OAKLAND, Calif. — THIS DAY IN SPORTS…October 20, 1990:
With a 2-1 loss in the Oakland Coliseum, the Oakland Athletics are swept in four games by the Cincinnati Reds in the World Series. This came two years to the day after the A’s were finished off in five games by the Los Angeles Dodgers in the 1988 Series. In that one, Oakland was never able to recover from the legendary Game 1 homer in the bottom of the ninth by the Dodgers’ hobbling Kirk Gibson. But this A’s squad was heavily-favored and was supposed to be the team accustomed to sweeps, fresh off of one over the Boston Red Sox in the ALCS. Oakland had also swept the San Francisco Giants a year earlier in the Bay Bridge Series.
The A’s had the talent, with Mark McGwire and Jose Canseco leading the way at the plate and Dave Stewart and Dennis Eckersley starring on the mound. Interestingly enough, Oakland also had that year’s National League batting champion. Willie McGee had hit .355 with the St. Louis Cardinals and had enough plate appearances to qualify for the crown before being traded to the A’s. But Cincinnati set the tone out of the gate, getting a two-run home run from Eric Davis in the first inning of Game 1 and going on to win the opener over Stewart 8-2. Jose Rijo got the win in that one, as well as in the deciding Game 4 to earn Series MVP honors.
The A’s have generally been a successful yet underfunded franchise since then, but that was their last World Series trip after three consecutive appearances in the Fall Classic. Although Oakland’s budget has fallen further behind the rest of baseball, the A’s have continued to squeeze the most they can out of their roster. Most noticeable is the “Moneyball” run in the early 2000s, when general manager Billy Beane used analytics and metrics to help the team win 205 games in 2001-02, spawning the popular motion picture starring Brad Pitt. The A’s sputtered to a 60-102 record this year but had recorded winning seasons in each of the previous four and made the playoffs in three of them (Beane is still with the club).
The 1990 championship also marked Cincinnati’s last trip to the Series. The Reds were managed by Lou Piniella, who’d go on to skipper the Seattle Mariners from 1993-2002. Piniella had also managed the New York Yankees from 1986-88, and he finished his career post-Mariners by managing the Tampa Bay Rays and Chicago Cubs, retiring in August, 2010. One of the cool sidebars to the 1990 Series: Piniella and Oakland manager Tony LaRussa were teammates as teenagers on the Tampa American Legion Post 248 baseball team.
Tom Scott hosts the Scott Slant segment during the football season on KTVB’s Sunday Sports Extra. He also anchors four sports segments each weekday on 95.3 FM KTIK and one on News/Talk KBOI. His Scott Slant column runs every Wednesday.
Watch more Sports:
See all of our sports coverage in our YouTube playlist:
