Former A's Closer Eckersley Doesn't See Baseball Back Quickly

Dennis Eckersley's experience with long work stoppages in 1981 and 1995 tell him that the return of the Athletics and MLB after pandemic must include lengthy training time.

A’s Hall of Fame closer Dennis Eckersley learned Monday morning he won’t be coming to Oakland anytime soon.

In fact, he’d be surprised to be there before June or even July.

Eckersley, who spends his baseball season working part-time for NESN, the Boston Red Sox’s television base, had been one of many former A’s to be invited to the Coliseum for the May 23 induction of former teammate Dave Stewart into the A’s Hall of Fame.

But in the wake of the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic, Major League Baseball has pushed back opening day by eight weeks. May 23 could see games being played, but there are no guarantees, so it’s likely that Oakland management will push the Stewart ceremony and other special dates deeper into the calendar year.

“I was going to do the Stew thing in May,” Eckersley told SI. “I was really looking forward to it. But I think that’s all changed.”

Everything baseball has changed in the face of a pandemic. Eckersley, who spends his winters and early springs in the Bay Area to be near grandkids Jess and Shay, flew back to Boston last week to prepare for the season ahead with the Red Sox. He was going to do the first eight games, including starting out in Toronto.

Now, he says, “I’ve got a month to kill, maybe more.”

The thing is, he’s been there before, at least in terms of having unexpected time to kill midseason. He was with the Red Sox in 1981 when a players’ strike cut the season down by 38 percent. There was no baseball from June 12-July 31, and baseball started up again on Aug. 10.

Baseball will have to have some kind of special training regimen when players return, but, Eckersley warns, the 10 days players were allotted in 1981 wasn’t nearly enough.

“To me, you need 17 days to three weeks at a minimum,” Eckersley said. “In a perfect world, you would have a whole (new) spring training. I remember not throwing the ball very well after we came back. There just wasn’t time enough to build up my arm. That’s dangerous.’

As it happens, he didn’t have a very good season even before the strike, going 5-4 with 4.39 ERA before players walked. After coming back, he was 4-4, 4.13. Over the previous three seasons he’d won 49 games with a cumulative 3.35 ERA.

Part of the problem was the shock of it all. Then, like now, MLB hadn’t seen anything like it.

“Nobody was ready (for the strike),” Eckersley said. “Then it was hard to stay ready. For the first couple of weeks, you stayed ready because you are thinking `Somebody’s going to come to their senses.’ Then it was like, ‘Uh-oh. You think they’re not going to come back.’”

In 1995, when Eckersley was an All-Star with the A’s, another work stoppage stepped in. An owner’s lockout led to all six weeks of spring training to be wiped out – do any A’s fans remember Oakland native Terance `Turbo’ Frazier make a run at the roster that spring? Just before the season was to start with essentially squads consisting of a bunch of pickup players, 0wners unlocked the doors on April 2.

This time, the players, who hadn’t been game-ready at all, spent about three weeks training before the season starts on April 25. (The season was shortened to 144 games).

“There was more time in 1995, but it still seemed short,” Eckersley said.

It may just be coincidence, but the 1995 season, Eckersley’s last with the A’s, was his worst as a reliever. He got 29 saves, but did it despite a 4-6 record and a 4.83 ERA.

As for 2020, Eckersley said the sport is doing what it has to do and “we’ll all be ready for it when it returns.”

“Given how much time players need to really get ready, I’d say June 1 is about right,” he said.