1989 Earthquake/World Series
Five years ago, I watched the entertaining movie San Andreas at my home. In the movie, a gigantic
earthquake hits the Bay Area. While watching that movie, I reflected on my own personal experience with a Bay Area earthquake.
In 1989, the massive Loma Prieta Earthquake rocked the Bay Area. I was living in Santa Cruz with my mother at the time and Santa Cruz was located only ten miles away from the epicenter of the earthquake. (By comparison, the epicenter was located approximately forty miles away from San Jose and eighty miles away from San Francisco.) I had started
kindergarten less than two months before the earthquake; due to the earthquake, classes were canceled for a week.
The earthquake occurred right before the start of Game 3 of the 1989 World Series. What's interesting about that World Series was that it featured the San Francisco Giants and the Oakland A's, the only two Bay Area MLB teams. (This has been the only World Series between the Giants and A's since they moved to the Bay Area in 1958 and 1968 respectively.) Game 3 was in San Francisco and because of the earthquake,
the game was delayed by ten days. The A's swept the Giants and starting pitcher Dave Stewart was the MVP. This was the only time the A's have won the World Series in the last forty-eight years!
Here was the A's batting order for Game 1 of the 1989 World Series (and the number of career home runs for each player in parentheses):
- Rickey Henderson (297)
- Carney Lansford (151)
- Jose Canseco (462)
- Dave Parker (339)
- Dave Henderson (197)
- Mark McGwire (583)
- Terry Steinbach (162)
- Tony Philips (160)
- Walt Weiss (25)
Seven of the nine players hit exactly one home run during the World Series, one player hit two home runs, and one player hit no home runs. Who was the one player who didn't hit a home run? Mark McGwire!!! (McGwire hit nearly three times as many home runs during the 1998 season (70) as Weiss did during his entire career!)
What's more unlikely: the most massive Bay Area earthquake in the last 100 years occurring a few minutes before the scheduled start of a game of the only Bay Area World Series or the great home run hitter Mark McGwire being the only member of the A's starting lineup to not hit a home run during the World Series?