“What did you do to them? You know they had you on a black list. I knew you could play, so I wanted you anyway.”
– Tony LaRussa to Willie Wilson spring training of 1991.
I never wanted to leave the Royals. That’s a big misunderstanding with many of the Royals fans. I wanted to play my whole career here. I wanted to retire a Royals player, but that didn’t work out.
After the 1990 season, I became one of the expendable Royals, joining Frank White, Hal McRae, Amos Otis, Jorge Orta, Dan Quisenberry– all guys who had been key players in the World Series win just five years before.
It was hurtful. I didn’t understand why they were releasing me after hitting .290 that season. I mean, who releases a guy who is hitting .290. That was a higher average than any other player on the team except for George Brett.
My two years with the A’s were enjoyable after getting over the disappointment of being released by the Royals.
So, now I’m hoping that somebody else wants me. I don’t know how many teams got in touch with my agent. It wasn’t a lot, but when he mentioned the A’s, I stopped him right there and decided that was the team I was going to play with. When I was a younger man, I just loved the Oakland A’s uniforms. When I was watching baseball in high school, they were kicking booty. In 1990, they had just been in the World Series, so they were kicking booty again.
Shoot, Oakland wants me. I’m going to Oakland. I knew Tony LaRussa was a good manager. I didn’t really know him as a man or a person, but I knew he got the best out of his players. I kind of figured my role was going to be a utility player.
I go to spring training, and it was really different. I had never been to Arizona before to have spring training. I didn’t know where to go, where to stay, anything. I knew Tony LaRussa a little bit. I knew the players, but I didn’t really know them, if you understand what I mean. I had been in Royals blue all my life and had never tried on another uniform or never did anything except the Royals for 15 years.
When I get over there, I’m wearing yellow socks, green stirrups, white shoes, white pants (great pants), a green and yellow top. It was just different stuff, and I felt awkward. I felt like a fish out of water. The only guy I really knew on the A’s was Jamie Quirk, who had been let go by the Royals a couple of years before me. He was wearing my No. 6 on his uniform.
His number when he was with the Royals was No. 9, and when he had gotten to the A’s Mike Gallego was wearing No. 9. I guess he chose No. 6 because it was just the 9 upside down. I ask him if I can have the number, and he tells me he wants $5,000 for it. I just said, “You know what, I’m just going to put a 1 on the side of my number because this is my first year with the A’s, and I’m going to try and do something different.” So that first year I was wearing No. 16.
Everything was different about the A’s camp than the Royals. The first thing was the weather, the humidity. In Florida you are sweating, sweating, sweating. You get in shape really quickly. Out in Arizona you sweat, and in two or three minutes you are cool again. So, in some ways it was better because there wasn’t the humidity. If you wanted to lose some weight, it wasn’t going to happen.
There wasn’t as much rain, not as many rainouts. The skies were so high, just brighter and higher up. I misjudged a lot of balls out there when I was first coming to spring training like the first time I was an outfielder when I was a rookie.
We started camp at this college for two weeks for spring training. After two weeks, they broke everything down and took a certain number of people down to Phoenix Municipal Ballpark for the rest of spring training. I had never had to pack up my stuff together and then move to another spot. The other thing that was really different about Arizona is that the spring training trips were 20 to 30 minutes to another team. You might go to Yuma, and that would be a long trip or Palm Springs, Calif., But the rest of the time you were going 20 minutes instead of 3 and a half hours in the morning and 3 and a half hours back in the afternoon.
I had never been on a team with so many superstars. We had George (Brett), we had Hal (McRae), we had Quiz (Dan Quisenberry) and Frank (White). They were all nice guys, and I don’t think they thought of themselves as superstars. But with the A’s you’ve got Jose Canseco and Mark McGwire – the Bash Brothers – Rickey Henderson, Dave Stewart, Dennis Eckersley ... superstars everywhere. That was the first time I had been around that many people who thought of themselves that way. I had never been around a team that could hit home runs like they could. It was just really different for me, and I felt like a fish out of water.
I’m not having a great spring. I felt like nobody knew me. Here I was a Punch and Judy hitter, and they were all bashing home runs all over the place. How am I going to fit into this team? I really had a bad spring as I’m going through the mental process of coming to another team and having the fans look at me differently than the Royals fans looked at me. A lot of things were going bad. To make it worse, I have a number on my back that is unfamiliar. I can’t even get my own number. It was really bad.
That’s when I really found out what a good guy Tony LaRussa was. One day in spring training he said, “Walk with me down the line.”
He says, “You gotta relax. You’re going to make this team. I know you can play. That’s why I brought you in here. Just be yourself.”
That’s when he asked me what I had done to the Royals. I go, “What are you talking about?” He said there was a list and I was on the list. I don’t know what the list is. I’m not in a front office. But the way I understand a black list is that it’s something they have and they make it clear that they don’t want anybody else to sign you or pick you up. It’s like collusion, but they can’t prove it.
That really made me mad. Maybe Tony was lying to me to get me motivated, but I don’t think he would. When I got to know him more and more, I understood that he didn’t lie to his players. He told it like it was. He told you the truth. That’s why I respect him to this day. He was a good people person. That’s why he would get the best out of his players. He would tell me this is what he was going to do, and he never lied to me. That was pretty cool because I got lied to a lot in Kansas City. That sounds like that organization at the time. I wouldn’t put it past them – not the new regime that is there now, but the old regime.
At Oakland, it was a whole different ball game. The GM, Sandy Alderson, was a cool dude. He didn’t walk around with a tie on all the time. He was wearing shorts and a nice shirt, just like we were. I’m like, “This is the GM.” I mean you know. Wow. And even he would say stuff ... “I heard this about you Willie” but “you’re a nice guy.” I guess that’s what the Royals did to me, they put it out there that I was a bad guy.
That really angry me off. Nobody in the Royals organization – I’m not talking about the players – took the time to really get to know me. So, when I got to Oakland, it was like a breath of fresh air. They treated me like a man. They were a little more free spirited out there. It was probably the perfect situation for me.
I wasn’t starting out there, so I didn’t have the pressure of starting every day the first year I was there. It was different than Kansas City the year before when they didn’t tell me anything. I never knew if I was going to be in the lineup or not. It was kind of neat at the A’s to be able to sit on the bench and have somebody hit a 2- or 3-run home run to win the game. The only bad thing was they had won the AL West the year before, and when we didn’t win it in 1991 I felt like I was the reason they lost.
I know that’s silly. But they won in 1990, now they aren’t winning and I’m the new guy coming in. Is it my fault? Is it this? Is it that?
The dynamic on that team was really different than the Royals, too. Rickey was easy to know. Jose was difficult. Jose thought I had just come up from AAA (laughter). Really. At least this is what I understood from (shortstop) Walt Weiss. Jose thought baseball couldn’t survive without him. We’re in Cleveland a little ways into the season. I come downstairs with Walt, and Walt says, “Jose asked who you were the other day. He thinks you just came in from AAA.”
I don’t know if Walt is joking or not, and I’m going, “Are you kidding me?” Walt says, “Hey man, that’s just how Jose is.” Jose and Walt were like bosom buddies. They would eat breakfast and lunch together almost every day. They wouldn’t go out in the evening together because Walt was married ... well, Jose was married too, but ... you know the superstar thing.
Rickey was really good to know, and Dave Henderson was a pleasure. He was just fun, fun, fun, fun, fun, fun. If you saw him on the field, he was having fun. He taught me a little different way of playing the game – have fun at it. When he got hurt in 1992, the second year I was there – I had to play every day.
I only played 110 games or so (113), and I only started about half the time (64) that first year in 1991. I do think I started every game that we played at Royals Stadium that year. Tony set up a regular rotation that I would play for Rickey every Tuesday, Dave every Wednesday, Jose every Thursday and pinch run or pinch hit the rest of the time. That would give those guys a regular day off. But every time we were coming into Kansas City Tony arranged it so those were the days I would be in the lineup.
He knew I was angry off. Nothing was said, but he knew. If you had played for this team or that team, Tony knew you had some fire left. One time in there I made this really nice catch in left center. I got hit a couple of times and had a little flare up. I think it was Mike Boddicker who hit me. He hadn’t even been a Royal, but I knew he was doing it on orders. So, after the second time I get hit, I’m really angry. So, I come to bat again and Mike MacFarlane was catching.
I looked at Mac, and I said, “You tell Boddicker the first time he comes to Oakland, I’m going to kick his butt. And if I get hit again, I’m going to kick your butt because you called the play. You called the pitch that hit me. Really, what I was trying to do is show them that they got rid of me too early. I had an attitude against them ... it’s even vivid to me right now as I’m talking about this.
The fans were kind of mixed when I would come back to Royals Stadium. A lot of them were yelling at me like I had left the Royals. They had it in their minds that I didn’t want to play for the Royals anymore and I went to Oakland. But it wasn’t like that at all. The Royals released me. So, the fans would boo me some, but that was OK. It was like that everywhere the A’s went. It was kind of funny. You play 15 years with a team, go to two World Series with them, go to four or five playoffs with them, rank in the top five of almost all their records, and they boo you.
One plus of coming to Kansas City is that I did get to sleep in my own bed and stay at my own house. I really wanted to beat them. I didn’t like them at that time. I didn’t like what they were doing. When you go to a different organization and you see how different that was compared to the tight-ass Kansas City Royals at the time. I just wanted to beat them every day.
I was still friends with the players, and I remember one game in Oakland when I came in to pinch hit. Luis Aquino was pitching for the Royals. Louie and I hung out a lot when he first got up to Kansas City. So, we were pretty good friends. He had already asked me if I could give him a ride back to the hotel after the game. That’s how friendly we were.
When I get up there, he throws a fastball, and I don’t swing at it. He throws me a curve, and I hit it right back up the middle. He yells, “Conjo. You say you no like curve ball!” I yelled back, “I don’t like it, but I didn’t say I couldn’t hit it.” He had heard me yelling in the dugout after I had struck out while I’m in Kansas City. I’d get struck out by a curve ball or a changeup or something. I’d yell, “I hate that pitch.” So he’s heard this and remembered it. Now that I’m an older guy I’m a little smarter, so I’m thinking, “OK, he’s going to throw the curve ball.”
THE JUICE
With Jose and Mark McGwire everybody found out later on that they were doing stuff. Jose kind of blew the lid off all that with his book. I never saw anyone do anything at the park. As far as I knew, they were just bigger guys. I had seen them as younger guys, and they weren’t as big. I never lifted weights ... never went in the weight room. So, I didn’t know if you could just get bigger by pumping the weights.
If I didn’t see anything, I wasn’t going to make up any rumors about it. Besides I’m just trying to keep my head down out here.
This is just my opinion, but I do think the GMs knew it was going on. I think the writers knew. I think they all knew. But nobody was going to say anything because nobody wanted to be the first guy to open up that can of worms. When Jose opened up the can of worms, then everybody started going, going, going.
I didn’t know that certain guys were on it. I thought they were just big. I had played with Bo Jackson, and he was big. Imagine if Bo had come up in the ‘90s, everybody would have associated Bo with that and it would have been false.
It was none of my business. I never saw it. I never thought about it. It was none of my business. I wasn’t going to come over here to the Oakland A’s and start any kind of crap.
1992 SEASON
The second year in Oakland, I’m back in my regular number again – and I didn’t have to pay Jaime for it. The A’s had gotten rid of Mike Gallego in ’92 and Jamie could get his old number. So, I was back in my No. 6.
This year was different from the beginning. I was playing a lot in spring training, and I was wondering what the heck was going on. I’m playing every day, and I’m wondering if they are showing me off to trade me, or something ... I don’t know. So, Tony pulls me off to the side again.
“You’re going to be happy that I’m playing you all spring,” he says.
I say why. Then he tells me I’m going to start every game until the first half of the season is over because Dave Henderson is hurt. Hindu had pulled something and wasn’t going to be back until the All-Star break. Tony was telling me I had to be mentally prepared to play every day. It was pretty cool to be a part of that lineup. I was really happy I got a chance to play every day again, but I hadn’t played every day for two years and I was like, “Wow, man, this is tiring.” Hindu came back for a little bit after the All-Star break, but re-injured himself again.
Rickey and Jose were going through some little tantrum stuff, too. Jose had migraine headaches, and I don’t know what was going on with Rickey. So, a lot of the time it was this makeshift outfield of me and Eric Fox or Randy Ready or Harold Baines. Then, from what I remember, Rickey and Jose said they wanted to play more. Tony said all right I’m going to go to you guys after the All-Star break, but I don’t want to hear any complaints about migraines or this and that.
The All-Star break comes and they were in the lineup again, right and left of me. One Saturday Jose comes in to the park right after we had finished batting practice. Everybody is just looking at each other like, “What the hell?” He had another migraine. So, August comes along and it’s close to the trade deadline. Jose was playing in a game – actually in the on-deck circle – and the phone rings in the dugout. Tony answers it, then yells, “Jose, come here.” Then he yells, “Blankenship!”
Lance Blankenship was funny. He thought he was getting released. Then Tony says, “Go in for Jose” and Blankenship is going, “thank you, thank you, thank you.” He grabs a bat and goes up there, and Jose sat down next to Tony. I don’t know what Tony said to him, but Jose just rips his shirt off, all the buttons come flying off his shirt everywhere. He grabs up all his bats and walks upstairs out of the dugout.
He goes up into the locker room and locks all the doors because he doesn’t want any reporters in there. Hindu is hurt, and I don’t think I’m playing that day. We follow him up. Dave Henderson, in his wisdom knew the trade deadline was getting close and he says, “Where’d you go?” Jose goes, “They traded me to blankety-blank Texas.” Henderson pauses, and he’s sort of smiling at me, then says, “OK, now the important question. Who did we get?” I’m laughing my ass off. Jose goes “Ruben effing Sierra!” Hindu goes, “OK, good luck.” Me and Hindu run back downstairs.
Jose was in shock. But Tony had said, “If you come in here with a migraine one more time I’m getting rid of you because you are already messing up my lineup.” It seemed like every Saturday just about, he would come in with a migraine and we would have to rearrange the lineup. I think Tony just got tired of it and got rid of him. I don’t know if the migraines were real or not. I wasn’t inside Jose’s body.
That second year was pretty fun, though. It was cool just to be associated with those guys. I wasn’t batting around the top of the lineup – I think I was sometimes. Rickey was leading off. Then probably Carney Lansford or Walt Weiss, then you have Mark McGwire, Jose, Terry Steinback, Harold Baines was the DH, Dave Henderson. When you’re hitting at the bottom of that lineup, that ain’t bad.
We win the division, but we had been ahead by a lot of games, and toward the end we were slipping and almost losing our lead in the standings. I tried to go all Hal McRae psychological on them one afternoon, I think we were playing in Milwaukee. I’m shouting, “We don’t deserve to win this crap!” That was a Hal McRae move right there. Everybody looked at me and said, “Don’t say that crap. We’re going to win this thing.”
At the end of the year, we had to wait and see if some other team won, and the whole team went to this restaurant in Oakland. The other team lost, and we won the championship and we all celebrated in this restaurant. That was pretty cool, everybody shaking hands and stuff like that.
1992 ALCS
We should have beaten Toronto in the ALCS. We went up there and split, won the first game, and Toronto won the second. So we’re tied as we head back to Oakland for the third game.
In the second game at Oakland, we’re leading 6-4 in the ninth inning when there’s a ball hit to left. Rickey goes over, and he’s going to get there and he decides he’s going to catch it the “cool” way, you know just sort of flip your glove at it and snatch it – be cool. He flipped it all the way down the left-field line. It hit his glove and looked like it was jai alai sending the ball down the left field line. I’m now chasing the ball and screaming at Rickey, “Why can’t you just catch the damn thing. Why do you have to be so fancy?” I mean, what the hell? They score two runs in that inning and we end up losing the game in extra innings.
We had a pretty good pitching staff out there, Ron Darling, Dave Stewart, Mike Moore. Bobby Welsh, Goose Gossage, Dennis Eckersley. But you get that one game. You don’t know how important that one game or that one out could be. That happened in the fourth game of the series. If we win that game, we beat them. That would have tied the series. We won the fifth game and would have gone back to Toronto with a 3-2 lead. Instead, they go back home with the 3-2 lead in the series and win it in the first game back in Toronto.
I really wanted to get the Series again because I hadn’t been there since 1985. I was really happy to be a part of a team that could get me there.
A little time after the season, Tony talked to me again. I had signed a two-year deal with the A’s. I didn’t know if I was going to get another contract with them. I didn’t know if anyone else wanted me. We had been talking with the A’s, but that’s when Tony told me that they would like to have me back, but I should probably take another offer. The A’s couldn’t pay me what another team would offer.
I love him for that. How can you not play for a guy like that who tells you the truth? If more people in this fair game of ours would just tell the truth and stop playing games with people they would get more out of their players. That’s why LaRussa won all the damn time. He told the truth.