Hairs vs. Squares Page 14

  Holtzman began his baseball career in 1965 in the Pioneer League and, after going 4-0 with a 1.00 ERA, was promoted to the Northwest League, where he went 4-3 with an ERA of 2.40.

  Called up to the Cubs that September, he made his major league debut September 4 at age nineteen. Entering the game against San Francisco in the ninth inning, Holtzman allowed a home run to the first hitter he faced, Jim Ray Hart. He made three relief appearances at the end of the season and then became a starter in 1966.

  Jewish and a stylish southpaw, Holtzman was called the “next Koufax.” He is the winningest Jewish pitcher in major league history, his 174 career victories surpassing the 165 recorded by Koufax, who at age thirty was forced into early retirement by an arthritic elbow following his 1966 Cy Young–winning season.

  Holtzman said once that of all his baseball accomplishments—winning three straight World Series with the A’s; hurling two no-hitters for the Cubs; being remembered as the all-time winningest Jewish pitcher—his biggest thrill came the first time he walked into Wrigley Field in a Cubs uniform. That moment validated the sacrifices and hard work necessary to reach the majors. The no-hitters, championships, and personal accomplishments were anticlimactic. Nothing, Holtzman said, surpassed realizing a childhood dream.

  Armed with a looping, roundhouse curve, Holtzman established himself as the number two man in the Cubs’ rotation behind right-hander Ferguson Jenkins. Until he joined the A’s, 1969 had been Holtzman’s best shot at reaching the playoffs. It was a fun summer on Chicago’s North Side. The Cubs featured future Hall of Famers in Jenkins, Ernie Banks, Billy Williams, and Ron Santo. They were the beasts of the East, leading their division by as many as nine games as late as August 16. But as the summer wore on, the Cubs wore down. With the signature ivy on Wrigley’s walls turning from bright green to light brown as fall descended, the Cubs were overtaken by the “Miracle Mets” in the race for the division title and finished eight games back.

  “Once we got caught,” Jenkins said, “we just couldn’t keep the pace.”

  Throughout his Cubs’ career Holtzman kept a remarkable pace. He was talented and durable, throwing an eleven-inning complete game against the Dodgers in 1967 and going twelve innings against the eventual world champion Pirates two years later. In ’71 he set a Cubs record by being the club’s first pitcher since 1884 to toss two no-hitters. That same summer Holtzman tied a league record when he struck out the first five New York Mets he faced in a September 5 outing.

  By 1971 Holtzman was unhappy with the Cubs and with manager Leo Durocher. True to his nickname, Leo “the Lip” had criticized Holtzman publicly for not using his fastball more and relying on what Durocher disparagingly described as a “lollipop” curve. At the close of the season, Holtzman walked into the club’s front office and asked general manager John Holland to trade him. Holtzman said it was Durocher’s handling of the team, rather than the Lip’s public criticism, that prompted him to seek a trade.

  Holtzman knew Durocher was from the old school; he had been a player on two of the greatest teams of all time, the Babe Ruth–Lou Gehrig “Murderers’ Row” Yankees of the 1920s and the Dizzy Dean–Pepper Martin “Gashouse Gang” Cardinals of the 1930s.

  Baseball, however, had changed a lot by the 1970s. The major leagues weren’t just getting a lot of players from small towns in the South anymore. The modern players, Holtzman pointed out, were more educated; they had college degrees, even master’s degrees. He didn’t think Durocher understood that.

  Chicago had been the site of some happy times for Holtzman. He met his wife Michelle in the Windy City. At the time of the trade some of his family and friends lived there. His biggest issue was that while the Cubs had the talent to win, something always seemed to prevent them from reaching the postseason. Even when leading the East, they expected the worst to happen. Holtzman felt the Cubs played defensively because of Durocher; they were afraid to get yelled at by Leo the Lip.

  Holtzman noted in 1972 that he had asked to be traded, not demanded. When Holland called Holtzman to tell him he had been dealt to the A’s, Ken’s response was simply to say, “Fine, thank you.” By his own admission, he wasn’t that familiar with the American League, but he realized the A’s must be good since they had been in the playoffs the season before. Now, he thought, he had a chance to pitch in the postseason.

  The timing of the trade was fortuitous for Holtzman and the A’s. He was a seasoned, talented front-line lefty in search of a new team, and the A’s were a team in search of a seasoned, experienced front-line lefty. Williams figured another southpaw on the A’s starting staff would help neutralize some of the league’s better portside swingers: Yaz, the Yankees’ Bobby Murcer, Baltimore’s Boog Powell, and (in the A’s own division) the Twins’ Tony Oliva and Rod Carew. On November 29 the A’s and Cubs agreed, and Holtzman was dealt to Oakland for outfielder Rick Monday.

  A’s catchers found Holtzman almost as easy to catch as Hunter. Holtzman’s theory was to challenge hitters. He wasn’t going to give a game away by walking batters. One of the top control pitchers of his era, he ranked among the league leaders in fewest walks four times in his career. There were times Holtzman didn’t have his pinpoint control, but he never gave up or gave in. Some pitchers in similar situations would start fighting themselves, but Holtzman didn’t. It hadn’t always been that way. When Holtzman was younger, he would get down on himself if he started a game pitching poorly. By 1972 he knew he had to work to adjust. It was a matter of maturity.

  Like Hunter, Holtzman constantly looked to get ahead of the hitter. Both were pattern pitchers in that each pitch was connected to the one before and after. They thought in terms of two or three pitches at a time, putting one pitch in one spot to set up the next two pitches. Holtzman might start a hitter with an inside pitch to let him know he had it; another time he might throw a couple of pitches outside to set up the hitter for an inside pitch. Concentration is the biggest part of pitching, Holtzman once said. When he struggled, it was often because he was not thinking in sequence.

  Holtzman learned how to pitch from Bill Hands when both were with the Cubs. Hands told Holtzman to get that first strike, and Ken learned to avoid walks while pitching in Wrigley Field. Hands taught Kenny there was more to pitching than physical ability, taught him how to adjust on days when he didn’t have his best stuff.

  It all came together for Holtzman in 1968, and it happened from one game to the next. One game he was a thrower, the next he was a pitcher. Before that he had just thrown as hard as he could. He didn’t like to talk about pacing because he felt most fans would think that meant throwing half-speed pitches in the early innings. What it really meant was working so that if you had to reach back for something extra in the later innings, it would be there.

  The scouting report on Holtzman was that he had different fastballs and would take something off of them. Holtzman also had what Fosse thought was a “real easy delivery.” Having batted against him, Fosse knew Holtzman’s fastball could suddenly be on top of the hitter. Opposing batters believed they could wait on Holtzman’s offerings, but that wasn’t true. “The ball would be on them,” Fosse said, eating them up.

  Fosse found out the same was true for the catcher. Sometimes he would give Holtzman a sign, and before he could get down in his catcher’s stance, here came the pitch. Fosse would have to ask Holtzman, “At least let me get down there before you throw the ball.”

  It was all part of Holtzman’s pitching in rhythm. It wasn’t uncommon for him to throw a complete game in two hours; he once beat Texas 4–1 in 1:39.

  Holtzman was not only quick on the trigger, but he was a quick study as well. He read books whose subjects would deter some of his teammates and led to his being called “the Thinker.” When the A’s went on the road, Holtzman would buy four or five paperbacks in the terminal so that he would have something to read in his hotel room rather than going out on the town. He preferred to read Proust in the original French. Sportswriters found that Holt
zman, like Hunter, seldom answered questions quickly. The Cat was given to long pauses and would at times answer questions only after staring for long moments at the floor. Kenny, too, thought over his answers, almost savoring them, as the smoke from his cigarette swirled past a wispy mustache.

  Holtzman didn’t see any conflict in being an intellectual and a baseball player. He knew baseball was an instinctive sport in which “book smarts” were seen by some as only useful in winning clubhouse bridge tournaments. Holtzman knew intelligence was relevant to the game because it was needed to make the day-to-day adjustments necessary to compete with the best players in the world. To stay in the majors one had to have knowledge of the game’s strategy and techniques. Holtzman believed his earned run average should be roughly equal to what his grade point average had been in college, and it was. His career ERA is 3.49, and his GPA was right around 3.4.

  Holtzman was an intellectual but not aloof. On plane trips he played bridge with Fingers, Knowles, and Green. He got along well with his new teammate and roommate, the blustery McLain. Unlike McLain, who was a gambler and liked to play golf for money, bowl for money, etc., Holtzman thought of money during his playing days as a tool to better one’s self, not a status symbol. Holtzman said he was a free spender at times, but he made sure the immediate needs of his family were met first.

  McLain helped smooth Holtzman’s transition to a new team. Holtzman was quiet, and the reason he was reserved at times, he said, stemmed from concentrating so much. Still Holtzman had a dry humor. When the A’s acquired Art Shamsky, a member of the Miracle Mets, on June 28 to replace Curt Blefary as a left-handed pinch hitter, it gave Oakland three Jewish players—Holtzman, Epstein, and Shamsky. Holtzman said he heard the A’s were “going to have Golda Meier as a shortstop.”

  Holtzman could joke about his Jewish heritage, but since his retirement from the game he’s revealed he had to endure a fair amount of anti-Semitic remarks during his career. The insults came from fans, players, and others associated with the game. Jackson has claimed that Holtzman’s troubled tenure with the New York Yankees in the mid-1970s was due to the fact that manager Billy Martin was anti-Semitic. Others have refuted that charge and said that it was not Martin who held Holtzman back but team owner George Steinbrenner, who believed Holtzman was underperforming. Hunter recalled Steinbrenner’s confronting him in 1975, the Catfish’s first season in New York, and accusing the Cat of not pitching up to expectations.

  When he encountered antisemitism, Holtzman did not let it distract him. He was dedicated to his craft and believed that if he allowed insults to affect him, he was not being fair to himself, his teammates, management, or the front office.

  Holtzman, however, would not run from a challenge. He stood up to bigotry when necessary. In an amateur league in St. Louis, Holtzman was the lone Jewish player on a team playing a game in a very rural part of the state. An opposing player shouted anti-Semitic remarks and challenges at Holtzman from the dugout. Finally the player got up to bat. Holtzman glared at him, then threw a slow curve on the first pitch. The idea, Holtzman said, was to get that player leaning out over the plate so that he could drill him with a subsequent pitch. Holtzman issued another slow curve, then came back with a pitch that the batter tapped weakly back to the mound. As he was running toward first base, the hitter threw his bat at Holtzman. For a second Holtzman believed he might become the first pitcher to deliver a knockdown pitch against a hitter who was already running to first base. Before Holtzman could react, his catcher, who was Catholic and a friend, tackled the runner. Holtzman’s father was at the game, and he came out of the stands and tried to get at the hitter as well. All hell broke loose, and the police had to restore order.

  Some forty years passed and Holtzman was working at the Jewish Community Center in St. Louis when the same player who had thrown his bat at him showed up and apologized for his behavior that day. They talked, shared a beer, and continued to stay in touch.

  It didn’t take long for Hunter see why Holtzman won 17 games two years running and had two no-hitters to his credit. All Holtzman ever threw, Hunter thought, was the fastball and changeup. Hunter said Holtzman would only show the hitter the curve in the dirt, never up in the strike zone. He moved his fastball around—in and out, up and down, showing it and then taking it away.

  Stock had never seen a pitcher who threw as fast as Holtzman have the control Ken had. Time after time Stock saw him throw the ball exactly where he wanted it. Hitters kept waiting for Holtzman to miss in the strike zone, but he almost never did. Stock thought Holtzman machine-like.

  Holtzman credited his control to his change in home ballparks. Wrigley Field is a hitter’s park, and Holtzman always had the feeling that if he made a mistake in the strike zone, it would end up a home run. Even when the wind was blowing in, Holtzman still thought Wrigley a hitter’s paradise. Because the stands were so close to the field, it was difficult to get batters to foul out. The Oakland Coliseum was the opposite of Wrigley, a pitcher-friendly stadium with acres of foul territory. After joining the A’s, Holtzman found that while a bad pitch in the Coliseum could still hurt him, it wasn’t nearly as easy to put one in the seats as it was in Wrigley.

  Holtzman won four of his first five decisions in ’72; Hunter, six of his first eight. Along the way, they beat some of the top guns from their division rivals—Holtzman topping ageless knuckleballer Wilbur Wood and the Chicago White Sox; Hunter downing the Angels’ new acquisition, the young flamethrower from the Mets, Nolan Ryan.

  By the All-Star break, Holtzman had 13 wins, Hunter 12, and Odom, who had replaced McLain in the rotation, was 9-2. Oakland owned a six-and-a-half-game lead in its division. The A’s were looking golden in the West. McLain was convinced this was the most fundamentally sound team he had ever been on, and he had been on Detroit’s 1968 championship team. McLain thought the A’s execution flawless. They hit the cutoff man, made the double play. “They do just about everything they’re supposed to,” he said.

  Oakland’s relief corps of Fingers, Knowles, Bob Locker, Diego Segui, and Joe Horlen was doing everything it was supposed to. Williams called it the best in baseball. Through the first seventeen games of the season A’s relievers allowed just one run in thirty-three and a third innings.

  Blue became part of the bullpen and saw his first game action of the season on May 24 against California. Vida made his first start four days later against the Chicago White Sox and finally earned his first win on June 18 with a complete-game shutout of Cleveland. As the summer heated up, so did Blue. He went 3-1 in July, posting a 2.72 ERA.

  Bolstered by a strong mound corps and a lineup that saw left fielder Joe Rudi ranked second in the AL in batting; Bando in the top five in runs batted in; and Jackson, Epstein, and Duncan among the AL leaders in home runs, the A’s won seven straight in June. After beating the Yankees July 4, Oakland boasted the best record in baseball at 46-24.

  With their long, unkempt locks, Charlie O.’s Mustache Gang may have looked like extras from the Broadway musical Hair! or liberals at the Democratic National Convention in Miami Beach that July who included the “right to be different” in their platform. The convention, which saw future NBA commissioner Larry O’Brien mentioned as a possible vice presidential replacement during the Thomas Eagleton affair, was so contentious that George McGovern’s acceptance speech—which he called “the best speech” of his life—didn’t occur until 2:48 a.m. EST, after most of America had gone to bed.

  The Swingin’ A’s knew all about discord, but they also knew how to play hardball. Williams had to fight and scrape for everything he had earned as a player, and he coached the A’s in his image: chippy and combative. A’s broadcasters Monte Moore, Jim Woods, and Jimmy Piersall provided Bay Area fans with a soundtrack for their summer:

  Last half of the 19th inning, the longest game ever played by the A’s here in Oakland. The Chicago White Sox and the A’s went five hours plus last night, 17 innings, didn’t decide a thing. Tonight, it’s the 19th a
s they continue last night’s suspended game. . . . A base hit by Rudi could give the A’s a big win. Campy Campaneris is on at second. Joe Rudi is ready, Bahnsen pitches. . . . There’s a long drive to center field, that one’s got a chance, it’s really got a charge in it. . . . And theeerrreee she goes! The A’s win!

  Bottom of the fourth. . . . Fans would like nothing better than to see Bando put a charge in one and light up the scoreboard. The A’s and the Yankees, nothing-nothing. The bases are loaded for the A’s captain. . . . [Mel] Stottlemyre goes into the windup, around goes the arm, in rides the pitch. . . . Bando swings. . . . There’s a long drive, Sal hit this ball deep and that one’s got a chance to set off the Finley fireworks on the Fourth of July. . . . It is gone!

  Top half of the 10th inning, Campy Campaneris leading off against Gaylord Perry. . . . Game tied 2–2. . . . Perry into the windup, here’s the pitch. . . . There’s a line drive to left! That ball’s got a chance to go! A home run for Campaneris.

  There’s a drive to deep right-center field, Reggie Jackson’s going to have to go to come close to this one. Reggie with the dive. . . . An unbelievable catch for Jackson!

  The pitch. . . . Swinging strike three! And Catfish on 10 pitches strikes out the side!

  Oakland was rewarded for its fast start as seven members of its squad—Hunter, Holtzman, Jackson, Rudi, Williams, Bando, and Campaneris—were named to the AL All-Star team for the July 25 Midsummer Classic in Atlanta.