This date, 15 years ago, an earthquake hit the Coliseum. Scott Hatteberg felt it.
As a matter of fact, he caused it.
His walk-off home run on Sept. 4, 2002 against the Kansas City Royals sent the 55,528 fans in attendance into a frenzy. The ground shook beneath his white Nike cleats as he rounded the bases to complete a 12-11 victory. With one swing, Hatteberg wiped away the sour taste of a blown six-run lead. With one swing, he capped off the A’s 20th consecutive win in the magical, breath-taking fashion that defined that historic streak and those A’s.
A’s equipment manager Steve Vucinich, who has been a fixture with the organization since the club moved to Oakland in 1968, can attest to that. He was standing in the dugout during the final at-bat — something he hadn’t ever done in his 34 years — the first time ever. These eccentric A’s lured him from his clubhouse routine because these A’s specialized in the unconventional approach.”
First, he ditched his signature green collared shirt and wore a yellow that day. Then after Hatteberg’s walkoff, the famously understated Vucinich celebrated on the field with the team.
“It was amazing,” Vucinich said with a smile. “Probably the most memorable home run at the Coliseum.”
This date, 15 years ago, pandemonium wasn’t a big enough word to describe the dreamlike qualities of that moment. Unlike today’s A’s, that team was captivating. Back then, during the longest winning streak in American League history, failure felt impossible. There was a magic about them.
“It was definitely buzzing in the Bay Area. Especially in the East Bay at that time,” said A’s shortstop Marcus Semien, who was an 11-year-old El Cerrito kid at the time. “That was a magical run.”
In need of an enchanting story? Let’s go back to The Streak.
Rough start
It took the Jeremy Giambi trade to wake this team up. And they needed the jolt.
A year earlier, in 2001, the A’s had won 102 games to claim the wild-card spot (only not winning the division because Seattle won a ridiculous 116). They lost in a winner-advances Game 5 to the eventual AL champion New York Yankees in the American League Division Series.
Even though Jason Giambi bolted for the big free agent contract with the Yankees, the rest of baseball was on notice as the 2002 season got under way. The A’s were coming. They had the big three anchoring the rotation — Tim Hudson, Mark Mulder and Barry Zito — and some dynamic talents in shortstop Miguel Tejada and third baseman Eric Chavez.
It’s hard to believe a team featuring Tejada and Zito — who went on to win the MVP and Cy Young Award in 2002 — could start the season 19-25. But that’s exactly what happened.
“I remember the season so vividly,” said Hatteberg, now working for the A’s as a special assistant to baseball operations. “The team was coming off a great year so Sports Illustrated was going to do an article on us. And then they scrapped it because we sucked so bad.”
But on May 22, the A’s shook things up by shipping Jeremy Giambi to Philadelphia for John Mabry. It was a move that hadn’t come soon enough for many fans after Giambi’s infamous refusal to slide paved the way for The Derek Jeter Flip in the 2001 NLDS.
The A’s righted the ship by going 49-26 over their next 75 games. But that was just the precursor.
The Streak
On Aug. 13, Zito stopped a two-game losing streak by pitching the A’s to a 5-4 win over the Toronto Blue Jays at the Coliseum. Four RBIs from Jermaine Dye helped. It was the most normal of victories, No. 69 of the season. No one detected it was the first track of the hottest mixtape of 2002. Only 17,000 and change were there to watch it. They closed out the rubber match against the Blue Jays with a 4-2 win in front of over 40,000, a majority of that crowd was there for Dollar Ticket Wednesday.
Then the A’s swept three from the White Sox. Then they swept four at Cleveland. The A’s were building steam after the trade deadline. Fourth starter Cory Lidle tossed 16 innings of shutout ball in two outings, one of those a one-hitter.
Then they swept three at Detroit. Mabry had one of the best games of his career by hitting two home runs with five RBIs against the Tigers. Their 10th straight win put them atop the AL West Aug. 23.
Swept three at Kansas City. Swept three from Minnesota. The hype was real. They made the front page of the New York Times. ESPN was giving daily updates of the streak on Sportscenter.
Most of the wins during the first 17 games of the streak lacked drama because the A’s were so good.
“You can’t help but notice from afar,” said A’s manager Bob Melvin, then a bench coach with the Arizona Diamondbacks. “It’s not something that you expect at any point in the season. … The thing that stood out the most was the starting pitchers they had. Your rotation has to have the dynamic where everybody who goes out there on a particular night, you feel like you have a chance to win. They had those guys.”
They outscored opponents 109-40 in the six series they swept. They had a team ERA of 2.19 and batting average just under .300. It was easy for most of the streak.
“Watching fans hang down the banners after each game with the win numbers,” Hatteberg said. “They felt it building in those last five games. We didn’t really talk about it. It was one of those things where there were only a few of us older guys on the team to tell the younger players that this doesn’t happen often. Most of these guys were so young and naive they were like, ‘Man, this is easy.’ That attitude made it fun to watch it all go down.”
The dramatic conclusion
The last three games of the streak were filled with suspense.
The A’s capped a series sweep over the Twins in memorable fashion, turning the Coliseum into a scene usually reserved for Raiders games. After trailing 4-2, Tejada sent Minnesota home with a walk-off three-run home run. And he did it off “Everyday” Eddie Guardado, one of baseball’s most reliable closers.
No. 18 was in the books.
The next night, the A’s started a two-game series against Kansas City by trailing 5-0. The A’s rallied to tie the score at 6-6, then Tejada walked off again. A single up the middle off Jason Grimsley scored Terrence Long.
That was No. 19.
“He was the heart of that team,” Vucinich said of Tejada. “And he played every day. There were days where he had injuries. A lot of guys would take a day off but he said, ‘No. put me in there.’ He played all 162 games that year, which was incredible.”
The A’s had tied the record for longest win streak in the AL, held by the 1906 White Sox and 1947 Yankees. After a day off, to let the madness fester, people packed into the Coliseum to see history. And it was another Dollar Ticket Wednesday.
The A’s scored six runs in the first inning. With Hudson on the mound, it was a wrap, right? He was among the league leaders with four complete games and was worth 7.0 wins above replacement (WAR) for a pitcher. The A’s put up another four-spot in the third inning and led 11-0. The party had already started.
Then things started getting weird. Hudson was tagged for five runs in the fourth. Ahead 11-5, nobody was panicking.
Hudson righted himself. The A’s entered the eighth inning still leading by six runs. Setup man Chad Bradford was on the mound.
But Bradford, who got the final out of the seventh, failed to get an out in the eighth. He left with the bases loaded and a run across. Ricardo Rincon came on and got two outs, but another run scored on a sacrifice fly to cut Oakland’s lead to 11-7. Jeff Tam replaced him and gave up a three-run homer to Mike Sweeney.
The A’s lead was down to a run.
“How we blew that lead, the sense of the dam breaking, was just horrible,” Hatteberg said.
The A’s escaped the eighth with the lead intact. They got the ball to Billy Koch, their lights-out closer, in the ninth. Then he blew it. An RBI single by Luis Alicea tied the score at 11-11.
Though Koch didn’t give up the lead, it felt like the air was out of the A’s sails. You don’t squander an 11-run lead and come out on the winning side most of the time. Plus, they hadn’t managed a hit in five innings.
Jermaine Dye was set to lead off the ninth. Eric Byrnes, who replaced David Justice for defense in the eighth, was due up next. Hatteberg, who was good against righties, was in the batting cage taking swings, preparing to pinch hit. He had only pinch-hit five times all season to that point, going 1 for 5 with a single.
After Dye flied out, Byrnes was pulled back from the on-deck circle. Hatteberg got the call from a bat boy that he was going in to face Royals closer Jason Grimsley.
“The guy was a scary dude,” Hatteberg said of Grimsley, who featured a 96 mph sinking fastball. “It was a horribly uncomfortable at-bat. It’s hard enough pinch-hitting. My whole goal was just maybe I can find a gap, hit a double and get us in scoring position. I was guessing up there. Home run was the last thing on my mind.”
Hatteberg looked at one pitch for a ball. The next one was a hanging slider — boom.
This date, 15 years ago, those A’s made baseball history. No, the season didn’t end with a championship. Minnesota got revenge by eliminating the A’s in Game 5 of the ALDS. But they laid a blueprint to success for the current A’s to follow. They are legendary.
