Daily Archives: April 13, 2007

The A’s and Yankees played a thrilling eleven-inning game last night, but let’s skip straight to the action in the eighth inning, as it was in the top of the eighth that the worm turned for the Bronx Bombers.

With the game tied 4-4, Oakland manager Bob Geren called on his ace set-up man Justin Duchscherer to face the heart of the Yankee order. Alex Rodriguez singled on Duchscherer’s first pitch. Jason Giambi followed by yanking a double into the corner in right field, pushing Rodriguez to third. Joe Torre sent in Kevin Thompson to pinch-run for designated hitter Giambi at second base with Jorge Posada coming to the plate. Posada worked a 2-1 count then hit a blistering liner directly at first baseman Todd Walker for the first out. Geren then elected to have Duchscherer intentionally walk Robinson Cano to load the bases, thus allowing Duchscherer to Doug Mientkiewicz with a force at every base.

At this point Mientkiewicz was 0 for his last 18 with just one walk over that span. In his three previous at-bats in this game he had struck out and hit into two double plays, the first a line-drive to left that doubled up Posada at first, the second a conventional 4-6-3 that plated a run, but otherwise killed a bases-loaded, no-out rally in the sixth.

Now, if you’re Joe Torre, or even Yankee bench coach Don Mattingly, what do you do in this situation.

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The A’s, at least in the early going in 2007, are a pretty easy team to figure out. They don’t give up very many runs, but they don’t score very many either. Only two American League teams (the Red Sox and Angels) have allowed fewer runs per game thus far this season than the A’s’ 3.4, but only two major league teams (the Nationals and Giants) have plated fewer runs per game thus far than the A’s’ 2.8. The A’s are also dead last in the majors in home runs, having hit just two through ten games. Obviously a line-up with Eric Chavez, Mike Piazza, Nick Swisher, and Milton Bradley is going to pick up the homer production at some point, but that’s a crippling lack of production. The A’s are 4-6 thus far this season. Two of those four wins had final scores of 2-1, and one of them required a two-run rally in the bottom of the ninth against the White Sox’s closer, Bobby Jenks (a favor the A’s bullpen aces returned the next night).

In a near perfect inversion of the Yankees’ season thus far, the only thing that’s really been working for the A’s in the young season has been their starting rotation, which has been the stingiest in the American League and is bested only by the Mets and Braves in the NL. Despite losing Barry Zito to free agency and Esteban Loaiza to the DL, the A’s rotation has posted a 1.98 ERA after two full turns. The best of their bunch, as expected, has been the Healthy Rich Harden, whom the Yankees will face on Sunday. Harden has struck out 13 and allowed just 12 base runners in 13 innings, but is curiously not the staff leader in ERA despite his 1.38 mark. No, that man is tonight’s starter, Dan Haren, who’s 0.69 ERA is in stark contrast to his 0-2 record. Such are the A’s.

As for the Yankees, they’ll get to see what Kei Igawa can do in a moderate climate (temperatures in Oakland are in the mid-60s as I write this, though they’ll likely drop in to the 50s by tonight). Igawa was flat out awful in his first major league start (the most encouraging sign was that he walked “only” three men in five innings), but nerves and the weather likely played a part in that, and the steady improvement he showed during spring training gives reason for optimism, as do the dormant Oakland bats.

What it all comes down to tonight, then, is the stingy Oakland starting pitching against the explosive Yankee offense, and the explosive Yankee starting pitching against the stingy Oakland offense. Which will give most?

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The word "heroes" has taken on additional and perhaps even more bewildering meaning because of the popularity of a first-season television show featuring that very name. For a much longer time, the word "heroes" has been attached to figures from the sports world, often with results no less confusing or ambiguous.

For the most part, baseball players are not heroes. (They shouldn’t be role models either, but they nonetheless are, given the widespread influence they have on the younger set.) The truly heroic figures in American society are the underpaid teachers, the studious doctors, the honest police officers, and the selfless members of the military. Yet, in some cases, baseball players can truly double as heroes. In 1978, a handsome veteran pitcher named George Medich earned that distinction.

Coming up as a rookie with the New York Yankees in 1972, Medich went on to post a solid career as a starting pitcher. Medich’s career began encouragingly with the Yankees, but his years in Pinstripes coincided with the team’s final few failures before the eventual pennant glory of 1976. (Still, Medich did contribute to that level of success indirectly, as the principal trade bait sent to the Pittsburgh Pirates for a second baseman named Willie Randolph.) A solid No. 3 starter, Medich went on to win 124 games for the Yankees, Pirates, Texas Rangers, Oakland A’s, Seattle Mariners, New York Mets, and Milwaukee Brewers. As if the travels and demands of a typically lengthy major league season didn’t sap enough of his time, Medich taxed himself further by attending medical school, eventually earning his degree from the University of Pittsburgh. While all of his Topps cards list him as George Medich, his procession through the rigors of medical school prompted most baseball people to refer to him as Doc Medich.

Although the travails of the long baseball season forced Medich to subvert some of his healing passions, he did put his medical training to good use under the most dire of circumstances. During a 1976 game between the Pirates and Philadelphia Phillies, Medich made his way into the stands at Veterans Stadium to perform CPR on a 74-year-old man who had suffered a heart attack. While awaiting the arrival of an ambulance, Medich performed mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. Medich’s efforts notwithstanding, the elderly man died later in the day.

Two years later, Medich’s heroic ventures paid off far more tangibly. On July 17, 1978, another man suffered a heart attack during a game at Memorial Stadium between Medich’s Rangers and the hometown Baltimore Orioles. Medich once again rushed into the stands and performed CPR on the 61-year-old victim. An emergency medical services team soon arrived and rushed the man to a local hospital, where he received further treatment. This man recovered from the heart attack, surviving to live several more years. He likely would not have enjoyed those "extra" years if not for the quick and effective reactions of a right-hander/doctor named George "Doc" Medich.

After his pitching days, Medich became a successful orthopedic surgeon. He eventually opened up an orthopedic clinic in Beaver, Pennsylvania. Unfortunately, his story did not end up happily ever after, at least not in the way that we expect it will with Hayden Panettiere. In a shocking post-baseball development, the onetime medical hero eventually ran intro trouble with the law. In 2001, the 53-year-old Medich was found guilty of illegally possessing painkillers and sentenced to nine years probation. Pleading guilty to 12 counts of possession of a controlled substance, Medich had written a dozen false prescriptions in the names of his patients so that he could obtain painkillers for himself. Explaining that Medich had struggled with drug addiction for years, his lawyer called his crime a "cry for help."

Sadly, even our truly legitimate sports heroes have their blemishes.

Bruce Markusen is the author of the award-winning A Baseball Dynasty: Charlie Finley’s Swingin’ A’s and the writer of MLB.com’s Cooperstown Confidential, found at www.bruce.mlblogs.com. Bruce, his wife Sue, and their daughter Madeline reside in Cooperstown, NY, a stone’s throw from the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum.