Sports Radio Service


		Michael Duca on A's and Giants By Michael Duca May 24, 2010

	Sportstalk: We'd like to do something a little different this week and ask you some A's and Giants related questions in relation to your book you wrote with Jason Turbow, "The Baseball Codes". There are a lot of unwritten rules in the game and players are supposed to know the code unless they just blatantly violate them. In your time writing, announcing, and being official scorekeeper of the game can you name one or two blatant violations that just stand out in your mind? Certainly the most famous one I've witnessed was A-Rod waltzing across Dallas Braden's mound in Oakland this year. Few violations have generated more heat, and less light, than that one. Just this Sunday Duane Kuiper gleefully pulled me into the broadcast booth in Oakland to see, on Dave Fleming's computer, a screen capture of Don Baylor running across the mound in the 1971 World Series, with Dock Ellis on the mound. Of course, Dock was known to have worked under an altered state of consciousness from time to time, and might have though Baylor was a leprechaun, or a phoenix -- hard to say -- but this was presented as evidence that A-Rod did nothing wrong. Gee, 39 years of baseball without another example, and that means he's right? Don't think so. The other is mentioned in the book, when Roger Cedeno was a rookie with the Dodgers and stole second with a huge lead in the 8th or 9th inning. Matt Williams had to be physically restrained from going after Cedeno, and Dodgers hitter Eric Karros, now a broadcaster for Fox, felt himself in sufficient danger in the batter's box that he went to the Giants dugout and said "we will take care of this." Karros bought himself some safety, and Cedeno was seen in the clubhouse after the game very contrite, with very red eyes.... Sportstalk: Were there some super star players that you've covered in years past or present that got away with breaking some of the codes, like Barry Bonds he often would stare and stand at the plate after a home run according to KCBS' Steve Bitker and Sportstalk's Ken Gimblin and Joe Cronin. Did he get a pass on that because of who he was? Well, yes, but he was hardly the first, or even the most egregious. And, if I asked you to guess who was the first to make a habit of it, you'd never, ever get it. It was the quiet man from Payette, Idaho, Harmon Killebrew, who first stopped and stared at some of the most magnificent drives in all of baseball. And nobody ever pimped a homer quite like Reggie. Of course, neither of those guys made broadcasters' jobs particularly difficult, so they are remembered more fondly. Sportstalk: Finally a non-book related question regarding the Giants, they were swept at home by the Padres, they swept the Astros at home, they split in San Diego, they dropped the first two games to the A's, Giants manager Bruce Bochy has expressed his deep concern for the hitting, who in the line up surprises you most that's not hitting and why? For the moment, I'd have to say Pablo Sandoval, although I expect he'll get his stroke back -- he got a solid hit Sunday, and another "loud" out. It's too early to be surprised that Freddy Sanchez isn't hitting well -- he's just off rehab, and it always takes time to get major league timing down. He'll hit -- that's what he does. Sandoval, though, is in the longest slump of his career, stretching to close to 100 at-bats. It's gotten so bad, people calling in to the radio post-game shows who don't even know which end of a bat to hold are suggesting that Hensley Meulens should completely re-make Pablo as a hitter. Sure, but first, Brian Sabean has to go trade Gino Espinelli for Ryan Howard and cash, so Meulens can take 150 strikeouts away from Howard's game and make him into a real hitter, too.