Eckersley Truly Worthy of Hall of Fame

By Ryan McGowan

There it was, the unmistakable trademark fist-pump after the last out was recorded, that he would later reveal was more to mask his fear of failure than to show up his opponents.  The team in white ran onto the field and the crowd erupted in jubilation.  The Eck had done it again, had finished off a big win one more time, the ultimate Omega to a host of various Alphas.  
We had seen that fist-pump so many times on TV while mowing down batters as an untouchable closer for the Oakland Athletics, perhaps the best to ever play the game at that position and certainly the modern inventor of the relief ace.  Dennis Eckersley treated us to it one last time in 1998, this time as a set-up man with the Boston Red Sox, in the city where he had first found professional success amid personal heartbreak and self-destructive alcoholism.  Twenty years after he won 20 games for the infamous 1978 Red Sox, the Eck came back to Boston for one more season, and memorably finished out his career in Fenway Park in his 24th big league season.

The particular fist-pump in question occurred at the end of a Red Sox game in late September of 1998, in the fall semester of my junior year in college.  During a science lecture class earlier in the day (“Topics: Cancer” if I remember correctly), my friend Jarrod and I concocted a plan to drive from Holy Cross in Worcester into Boston that night, get tickets to the game, and celebrate the Red Sox clinching the wild card playoff berth with a victory over the hapless Baltimore Orioles.  It was basically a lock; the Sox were starting Pedro Martinez, the reigning National League Cy Young Award winner who had more dominant starts that year than Tara Reid has had Coke binges.  We hopped in the car with two other friends, Scott and Eileen, and made it to Fenway in time to get tickets in the absolute last row of the center-field bleachers.  I am not even talking about beneath the JumboTron – these seats were BEHIND the JumboTron.  We weren’t in its shadow, rather, we could see the back of the scoreboard.  Still, it didn’t matter.  We were in the park, and we had our Pedro “K” cards ready, apparently to alert Kenmore Square to Martinez’s progress, as we seemed closer to the CITGO sign than to home plate.

Martinez was masterful as always, and the Sox had a big lead going into the ninth.  What I really remember about the game is that manager Jimy Williams sent Ecklersley out to finish the game in a non-save situation for the Sox.  Ever the professional, Eck calmly and efficiently got the last three outs, pumped his fist in the air, and stood in the middle of the celebration as his teammates formed a human mosh pit on the infield.  It seemed a fitting end for a complex, tragic, yet triumphant career of a player whom I always admired, respected, and loved to watch and cheer for (except when he shut the door against the Sox, which happened basically every time he pitched against them, including four straight in the 1988 ALCS).

Six years after that wild-card clinching game, Dennis Eckersley finds himself immortalized among baseball’s all-time greats in the Hall of Fame, and no one could be more worthy.  His enshrinement in Cooperstown last weekend was, to me and countless other baseball fans, a very special and meaningful event.  The story of Eck is more than just the story of a well-traveled mullet and porn mustache who liked to live his life the way he liked to pitch: hard and fast, with no regrets.  His reputation as a hard-partying bachelor followed him around after the unfortunate end of his first marriage, an experience which undoubtedly bruised and disillusioned him in many ways.  In 1978, a day after being traded from the Indians to the Red Sox, Eckersley’s first wife and high school sweetheart, Denise, told him that she had fallen in love with Eck’s friend and teammate with the Indians, Rick Manning, whom she later married.  Devastated and betrayed by the woman he loved and a man he trusted, Eckersley parlayed his cocky gunslinger personality and nasty pitching repertoire into making sure someone paid for his pain, and it was going to be the hitters of the American League.  Eck went 20-8 with a 2.99 ERA that year for Boston, propelling the Sox to the infamous one-game playoff with the Yankees that was won by New York.  

Eck had some success on and off with Boston, but was ultimately traded in 1984 to the Chicago Cubs in a much-forgotten deal that brought first baseman Bill Buckner to Boston.  In Chicago, Eck’s acknowledged alcoholism and personal troubles led him to finally seek counseling, and he entered a rehab center in Newport, Rhode Island, shortly before being traded to the Oakland A’s.  

It is in Oakland, of course, that Eckersley earned his Hall of Fame credentials.  Manager Tony LaRussa, ever the progressive innovator of the game, moved a reluctant Eck to the bullpen, where he became possibly the most dominant closer of all time, redefining the position, ultimately saving 390 games (third most all-time) and being the only pitcher with 100 complete games and 200 saves.  He won both the Cy Young Award and the MVP in 1992, and even though he gave up the famous home run to Kirk Gibson in Game 1 of the 1988 World Series, he came back the next year to win the Fall Classic with Oakland in the second year of a remarkable run of three straight American League pennants.  

Mixed in these years was the 1987 conviction of his brother, Wally, on kidnapping, robbery, and attempted murder charges, and the gradual declining health of his father, who has emphysema.  His second wife, Nancy, separated from him shortly after his playing career was over.  Certainly, the Eck did not have it easy.

That is what made last Sunday’s induction ceremony so meaningful and eye-catching for so many people.  Eckersley’s story is not about the luxuries and privileges of fame and the charmed life of a major league baseball star; rather, it is a shockingly human story of loss, pain, adversity, and subsequent triumph.  Listening to Eck speak at Cooperstown, breaking into tears every couple of minutes, seemingly talking directly to his parents who made the difficult journey from California to upstate New York to share this moment, one couldn’t help but feel anything but pride and compassion for this man who has endured so much, and remains standing tall.  Only the most cynical and heartless of observers couldn’t empathize with the passion for life in general and for the game of baseball in particular that Eck demonstrated on stage.  He showed that he understands how lucky he was to be one of the fortunate few to play Major League Baseball, and how God’s gift of a golden right arm doesn’t come with a guarantee of easy happiness – a lesson that many athletes and celebrities seem to forget once they achieve fame.

For many fans, the endearing image of Eck will be him walking off the field, head down in defeat, after Gibson’s miraculous home run.  For me, it will always be the fist-pump in 1998.  Dennis Eckersley, at 43 years old, after enduring more pain than life offers most people, had enough left in the tank for one more triumph.  It was refreshing to see a 49-year-old Dennis Eckersley appreciate the long, hard journey from a childhood in Northern California to the podium in rural New York, finally holding the plaque which will forever bear the likeness of that familiar, flowing mullet.

You were the best, Eck.  Don’t ever cut that hair or shave that `stache.  Congrats, from the guy behind the scoreboard in center field who won’t ever forget that last fist pump in Fenway Park, or the life story that made it that much more meaningful.