Oakland's A's are the smash hits of a season that has started with a bang
In the beginning, there was no baseball. But ever since, there have been few beginnings as good as the start of a new baseball season. It is the most splendid time in sport, in part because baseball is about the only sport left—now that football players report to training camp before the Fourth of July, and hockey players start skating in Indian summer—that still has a time and is true to it. The national pastime arrives with spring and holds almost as many promises. Veterans may hope for renewal of their glory, rookies for finding a place in that special sun, the big leagues.
Every batter can expect to hit .300, every pitcher to win 20 games. Of course, springtime hopes die of heat exhaustion in August. The pitcher who has lost his stuff is unlikely to find it, and the lifetime .262 hitter will, in late summer, fight a slump to salvage .250. Last year's losers will probably be this year's as well.
But all that does not matter now. It is springtime. Indeed, it is one of the most special springtimes in memory, one that has offered astonishing achievements to savor—deeds both grand and humiliating.
Baltimore's batting craftsman, Ken Singleton, went into May with a .471 average, 25 hits in 53 at bats, including at one point ten hits in a row. The average of Kansas City's George Brett, who chased .400 into the final week of the season last year: .208. The Houston Astros, with the National League's best pitching staff in 1980, managed to win just seven of their first 19 games in 1981, while giving up 50 runs. That was two more games than a pudgy 20-year-old marvel for the Los Angeles Dodgers, Fernando Valenzuela, won all by himself (see box). But then, Valenzuela gave up only one run in his 45 innings. His team won 14 of its first 19. Oh joy! Chicago's Cubs lost ten in a row. Oh boy!
But none of this compares with the feat of Oakland's incredible A's. They are launched upon a revival that is, in truth, a resurrection. They set a modern major-league record for consecutive victories at the start of the season: eleven straight.— They tied another record by winning a total of 18 games in April.
As April came to a close last week, Oakland players were at the top in nearly every category of baseball achievement.
Pitcher Mike Norris was the American League's first five-game winner and Matt Keough was just behind him at 4-0. Keough also led the league in strikeouts (24), followed by Mike Norris (23). Leftfielder Rickey Henderson, who broke Ty Cobb's American League record for stolen bases last year with 100, was off to a swift beginning with 16 steals and led the league in runs scored with 21. Rightfielder Tony Armas topped three lists: home runs, 7; RBIs, 22; total bases, 56.