in the league and was far and away the most strikeouts I've had for one season in my whole career. I didn't know how to handle it.
"What's going on here?" I would say to myself. "This is crazy.Does this happen to other players?"
It was also a great learning experience. My stock had gone up so high so fast, and then just like that, it came down again. You can never get too comfortable in baseball or the game will find a way to shrink you back down to size. Slumps are just part of baseball, and all you can do is find a way to work through them.
Fortunately for me, the A's organization believed in me and gave me the chance to stay in the lineup to work my way out of it-which I did.
We went to Detroit for a series against the Tigers. Walt Terrell gave me a good pitch to hit. I took a big swing and hit a home run to center field that ended up in the Tiger Stadium upper deck. They told me afterward that I had already hit a home run in every American League ballpark as a rookie. After that, the slump was behind me.
That September we played the New York Yankees in Oakland, and I had four hits in what ended up being a 9-8 win for us. One of those hits was a home run, which gave me 100 RBIs, making me the first player in baseball with 100 RBIs at that point. I finished with thirty-three home runs, which was fourth best in the league, and 117 RBIs, which was second best.
Back then, hitting thirty homers in a season was like hitting fifty nowadays. But at the time, I didn't think of it as a lot. I knew I still had a lot of work to do. There were so many aspects of my game I had to improve. I couldn't really enjoy my successes as a rookie when I knew I had so many weaknesses that I would have to work on before I could live up to my ability.
Everything about me needed improvement. I needed to get bigger, stronger, smarter, and more patient at the plate. But the thing I was most focused on was speed. Even though I stole fifteen bases as a rookie, and only got thrown out seven times, I knew I had the potential to steal a lot more bases. But I could only do that if I learned how to harness my speed and develop a more explosive first step, which makes all the difference when you're trying to get a good jump down to second base. I was so rough back then, I was focused on everything from cutting down on my strikeouts to psychological strengthening.
People forget, but even for a home-run hitter like me, the mental part of baseball was always important. I was still nervous at times, or overexcited. What you find out as you play more games is that the more knowledgeable you become, the more insight you have into playing in a certain ballpark or facing a certain pitcher, the more it helps you focus and become that much more intensely involved with the game.
That came with time, but it was a hard lesson, believe me. As I said, I never had anyone to train me or show me the way.
That might have helped me a lot, especially since I was so much younger than most of the other players, even though I was expected to help carry the team from my rookie year onward.
I always had the feeling that I was doing everything my own way. I was basically creating my own road as I went. There was no paved road for me to follow-it was like I was down in the Amazon, using a machete to cut my own way through to where I wanted to go. It was a slow process doing it that way.
The more years I had under my belt, the more I learned how to be myself without trying to break rules all the time. My strike zone refined and got smaller. Early on, I would swing at just about anything-high, low, inside, outside, you name it. I remember one time swinging at a pitch way up over my head. I had to reach so far for it that when it ricocheted off my bat, the ball slammed into my helmet. I swung at balls in the dirt all the time, and the funny thing was, I couldn't figure out why. I was so reactive at that time, and often so nervous, I was just a wild swinger. I wasn't concentrating
"What's going on here?" I would say to myself. "This is crazy.Does this happen to other players?"
It was also a great learning experience. My stock had gone up so high so fast, and then just like that, it came down again. You can never get too comfortable in baseball or the game will find a way to shrink you back down to size. Slumps are just part of baseball, and all you can do is find a way to work through them.
Fortunately for me, the A's organization believed in me and gave me the chance to stay in the lineup to work my way out of it-which I did.
We went to Detroit for a series against the Tigers. Walt Terrell gave me a good pitch to hit. I took a big swing and hit a home run to center field that ended up in the Tiger Stadium upper deck. They told me afterward that I had already hit a home run in every American League ballpark as a rookie. After that, the slump was behind me.
That September we played the New York Yankees in Oakland, and I had four hits in what ended up being a 9-8 win for us. One of those hits was a home run, which gave me 100 RBIs, making me the first player in baseball with 100 RBIs at that point. I finished with thirty-three home runs, which was fourth best in the league, and 117 RBIs, which was second best.
Back then, hitting thirty homers in a season was like hitting fifty nowadays. But at the time, I didn't think of it as a lot. I knew I still had a lot of work to do. There were so many aspects of my game I had to improve. I couldn't really enjoy my successes as a rookie when I knew I had so many weaknesses that I would have to work on before I could live up to my ability.
Everything about me needed improvement. I needed to get bigger, stronger, smarter, and more patient at the plate. But the thing I was most focused on was speed. Even though I stole fifteen bases as a rookie, and only got thrown out seven times, I knew I had the potential to steal a lot more bases. But I could only do that if I learned how to harness my speed and develop a more explosive first step, which makes all the difference when you're trying to get a good jump down to second base. I was so rough back then, I was focused on everything from cutting down on my strikeouts to psychological strengthening.
People forget, but even for a home-run hitter like me, the mental part of baseball was always important. I was still nervous at times, or overexcited. What you find out as you play more games is that the more knowledgeable you become, the more insight you have into playing in a certain ballpark or facing a certain pitcher, the more it helps you focus and become that much more intensely involved with the game.
That came with time, but it was a hard lesson, believe me. As I said, I never had anyone to train me or show me the way.
That might have helped me a lot, especially since I was so much younger than most of the other players, even though I was expected to help carry the team from my rookie year onward.
I always had the feeling that I was doing everything my own way. I was basically creating my own road as I went. There was no paved road for me to follow-it was like I was down in the Amazon, using a machete to cut my own way through to where I wanted to go. It was a slow process doing it that way.
The more years I had under my belt, the more I learned how to be myself without trying to break rules all the time. My strike zone refined and got smaller. Early on, I would swing at just about anything-high, low, inside, outside, you name it. I remember one time swinging at a pitch way up over my head. I had to reach so far for it that when it ricocheted off my bat, the ball slammed into my helmet. I swung at balls in the dirt all the time, and the funny thing was, I couldn't figure out why. I was so reactive at that time, and often so nervous, I was just a wild swinger. I wasn't concentrating
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