Three Nights in August

by Buzz Bissinger

  Over two and a half decades, La Russa's job description has drastically changed. The strategy is still crucial, but the ability to coax players now is just as important, if not more so.

  He was aware of Jose Canseco, the most talented player he has ever managed, sitting with teammates around a hotel pool in Texas in 1990, complaining about the rigors of the baseball season. The A's had been to the World Series the last two years and had clinched the division the night before, but Canseco admitted to a certain ambivalence. "Why is it always us that has to go to the play-offs?" he asked without irony. The A's realized his fears by getting all the way to the World Series against the Reds. But Canseco clearly wanted to be somewhere else—weary of the red, white, and blue bunting and all that other hype. He was still a prodigious hitter when he wanted to be, but what was the point of making a man play in the World Series who didn't want to play in the World Series? He dogged a play in the outfield in Game 2 that cost the A's a victory, so La Russa benched him in Game 4. He tried to cover for Canseco by claiming that he had an injury, and Canseco did in fact have an injury, the crippling baseball disease of disinterest that comes with too much security and too much money and too much attention. Of all the players La Russa ever managed, no one ever had a more virulent case of it.

  After the great season of 1988, in which he set the baseball world on fire, Canseco had become a portrait only of distraction. In the middle of the 1990 season, he signed a multiyear, multimillion-dollar contract, but it didn't result in better play. It resulted in the opposite—flailing at pitches nowhere close to the plate, playing the oufield with all the vigor of waiting for a bus—so La Russa called him into his office.

  "What the hell are you doing? You're not playing the game. This is not how we play."

  "Tony, people would rather watch me take three big swings and try to hit the ball into the upper deck and strike out than shorten up with two strikes and try to play the game."

  "You're kidding me?"

  "No, I'm serious."

  "You're serious but you're wrong. You're a baseball player."

  "I'm a performer."

  Canseco was also dogged throughout his career by rumors that his prodigious feats on the field were enhanced by taking steroids off the field. During the 1988 American League Championship series against the Red Sox, Boston fans chanted "Ster-oids! Steroids!" as Canseco took his spot in right field. Rather than ignore the taunts, he turned, pulled up his sleeve, and flexed his biceps, perhaps just a taunt of his own, given that he hit three home runs in the A's four-game sweep of the Sox. On the eve of the 1988 World Series, Tom Boswell of the Washington Post accused Canseco of being on the juice. La Russa had established his own criterion to determine whether a player was taking steroids—a dramatic, bloatlike increase in size and strength in the off-season, without any previous dedication to strength training. But Canseco did not fit the criterion in 1988. Instead, La Russa saw him working out nearly every day in the clubhouse gym under the tutelage of first-base coach Dave McKay, who as a player had been one of the first to discover the fruits of weight training and aerobics. Canseco was stronger than he had been when La Russa came to the A's in 1986, but his tall physique was still relatively lean.

  But by 1992, before the A's traded Canseco to Texas, his body was notably different. He had the bloated look—as if he could be popped by a pin—and he wasn't the only player who looked that way during the early 1990s. "That's when it became clear to baseball people that we have something developing here that's not right or normal," said La Russa. But word was out that steroids did make a competitive difference, whatever the medical risks or the illegality (the federal government had classified them as controlled substances). La Russa suspected several players on his teams were juiced, although he also believes that steroid use on his clubs was "not excessive" when compared to other teams.

  By the late 1990s, La Russa saw something even more troubling: a widespread pattern of steroid use in the minor league. "Minor leaguers became convinced that to compete they had to do some form of steroids because they were looking at other guys in the minors going from .270 to .300 and fifteen homers to twenty-five." La Russa approached various minor-league players in hopes of discouraging their steroid use: Most were still in their teens, which made the health risks even more acute. They were also spending money they didn't have on juice. But their responses to his warnings only further defined the horror of the situation that organized baseball had created by not testing players for steroids. "How am I gonna make it if I don't?" they asked him. "I'm gonna be released. I got to do it to have a chance. Guys are going right by me."

  Of course, steroids were only the latest in a line of enhancers that players had taken over the years to improve performance. In the 1960s, there was "red juice," a liquid stimulant that players of that era favored. Then came "greenies," culminating in a criminal trial in which a doctor admitted he had supplied amphetamines to various members of the Phillies in the early 1980s. After greenies disappeared, it was inevitable that ballplayers would find something else rather than, in the parlance of the game, "play naked."

  If it was evident by the late 1990s that taking steroids improved performance, it was also evident that the one entity that could curtail it most effectively—the Major League Baseball Players Association—would not do so. "In each case where any of us would approach a player, what ended up happening was that the union made it clear that you're not going anywhere with this one," said La Russa. So he and other managers and coaches were left to deal with the problem on their own. During spring training, La Russa talked to the team generally about steroid use, pointing out the health risks as well as the consequences of getting caught, because it was a federal crime to use them. He instructed his training staff and coaches never to suggest a player use them. But he didn't make a stump speech about the issue, aware of how little his harangues could achieve in the absence of league testing.

  Baseball's owners could have exerted their clout on the players' union to agree to testing, but every time the issue was raised, the union said it was a violation of players' privacy and sealed off further discussion. The owners may have had their own motivations to let the problem continue to escalate. In the late 1990s, the owners—desperate to reclaim the game's fan base after the strike of 1994 that had cancelled the World Series—latched on to the home run as a marketing tool. Fans liked it, and if steroids helped fuel the home-run frenzy, so be it. The tacit sanctioning of steroids upset La Russa and other managers and coaches, and their unease wasn't simply altruistic. Throughout the 1990s, several innovations had gradually shifted the game in the hitters' favor: a lowered mound, added expansion teams (which enlarged and diluted the pool of pitching talent), new teacup-sized ballparks, a tighter strike zone. Add steroids to the list, because they gave strength to drive balls farther, and it was like "piling on," as La Russa put it; crooked numbers became almost effortless in certain parks.

  Home-run hysteria peaked in 1998 when the Cards' Mark McGwire and the Cubs' Sammy Sosa battled to break perhaps the most sacred record in all of baseball, Roger Maris's sixty-one home runs in a single season. Both players didn't just break it; they shattered it: McGwire hitting seventy home runs and Sosa sixty-six. La Russa managed McGwire when he broke the record, and McGwire admitted that during the season he had taken a steroid precursor known as "Andro," short for androstendione. Andro was available over the counter at the time, although the NFL and the Olympics had banned it. McGwire made no attempt to hide his use of it. He kept a bottle on the shelf of his locker in plain view, and La Russa does not believe that McGwire ever used anything other than Andro (he also stopped taking it in 1999 and still hit sixty-five home runs). He was big when he came into the league in 1986 and over time became dedicated to working out as often as six days a week in order to prevent further injuries. In the early 1990s, he actually lost weight to take pressure off a chronically sore heel; weight loss runs counter to the bloated look of someone on steroids. But the same
could not be said of Canseco. Despite a body that ultimately metamorphosed into an almost cartoonish shape—Brutus meets Popeye—he denied throughout his career that he ever had taken steroids, until his playing days ended in 2002. Two weeks later, ever the performer, he admitted with much ballyhoo that he had indeed been on the juice.

  Rickey Henderson was another high-profile player who moved to his own brooding rhythms. In all of La Russa's years of managing, no player in baseball has ever been more dangerous than Henderson with his combination of on-base percentage and base-stealing skills and power. Impervious to pressure unlike any player La Russa had ever seen before, he became a marked man around the league because he could beat you in so many ways, and he still starred for almost the entire decade of the 1980s. Henderson was a popular teammate, friendly and respectful. But he could be difficult.

  In 1991, he started turning to La Russa before games and saying that he could not play because of hard-to-pinpoint injuries. La Russa appreciated Henderson's talent and knew that his own job was to tap into the pool of it. He understood that Henderson always believed that he was being taken advantage of, screwed with. It had driven him nuts in 1990 when the A's, after saying that they could not pay any single player more than $3 million a year, signed Canseco to a $5-million-a-year contract. Henderson was pissed and rightly so, La Russa felt, given that he was having an MVP year.

  Henderson became convinced that Canseco was getting preferential treatment and watched obsessively for evidence. By 1992, Henderson made sure that Canseco got nothing over him, including the disabled list. When Canseco went, Henderson went. If Canseco said he couldn't play for a couple of days, Henderson said he couldn't play for a couple of days. As the manager, La Russa could insist that Henderson play if there was no apparent injury. But what good would that do? When Henderson said he couldn't go and La Russa put him in anyway, he'd simply stand in the outfield "like a cigar store Indian. Balls would bounce here, bounce there, all around him."

  La Russa established a rule: When Henderson felt he couldn't play, he had to tell him directly instead of relaying it through the trainer, as players usually did. That way, at least, La Russa and Henderson could discuss why he couldn't play. This system worked well; Henderson opted out only a few times, until one game against Baltimore around the All-Star break in 1993. The A's were trying to stay in the divisional race, and there were rumors that Henderson might be traded for a pitcher.

  "I can't go today," he told La Russa.

  "What do you mean you can't go?"

  "I'm telling you, Tony. If I tell you I can't go, I can't go."

  "Rickey..."

  "Rickey's head's not right."

  "What do you mean your head's not right?"

  "I hear I'm being traded. So my head's not right. I can't go."

  In the decade since then, La Russa has had dozens of such conversations, conversations that can steal his faith.

  And then there's Eldred, warming up in the bottom of the sixth of Game 2. And La Russa's faith returns.

  II

  HE WAS a phenom once—a first-round pick of the Brewers in the June 1989 draft. He had the label in the late 1980s as he rolled through Beloit and Stockton and El Paso and Denver. His face—sweetly round and soft—contained a corn-fed quality that people liked to associate with a big, strapping 6'4" kid from Cedar Rapids who could bring it. He had a four-seam let-it-rip fastball, and he liked letting it go. The notes from the Cardinals media guide about Eldred, one of those elliptical athlete's biographies, testified to its power:

  1989—... named the No. 2 College Prospect in the country by Collegiate Baseball.

  1990—Struck out a season high 15 batters on 5/10 vs. San Jose ... opened the season at Stockton with a one-hit, 14-strikeout performance.

  1991—...led Class AAA pitchers in strikeouts, IP and games started ... was named the Brewers' Minor League Player of the Year ... made his ML debut on 9/24 vs. NYY, becoming the first Brewers rookie since Rickey Keaton (1980) to win his starting pitching debut.

  1992—Was named AL Rookie Pitcher of the Year by The Sporting News ...posted an 11–2 record with a 1.79 ERA ... set club record with a .846 winning percentage surpassing Moose Haas (.813 in 1983)...tied club record with 10 straight wins from 8/8 to 9/29 ... limited opponents to a .207 BA, best among AL starting pitchers ... was named AL Pitcher of the Month for September after going 5–0 with a 1.17 ERA and two complete games.

  Following that sublime rookie season in 1992, Eldred established himself as the Brewers' workhorse. In his first full season in 1993, at the age of twenty-five, he led the American League in innings pitched, with 258. He finished third in the same category in 1994. After all, he was a big kid from Iowa, and that's what big kids from Iowa are supposed to do, work on the mound just like they're working back on the farm. Myth became reality and reality became myth. Had they not been keeping him so busy pitching, the Brewers might have put Eldred in a milking contest during the seventh-inning stretch against some western Wisconsin magic-fingers udder expert. During both years, he tied for the league lead in games started. And then the media guide begins to read differently:

  1995—... was placed on the disabled list on 5/19 and missed the remainder of the season after having Tommy John surgery on 6/23.

  1996—... began the season on the 60-day disabled list...

  1998—... was placed on the 15-day disabled list on 7/27 with a small fracture in his right elbow and missed the rest of the season...

  1999—... began the season on the 15-day disabled list recovering from a small fracture in his right elbow...

  2000—Injuries to his right elbow cut short one of his best major-league seasons ... did not pitch from 7/15–9/26 ... left his first start of the second half on 7/14 vs. STL in the fifth inning after experiencing discomfort in his right elbow ... injury was later diagnosed as ulnar neuritis ... was placed on 15-day disabled list on 7/17 ... allowed four runs in 2.0 IP in his second rehab start on 9/3 before experiencing pain (diagnosed as a stress fracture below his right elbow)...had a five-inch screw surgically inserted near his elbow on 9/7 by White Sox senior team physician Dr. James Boscardin...

  2001—Made two starts, both against Cleveland, before missing the rest of the season with an injury to his right elbow ... was placed on the 15-day DL on 4/12 and did not pitch again...

  2002—Sat out the entire season as he continued to rehab his injured right elbow.

  From 1995 to 2002, there was only one season in which Eldred had not been sidelined by injuries involving his right elbow. He was on the disabled list six times. He missed large chunks of the 1995, 1998, 2000, and 2001 seasons. He went through Tommy John surgery. He suffered a small fracture in his right elbow and then a stress fracture below his right elbow, requiring the insertion of the 5-inch screw to somehow patch it back together. It isn't unusual for a pitcher to miss an entire season because of arm troubles and then come back. Arm troubles are to pitchers what girl troubles are to country singers. But Eldred didn't miss one season; he basically missed two, his last game on April 11, 2001, when he was with the White Sox and pitched two innings against Cleveland before knowing the elbow still wasn't right. In 1992, he'd been named AL Rookie of the Year. Nine years later, his arm was useless; he couldn't pick up one of his children, much less pitch. Hindsight suggested that the Brewers had done him no favors by working him so hard early in his career.

  He went back home to Cedar Rapids. His wife was pregnant with their fourth child, and Eldred realized that there were certain things about baseball he didn't miss at all, such as the travel or the time away from his family. In August 2001, he had the fourth surgery on his right elbow, to remove the screw that had been inserted. When the next baseball season rolled around, Eldred was still in Iowa. And then he felt something, or more precisely the absence of something, and he thought it was worth telling his wife:

  "My arm doesn't hurt."

  For the first time in what seemed like forever, he could do household chores wit
hout pain. And then came the usually catastrophic thought that comes to every former pro athlete—Do I have something left? This too was worth telling the wife:

  "I think I'm gonna try to pitch again."

  Eldred missed the competition. He missed being part of a team. Those are the things that you expect an athlete to mention when you ask what he misses. But there was something else. He knew that his wife might have a difficult time truly understanding it, as would anybody who hasn't done it. It was the feeling of what it felt like to grip a baseball, know the grip felt right in the fingers because you were coming with a full-heat hothouse four-seamer, throw that four-seamer to the very spot you intended, then watch it pop into the back of the catcher's glove as the hitter swings through it. It wasn't a macho feeling to Eldred. It was simply one worth trying to have again.