Sandy Alderson is a former Marine who led a platoon in Vietnam. For the past 11 years he has been fighting a recurring form of cancer. Just recently, Alderson returned from Ukraine where he was part of a convoy driving supplies into Kyiv.
In other words, Alderson isn’t the type to spend time wondering why he isn’t in the A’s Hall of Fame.
And now, finally and fittingly, it’s moot.
Alderson, the architect of the Oakland teams that went to the World Series three years in a row from 1988-1990, will be inducted in the A’s Hall of Fame on Saturday in a pregame ceremony at Sutter Health Park in West Sacramento. He is part of a class that includes the late Dave Henderson, one of Alderson’s standout acquisitions, “Moneyball” second baseman Mark Ellis, and 1970s pitcher John “Blue Moon” Odom.
“I’m grateful for the recognition,” Alderson, 78, said this week from his home in St. Petersburg, Florida. “But mostly it’s an opportunity to say thank you to a bunch of people, starting with Roy Eisenhardt.”
Eisenhardt, the A’s president from 1980-86, brought Alderson to the front office as a lawyer and two years later put him in charge of baseball operations. Alderson had no experience in the job, but he seems to have done OK.
In trades he acquired Dennis Eckersley, Bob Welch, Dave Parker, and reacquired Rickey Henderson twice. That’s three Hall of Famers and a Cy Young Award-winning pitcher, Welch, whose 27 victories in 1990 were the most since 1968 and remain so, perhaps forevermore. (The Eckersley trade was Alderson’s greatest not only for what Eckersley became but also for what the A’s gave up: three minor-leaguers who never made the show.)
Former Oakland Athletics general manager Sandy Alderson speaks during a celebration of life for former Athletics baseball player Rickey Henderson in Oakland, Calif., Saturday, Feb. 1, 2025. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu)
Under Alderson the A’s drafted and developed Jose Canseco, Mark McGwire and Walt Weiss, three consecutive Rookies of the Year and two more Hall of Famers if only …
Off the scrap heap he signed Dave Stewart, who might be in Cooperstown if he’d encountered Tony La Russa and Dave Duncan earlier in his career. Alderson also brought in the aforementioned Dave Henderson; Don Baylor; Reggie Jackson (for a farewell season); starting pitchers Mike Moore (66-36 over four seasons) and Storm Davis (35-14 over two); Eck’s peerless setup men Rick Honeycutt and Gene Nelson; and Billy Beane, who he introduced to the concepts of what became known as Moneyball.
The list goes on – Ron Hassey, anyone? – but one acquisition is rarely, if ever, included on the list of Alderson’s career acquisitions: La Russa, the Hall of Fame manager. The A’s got him in the middle of the 1986 season. Alderson was the GM. He had to have been involved, right?
Oakland Athletics first baseman Mark McGwire, far right, bashes forearms with Jose Canseco (33), Carney Lansford and Ron Hassey (44), who scored ahead of him after his grand slam in the eighth inning against the California Angels at Oakland, Ca., on Aug. 12, 1988. It is McGwire’s 21st homer of the season and the first grand slam of his major league career. The A’s beat the Angels, 7-2. (AP Photo/Sal Veder)
“Directly involved,” he replied with a chuckle, and he left it at that.
Alderson is a proud but humble man. And a military man who knows triumphs rarely belong to one individual. There will be no stolen valor.
Eisenhardt and others are left to tell the story.
“Tony was a guy I’d had my eye on for a long time,” Eisenhardt said. “That was the final piece, getting Tony in the dugout.”
In June of 1986, with La Russa on the hot seat in Chicago, the A’s went on high alert. When La Russa was fired by White Sox broadcaster-turned-GM Ken “Hawk” Harrelson, Eisenhardt and Alderson, along with farm director Karl Kuehl, jetted to O’Hare to meet with La Russa.
“It was my first interview ever,” said La Russa, who had zoomed through the White Sox farm system to become their major league manager at age 34, “so my focus was to make a good impression. “The first thing they said was, ‘This isn’t an interview. This is a meeting to convince you to become A’s manager.’”
La Russa was interested, but he had made elaborate plans for a family vacation, an RV trip to Mount Rushmore with stops along the way to pick up friends. Could the A’s wait ’til September? No.
Could they wait ’til after the All-Star break?
The O’Hare meeting ended without resolution. Eisenhardt and Kuehl flew back to the Bay Area. Alderson stayed back, pondering his next move.
His next move was to drive to La Russa’s home.
“I left it to Sandy to talk Tony into it,” Eisenhardt said.
“As I recall,” Alderson said when I relayed the story to him, “I wasn’t going to leave until he told me yes – or definitively no.”
Ultimately, La Russa said yes. The A’s agreed to wait until after the All-Star break. La Russa took the A’s, then 31-52, to Boston and beat Roger Clemens with Stewart as the surprise starter.
Former Chicago White Sox manager,Tony LaRussa, 41, tries on an Oakland A’s cap at the San Francisco Airport after arriving from Chicago July 3, 1986. LaRussa agreed to a multi-year contract as manager with the A’s after Jackie Moore was fired last week. (AP Photo/Paul Sakuma)
The A’s went 45-34 the rest of the way.
In 1987, their first full season under La Russa, the A’s were in the hunt, a half-game out of first place in the A.L. West when September came. They finished third, four games out, at 81-81.
Then came what La Russa, a man with 60-plus years in baseball, calls “the best offseason work” he has ever seen.
“As soon as the season was over,” he said, “Sandy had a couple-three meetings to talk about what we needed. We identified six or seven needs that would really help us. Then we identified three or four players in each category.”
In December, they went to the winter meetings with targets set.
They wanted a starting pitcher. They got Welch from the Dodgers in a three-team deal that sent Jay Howell and Alfredo Griffin to the Dodgers and pitching prospects Kevin Tapani and Wally Whitehurst to the Mets. (The A’s got Matt Young, a left-handed pitcher, in the deal; that didn’t work out too well.)
They wanted a left-handed slugger to put between Canseco and McGwire in the heart of the order. They got Parker from the Reds for pitchers Jose Rijo and Tim Birtsas. (That was a big win until Rijo stuck it to the A’s in the 1990 World Series, winning two games and the MVP.)
They signed Hassey, a left-handed hitting veteran catcher to share time with Terry Steinbach.
They signed Henderson to compete for the centerfield job, which he won and kept a stranglehold on for five seasons. They signed Glenn Hubbard to play second base and Don Baylor for veteran leadership and a DH against lefties.
The A’s went 104-58, then 99-63, then 103-59.
So why isn’t Alderson in the A’s hall of fame? Don’t ask him. Don’t ask anybody. Nobody seems to know much about how it works. Those who should know aren’t eager to share. I tried for three days to get basic information on the process. The process of selecting a Pope is more transparent.
On the fourth day, I received an email from the A’s: “A’s Hall of Famers are selected by a vote of fans, media, front office members, and current Hall of Famers.”
OK then. I mean, what more could anyone want to know?
The Hall has only been around since 2018 and you certainly can’t argue with the inaugural class: Eck, Stew, Rickey, Catfish, Reggie, Rollie and Finley. All one-name guys.
Former Oakland Athletics’ Dennis Eckersley talks as he is inducted as a member of the inaugural class of the Athletics Hall of Fame before the A’s game against the New York Yankees at the Coliseum in Oakland, Calif., on Wednesday, Sept. 5, 2018. (Nhat V. Meyer/Bay Area News Group) (Nhat V. Meyer/Bay Area News Group)
La Russa, McGwire, Vida Blue, Campy Campaneris and former owner Walter Haas were the class of 2019.
In 2020, COVID ruled and the following year was a 10-person homage to the Philadelphia A’s, including Connie Mack, Jimmie Foxx and Mickey Cochrane.
Since then, there have been 21 inductees: 14 players, a manager (Dick Williams), four media (including P.A. announcer Roy Steele) and two men who gave 50 years to the A’s (clubhouse guy Steve Vucinich and organizational stalwart Keith Lieppman).
Alderson, as it turns out, will be the first executive, the first GM. As it should be.