(This story was originally published in 1988)
CINCINNATI — The parade was continuing beneath the seats of Riverfront Stadium on Tuesday, in the tunnels and corridors. The parade that no one could have foreseen. The Terry Steinbach parade.
First came a man in a suit, holding the most-valuable-player trophy. Then came the man in charge of lining up TV interviews for the next hour. Then came the man himself, Terry Steinbach, smiling a wonderfully goofy smile. When you looked at the parade, it reminded you of a procession at the county fair, with the small-town kid and the mayor and the prize cow. It was almost homey.
“I hope I convinced the people who voted for me that they did the right thing,” said Steinbach, a homey small-town guy from Minnesota who plays catcher for the A’s.
And now, the star of his own parade. Steinbach was on the verge of giggling uncontrollably. He looked at the mammoth trophy, a hunk of gleaming metal about three feet high, and wondered if he would have to buy another airplane ticket for the thing so that he could bring it back home with him to Oakland.
“Hey, we’re coming off a 14-day road trip,” he said. “All of my bags are full of stuff. I don’t know what I’ll do.”
He will find a place for the trophy. That is what Steinbach will do. When you hit a home run in your first at-bat of your first major league All-Star Game and later drive in another run and then win the MVP award, you find a place for the trophy.
“You know what I was thinking in the on-deck circle before I batted the first time?” Steinbach asked. “I was nervous and was just thinking, ‘Don’t strike out. Don’t mess up.’ “
This was in the third inning. Dwight Gooden was on the mound for the National League. The odds were in favor of Steinbach’s nervous prediction.
“Gooden’s got the best fastball around,” Steinbach said. “So I was looking for fastballs all the way. I took one for a strike, and then . . . well, I didn’t crush the ball. But I knew I hit it to an area of the park where it might go out.”
And seconds later, it did, after right fielder Darryl Strawberry just missed a leaping grab at the ball. Terry Steinbach had hit a home run to give the American League a 1-0 lead. One inning later, he hit a sacrifice fly that accounted for the league’s only other run in a 2-1 victory.
“Did someone get him the home-run ball?” asked one of the groundskeepers as the Steinbach parade walked past. Yes, came the answer, someone had.
“The guys in the dugout were teasing me,” Steinbach said. “I hit a home run in my first major league at-bat, and now my first at-bat as an All-Star. They’re already saying I’m an answer to a trivia question.”
You had to giggle along with him. Just when you think you are getting too cynical about big-money baseball players and the glitzy commercialized nature of events like the All-Star Game, something like this comes along. Gary Carter of the Mets has a clause in his contract that says he receives a $100,000 bonus if he wins the MVP award in this game. Most of the other players had bonus clauses that paid them for simply appearing in the game.
Terry Steinbach had no such incentive clauses, for a basic reason. He didn’t think he’d ever be able to take advantage of them. He wasn’t even a full-time starter as a rookie last season with the A’s. Why ask for a bonus clause like that?
“This is the Goodwill Games for me, I guess,” Steinbach said and laughed again.
Before the first pitch, there were plenty of people who figured Steinbach should have been wearing the Donald Duck costume in the pregame Walt Disney show rather than wearing the catching gear. Steinbach had the lowest batting average of any All-Star other than the pitchers — Gooden was just one point lower, at .216 — and was constantly having to justify his selection. The company that presents souvenir bats to the players even misspelled his name.
“I didn’t pay attention to any of those things,” said Tom Kelly, the American League manager. “Hey, he must be doing something right. The A’s are leading their division by 5 1/2 games.”
Dennis Eckersley, an A’s teammate who wound up pitching the last inning, felt the same way.
“Terry was like a little kid tonight,” Eckersley said. “When he was running from third toward home, he just looked like he was in a cloud. I’m so glad this happened to him.”
Somebody mentioned that Steinbach was a rather unlikely hero for a game like this. Eckersley’s eyes gleamed.
“Those are the best kind,” he said. “Don’t you think?”
Yes. We think. We love a parade.
