Joe Rudi on How Joe DiMaggio Made Him a Better Outfielder
On Sunday the Oakland A's held their 1974 World Series reunion, which will end up being the final one at the Coliseum with the team's planned departure for Sacramento following the season before their planned arrival in Las Vegas.
One of the honorees was Joe Rudi, who began his big-league career by playing 19 games in Kansas City in 1967, the year before the A's landed in Oakland. When the A's arrived at the Coliseum, they also had an all-time great on their coaching staff in Joe DiMaggio.
DiMaggio played 13 seasons with the New York Yankees, winning three AL MVP awards, nine World Series rings, and had a 56-game hit streak that will never be touched. He also played tremendous defense in center field.
When Rudi debuted in '67, he played nine games at first and six in left as he began his transformation into an outfielder.
"Thank god in '68, '69 we had Joe DiMaggio as a coach. He worked with me every day for those two years. And it was, you know, it was someone to hit fly balls and line drives and stuff to me." It was like getting your doctorate on playing the outfield from that guy. It was great."
Rudi also mentioned that DiMaggio was a very nice guy, and was different with the players than he was when the media were around. Rudi thinks that's because he'd been burned by the media in New York during his playing days.
"The guy was just so smart. Just little things he taught us [about] getting jumps on the ball and different things like that."
This is when we got into the nitty gritty of roaming the outfield. Rudi talked about something he called the "eye shift" which is when you focus in on one object, either in the field or at the plate, and as you focus, your peripheral vision opens up.
"Playing center field, I always used to tell [Billy] North, 'you ought to have to pay to play out here." The view was just too good, and you could see right in to what was happening at the plate. "When you're doing an eye shift and the hitter up there is right-handed or left-handed [and the ball is] coming at you to the line it's always gonna hook for the line." This was a way to read the ball for Rudi, as taught by DiMaggio.
Rudi also talked about reading the hitter and having that influence how he'd react to a ball that was hit in the air.
"Having your stance and always coming down on your front foot as the pitch got to the hitters, so you were never flat-footed. You see a lot of these outfielders, like [Jose] Canseco, he's standing out there [flat-footed], the ball is hit in the air, and now he's got to get moving. We were already moving before the ball got off the bat."
The play above is from the ninth inning Game 2 of the 1972 World Series. With a runner on first, Rudi leapt and made a tremendous catch, then nearly doubled-up Tony Pérez at first. The A's won the game 2-1, and the series in seven games. Without this play, that may not have been how history was written.
Without coaching from Joe DiMaggio, this play may not have happened. "It was like getting your doctorate on playing the outfield from that guy. It was great."
JASON BURKE
Jason is the host of the Locked on A's podcast, and the managing editor of Inside the A's. He's a new father and can't wait to take his son to his first baseball game at the Coliseum.