Rickey Henderson Sends A’s Back to Series : MVP Steals the Show, Spanks Blue Jays, 4-3

Rickey Henderson came home to Oakland earlier this season, and now the Athletics are going home to the World Series. Again.

The Athletics, with Henderson again stealing the show, won their second straight American League pennant, beating Toronto 4-3 Sunday to win the playoffs in five games.

Dave Stewart outpitched Dave Stieb for the second time in the series as Oakland became the first team to win consecutive pennants since the New York Yankees and the Dodgers each did it in 1977-78. This also ended the longest streak in history without a repeat champion.

“It’s real hard to do, that’s what makes it so special,” Oakland manager Tony La Russa said. “I think the team could fly home on its own enthusiasm.”

The Athletics, with the best record in baseball the last two seasons, will open the World Series at home next Saturday against the San Francisco Giants or the Chicago Cubs.

Either way, Oakland will not have to face a pitcher the caliber of the Dodgers’ Orel Hershiser, who stopped the Athletics in five games last year. And this time they have Henderson.

“I’ve been striving for this moment for about 10 years and it never came true,” Henderson said. “I was probably wondering when I was going to get to the World Series. I always felt I would be there, but what year I never knew.”

Henderson, who began his career with the Athletics, was traded back to his hometown by the Yankees on June 20 for pitchers Greg Cadaret and Eric Plunk and outfielder Luis Polonia. His return propelled Oakland to the playoffs, then he made them his personal showcase as he was unanimously voted most valuable player.

Henderson reached base in 14 of 23 at-bats and stole a postseason record eight bases without being caught. Henderson, who went six for 15, hit two home runs, a triple, a double and scored eight times.

“I can’t say I surprised myself,” Henderson said. “They call it the money players. I guess I’m one of the money players, one of the guys who wants to be there when it counts.”

His teammates knew that from the time he joined them.

“He’s been doing this for us since the All-Star break,” first baseman Mark McGwire said. “I think the big thing is he’s home and he’s happy. We had eight or nine different leadoff men last year and he’s what we needed.”

Along with everything else, Henderson was the only player to start every game and not strike out as lead-off hitter. Earlier this season, he made headlines as Nolan Ryan’s 5,000th strikeout victim.

He was just what Oakland needed to run past Toronto.

“They’re a real good team,” Blue Jays manager Cito Gaston said. “I guess they stack up pretty close to that great Cincinnati team in 1976.”

From the start on Sunday, Henderson kept Toronto in trouble. He drew a walk to start the game, stole second and scored on Jose Canseco’s single. In the third, after another leadoff walk, Henderson hit a triple that made the score 2-0.

After that, the Blue Jays and their sellout crowd of 50,024 was mostly silent. After going 11-0 with the SkyDome roof closed, the Athletics won two straight indoors from the Blue Jays.

The Athletics, who won 10 more games than Toronto this season and won the season series 7-5, got their 14th pennant, including nine while in Philadelphia. The victory also set up the possibility of baseball’s first metro series since 1956, when Brooklyn played the Yankees.

Stewart, a 20-game winner for three straight seasons, made the lead hold up. He gave up eight hits in eight innings, allowing solo home runs to Lloyd Moseby in the eighth and George Bell in the ninth. He walked none and struck out four.

Dennis Eckersley, who saved all four Oakland playoff victories last season, earned his third of the series by pitching the ninth, giving up one run and one hit.

As Eckersley warmed up, Gaston talked to home plate umpire Dave Phillips, who then went to the mound and checked Eckersley’s glove. La Russa then expressed his displeasure, although no action was taken against the pitcher.

Stieb gave up only four hits in six-plus innings. But he hurt himself with four walks, and all three leadoff walks wound up scoring.

While Oakland’s offensive stars did the job, the Blue Jays’ big guns did not fire. Bell, who had 104 RBIs, went four for 20 and Fred McGriff was three for 21. McGriff, the league champion with 36 home runs, did not homer after Sept. 4 and did not have an extra-base hit after Sept. 13.

The Blue Jays got only two hits in their last 20 at-bats with runners in scoring position. Toronto’s pitching did not help either, as the starters gave up 19 earned runs in 26 2/3 innings.

Oakland was outhit 9-4, but made better use of them. Canseco was hitless in 24 postseason at-bats before getting five hits in his last 11 at-bats.

Stieb walked Walt Weiss to start the third and Mike Gallego sacrificed before Henderson tripled into the right-center field alley.

The Athletics scored twice in the seventh. Dave Henderson drew a leadoff walk and McGwire and Terry Steinbach each singled to make the score 3-0 and finished Stieb. Gallego’s suicide squeeze against Jim Acker got McGwire home.

Stewart has not pitched a shutout since Aug. 30, 1988, and lost his when Moseby homered to start the eighth. Bell’s home run opened the ninth and brought on Eckersley.

The Athletics’ victory gave the AL West three straight pennants. The division, which has caught up to the once-superior East but still trails 13-8 in playoffs, had not won three in a row since Oakland in 1974.

Toronto, which pushed its way to the AL East title after Gaston replaced the fired Jimy Williams in May, came up short again. The Blue Jays lost their only previous playoff in 1985, squandering a 3-1 lead to Kansas City, and blew the 1987 division championship by losing the last seven games of the season.

Oakland played for the second straight game without third baseman Carney Lansford, who was second in the league with a .336 average. He is sidelined because of a pulled left hamstring and is day-to-day.