Pitching, Steroids, and The 1989 Oakland A's

With the 20-year reunion of the 1989 Oakland A's last week came new talk about whether steroids use completely tainted the superb A's teams of 1988 through 1990. I grew up watching the '88 and '89 A's, and their success, especially in 1989, came more from their superb pitching and the speed of Rickey Henderson than from power displays. It's probably too late to dislodge the Bash Brothers image from memories of that A's dynasty, but over the next few hundred words, I hope to at least show that power was not the crucial element behind Oakland winning the Loma Prieta World Series. 33, 22, 17, 15: those are the home run totals for the A’s top four players in 1989, and no one else broke into double digits. Mark McGwire led the way, then came Dave Parker, Jose Canseco, and finally Dave Henderson. Of the three pennant-winning A’s teams, 1988 through 1990, the 1989 A’s had easily the least powerful offense: 127 homers and a .381 slugging percentage, against 156 homers and a .399 ... (link)