Project 84: Keith Atherton (529)
It's always easier to laugh about mistakes when they come along the way to winning a championship
Last night is not the first time that the Mets have lost a game on a walk-off balk. Having it happen as a result of trouble with the radio communication between the pitcher and catcher, and without the pitcher throwing a pitch, is a new twist, but it has happened before. Twice, in fact.
The first time was May 28, 1989, in a rematch of the previous year’s NLCS. Gregg Jefferies’ tying two-run double in the seventh got the Mets to extra innings at Dodger Stadium, but Roger McDowell couldn’t get anyone out in the 10th. Dave Anderson drew a leadoff walk, Willie Randolph singled, and with John Shelby at the plate, catcher Barry Lyons had Randolph picked off at first. Only, Lyons threw the ball away, advancing the runners to second and third. McDowell threw two more pitches, then balked home Shelby to give Los Angeles a 4-3 win.
McDowell was on hand for the other walk-off balk in Mets history before last night, as the pitching coach for Atlanta on June 16, 2011. For that one, we’ve got full video highlights… and that game was a doozy, ending with D.J. Carrasco balking and Terry Collins disconsolate.
What does that have to do with Keith Atherton? There have been only 29 balks in World Series history according to Stathead, and Atherton owns one of them, advancing Vince Coleman to second base before he stole third and scored on an Ozzie Smith hit… off Jeff Reardon, who came on to relieve Atherton in the middle of Smith’s at-bat.
During Coleman’s at-bat, ABC had a graphic and dropped the note that the Twins, and their predecessors the original Washington Senators, had not won a road game in the World Series since 1925 in Pittsburgh, behind Walter Johnson. The Twins would not win Game 5 of the 1987 World Series, nor any of their three road games in 1991, so it’s now a 98-year road losing streak that they’re on in the World Series, albeit with zero chances to break it in the last 32.
Atherton is one of only two pitchers to balk in Game 5 of the World Series, the other being Satchel Paige in 1948. Bob Lemon balked in Game 6 the next day in Boston, but Cleveland, like Minnesota in 1987, overcame a double-balk series to win the title. The only other World Series with multiple balks was 1988 (naturally, it was the year of the balk), which featured one called on each team: Dave Stewart of the A’s in Game 1 and the Dodgers’ Tim Leary in Game 3.
Atherton debuted with a lot of promise for the A’s in 1983, a second-round pick five years earlier who had been exclusively a starter as he moved up through the farm system with the Bend Timber Hawks, Modesto, Waterbury, and West Haven A’s, and the Tacoma Tigers. He never started a major league game, and his first major league appearance was mop-up work in a 9-3 A’s loss at Fenway Park, 40 years ago on July 14. He walked Dwight Evans, but got Rick Miller to fly out, then Dave Stapleton to bounce into a double play before working a 1-2-3 ninth.
Atherton became a bullpen regular in Oakland, but his numbers got a little bit worse each season, and on May 20, 1986, the A’s sent him to the Twins for Eric Broersma, a player Oakland had drafted in 1980, but who had returned to UCLA and gone to Minnesota in the third round in 1981. His career in the Twins’ system was stalling out, so maybe the A’s still had reports they liked and thought they could get him on track. They could not, and he was out of baseball a year later.
Atherton, meanwhile, did get back on track, largely by getting his walk rate from preposterously bad to merely so-so. And he was honestly good in 1988, holding opponents to a .683 OPS in 74 innings for the season. Of course, it was 1987 that generated the most memories in Minnesota, and despite the oddity of having his last act on a postseason field being a balk (he’d closed out Minnesota’s win in Game 1 of the Fall Classic, a non-save situation, and also pitched in the 1987 ALCS), Atherton always walks as a champion.
He also walks as misidentified in this YouTube clip, “Gary Gaetti Makes Great Play Off Keith Atherton Deflection,” as the pitcher in that play is a lefty wearing number 31 and Atherton wore number 22 for Minnesota. The lefty who wore 31 for the Twins was Dan Schatzader, who had separate stints in Minnesota in 1987 and 1988, signing with Cleveland in between and making 15 appearances there before he was released.
Atherton did not go to Cleveland (where he committed his only regular-season balk in the 342 appearances, in the second game of a doubleheader at Municipal Stadium on August 24, 1983 — he was the losing pitcher, but the balk was inconsequential) of his own accord. At the end of spring training in 1989, the Twins traded him there for Carmelo Castillo, who did have a decent 1989 as a fourth outfielder. The deal did not work out on the other side, and Atherton was released in August, ending his major league career. Atherton did sign with the Tigers after the release, but made his final pro appearances as a Toledo Mud Hen.
