “throw-in-to-make-salaries-work guy.” His Melvillian odyssey around America commenced with the trade that sent Tim Hardaway to Miami. After Miami, Gatling was traded to the following teams: New Jersey, Dallas, Milwaukee, Denver, Orlando and finally back to Miami. In his career, he was signed and released three times by the Heat. Interestingly enough, Gatling was an All-Star with the Dallas Mavericks during the 1997 contest.
But upon retiring from the NBA, Gatling wasn’t done. He went to Moscow to play, where he enjoyed hanging out at TGI Friday’s and just living the life. He didn’t even mind playing in the (apparently) racist Russian league, justifying himself in the following manner:
“My Italian friend told me I would be fine over here because — and don’t take this the wrong way — I’m not BLACK black,” Gatling — who has a light pigmentation — says. “You know, I could be a Latino, or whatever.”
These days, Gatling–who’s not BLACK black–has been known to partake in the All-Star game festivities in Vegas, and he allegedly owes over $40,000 in child support as of March 2006.
Yesterday, family members, Niners kin and scores of NFL greats gathered at Stanford Memorial Church to undertake Bill Walsh’s final play call: his funeral.
Like so many well-executed game plans from his coaching career, Walsh’s funeral was pre-planned by the coaching great with great meticulousness and well, success.
Rather than recount the ceremony second-handedly and list off the myriad names of the “cavalcade of 49ers and NFL greats,” we’re just going to recommend that you read Nancy Gay’s touching recap.
Today at 11am, a public Bill Walsh Memorial Service will take place at Candlestick. Admission and parking are free; gates open at 10am. If you can’t make it, it will be broadcast on KRON and the NFL Network, as well as over the radio/internet (KNBR).
When Kevin Mitchell caught a fly ball barehanded, it was one of the most memorable plays in baseball history.
Hyperbole? Maybe, maybe not.
But we remember it so vividly. Since it happened in 1987, off the bat of Ozzie Smith (who had his own barehanded prowess), Mitchell’s catch came to define that era of Giants baseball. Along with Jeffrey Leonard running around the bases with “one-flap” down, The Thrill’s debut against Nolan Ryan and the Earthquake, it remains a visual that we’ll never forget. They even made a bobble head about it.
With the artists formerly known as the Montreal Expos in town, (at least in some people’s eyes), we thought we’d take a moment to look back at one of the great teams of the past decade: the 1994 Expos.
This team will go down in history–if it hasn’t already–as the team that got royally screwed by the strike. At the time of the stoppage, the ‘Spos were six games atop the Braves and generally considered the best team in baseball. Managed by Felipe Alou, they had an excellent starting rotation anchored by veteran rocks Ken Hill (who was 16-5 at striketime) and Jeff Fassero; rounding out the rotation were two youngsters you may recognize: Pedro Martinez and Kirk Rueter. The bullpen was awesome too, with John Wetteland not yet a Yankee champion and Mel Rojas not yet a journeyman.
As for the lineup, well, it was stacked with All-Stars and offense:
C Darrin Fletcher
1B Cliff Floyd
2B Mike Lansing
3B Sean Berry
SS Wil Cordero
LF Moises Alou
CF Marquis Grissom
RF Larry Walker
A year later: Walker, Grissom, Floyd, Hill and Wetteland were all expelled from “Canadia.” Soon thereafter, so were Pedro, Moises and Woody.
Here’s a nice little reminder of the greatness of Chris Mullin. People may remember him as a dead-eye shooter, but as this mix proves, he was also a great defensive player, a deft passer and took the ball to the hole a lot.
There’s even a clip of him dunking over someone (around the 3:15 mark).
See, the weird thing is that Steve Bono was really, really good.
In all likelihood at least.
For five long years, from 1989 to 1993, Bono was stuck as the Niners’ second- or third-string quarterback, condemned to the clipboard and baseball cap behind Joe Montana and Steve Young. In 1991, Bono started six games when the two aforementioned Hall of Famers went down with injuries; he went 5-1 as a starter en route to the fourth-best QB rating in the league (behind Young, Jim Kelly and Mark Rypien).
In 1994, Bono was traded to the Kansas City Chiefs, where he became the backup to … Joe Montana. Upon Joe’s retirement, Bono finally got his chance to be a starting quarterback in the NFL. He made the most of his long-awaited opportunity, leading the division-winning Chiefs to a 13-3 record and representing the AFC in the Pro Bowl.
Bono also played for the Vikings, Steelers, Packers, Rams and Panthers during his career. According to Wikipedia, he currently lives in Palo Alto and works at a San Francisco investment bank.
If you’re a regular reader around these parts, you know that we have a certain fondness for Bay Area nostalgia and the like. From Willie McGee and Joel Youngblood to Alton Lister and Chris Gatling, nothing tickles us like a name from another lifetime that hasn’t resonated in about a decade or so.
Thus, you can imagine our delight when we came across a new Giants book called Game of My Life: Memorable Stories of Giants Baseball.
The author, Matt Johanson, is a lifelong Giants fan, so it’s obviously written from a fan’s point view, covering the entirety (or thereabouts) of the Giants’ stay in San Francisco.
Each chapter is dedicated to a different San Francisco Giant and his “memorable story.” One of the cool things about the short, behind-the-scenes anecdotes is that they range from well-known superstars (Willie Mays, The Thrill, Robb Nen) to more obscure players (Al Gallagher, D-Lew, Brian Dallimore).
Since we’re feeling generous, we’re providing an excerpt from the third chapter of the book: Felipe Alou’s tale from October 1962, titled “The good Lord heard my prayer.” Matt Johanson’s words follow post-jump.
It seems like yesterday, but Brian Johnson’s epic game-winning homerun took place nearly a decade ago, almost to the day. Has it really been ten years?
Posted by Say Hey
Posted by Say Hey
Posted by Say Hey
Ah, the other Henderson in the Oakland outfield.
Everyone who played youth baseball knows about the “Mike Aldrete” kid: the nice left-handed hitter who has a super sweet swing but no speed, power or defensive prowess.
During the late 90s, behind the Rice-Owens-Stokes triumvirate lurked one Iheanyi Uwaezuoke.
For someone who spent a mere three years with the Giants, Brett Butler certainly left his mark on San Francisco and its fans. From 1988 to 1990, Butler sat atop the lineups of those great Clark-Thompson-Mitchell teams. His presence on the basepaths gave the Giants the speedy leadoff hitter they had lacked for years. In each of his three years, he scored over 100 runs (leading the league in ‘88), hit over .280 and even received multiple MVP votes. He led the league in hits in 1990 as well.
Chris Gatling was the Warriors’ 1st round selection in the 1991 NBA Draft. Out of Old Dominion, the 6-10 forward spent four solid years as the Warriors’ energy guy, gobbling up loose balls more quickly than a Hungry Hungry Hippo. Gatling’s four-year stint with the Warriors was his longest stay with any team of his career, though he may be best known for shaking Shawn Kemp’s hand after Kemp viciously dunked on him. Indeed, GAT’s time with the Dubs was nearly longer than the big scar atop his head.
With the artists formerly known as the Montreal Expos in town, (at least in some people’s eyes), we thought we’d take a moment to look back at one of the great teams of the past decade: the 1994 Expos.
See, the weird thing is that Steve Bono was really, really good.
If you’re a regular reader around these parts, you know that we have a certain fondness for 