Dennis Eckersley

Dennis Eckersley was born in Oakland on October 3, 1954, the middle kid of Wallace and Bernice Eckersley, and he grew up a few freeway exits down in Fremont, where he starred at Washington High. Cleveland took him in the third round of the 1972 draft. Three days after graduation, at 17, he was pitching for Reno in the California League.

He was in the big leagues by 1975 at 20, and in his first start, on May 25, he shut out the three time defending champion A's on three hits. He won his next start too, in Oakland, in front of family and friends. He went 13 and 7 with a 2.60 ERA and was The Sporting News AL Rookie Pitcher of the Year. The leg kick he copied from his boyhood idol Juan Marichal, a Giant, came with him.

On May 30, 1977, he no hit the Angels at Cleveland, striking out 12 and getting Gil Flores, who'd been stalling, to swing at sliders for the last out. With his next start he ran his streak of hitless innings to 22 and a third, two outs shy of Cy Young's record. He made his first All Star team that summer.

Cleveland traded him to Boston in March 1978 and he went 20 and 8 for a Red Sox team that took the Yankees to a one game playoff. He won 17 more in 1979. Then the arm started to hurt, the back and shoulder followed, and the home runs piled up. Boston dealt him to the Cubs for Bill Buckner in May 1984, and he helped them win the NL East before the Padres knocked him out in the NLCS.

The hardest part of his story didn't happen on a mound. Eckersley had been drinking on and off for years, and after a miserable 1986 he watched a videotape of how he acted on a binge, shot over the holidays, in front of his daughter. He checked himself into rehab. He's been sober ever since.

On April 3, 1987, the Cubs traded him to Oakland. He was coming home, and nobody really knew what he'd be. Tony La Russa put him in the bullpen, and when Jay Howell's arm acted up, Eck got the ninth. He and Howell each saved 16 that year. Pitching coach Dave Duncan had seen something, and that winter Howell was the one traded.

What La Russa and Duncan built around him became the modern closer: one inning, the ninth, every night. In 1988 he led the majors with 45 saves, saved all four games of the ALCS sweep of Boston and was the series MVP. Then came Game 1 of the World Series at Dodger Stadium, two outs in the ninth, a walk to Mike Davis, and Kirk Gibson's home run. Eck has never hidden from it.

He answered with two of the best seasons a reliever has ever had. In 1989 he posted a 1.56 ERA and walked three batters in 57 and two thirds innings. He struck out Junior Felix to end the ALCS in Toronto and he got the last out of the World Series at Candlestick, taking the flip from Tony Phillips on Brett Butler's grounder. In 1990 he saved 48 with a 0.61 ERA, allowing five earned runs and four walks all year.

In 1992 he saved 51 games with a 1.91 ERA, struck out 93 and walked 11, and the writers gave him both the Cy Young and the MVP. That October Roberto Alomar took him deep in Game 4 of the ALCS, and Toronto won the series. He closed for Oakland through 1995, finishing with 320 saves in green and gold.

La Russa left for St. Louis and Eck followed in a February 1996 trade. He pitched two years for the Cardinals and one more for Boston, and retired after 1998 with 197 wins, 100 complete games, 390 saves and a record 1,071 games pitched. He's the only pitcher with 100 saves and 100 complete games.

He went into Cooperstown on July 25, 2004, and used his speech to thank La Russa and Duncan. The A's retired his number 43 on August 13, 2005, Washington High named its field after him in 2007, and he was in the first class of the A's Hall of Fame in 2018. A whole generation in New England knows him as Honest Eck from the Red Sox broadcasts. Around here he's still the guy in the ninth.

Closing is the job where one mistake is all anybody remembers, and Eck chose to own that. In the 1988 ALCS he saved all four games of the sweep. The next October he saved the pennant clincher in Toronto by striking out Junior Felix, and then he got the last out of the World Series.

The control is what made him impossible. He walked three men in 1989, four in 1990. Goose Gossage said he could hit a gnat with a pitch. When there's no free pass coming, the hitter has to swing, and with Eck's slider that usually meant a weak ground ball or a strikeout.

He didn't always win the big one, and that's part of it. Gibson in 1988 and Alomar in 1992 were real. What separates him is he kept taking the ball the next night like it never happened, and through 1992 he was as good as any closer the game had seen.