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"There's a man in Mobile who remembers that Honus Wagner hit a triple in Pittsburgh 46 years ago. That's baseball."

"Thanks for the copy of the Ultimate Sports Guide.

Special pitcher, special man   --Dave Newhouse

In a half-century plus of covering Bay Area sports, there have been cooperative athletes to deal with and less-cooperative athletes to deal with. But two of my all-time favorites both played for the Oakland A's at the same time, Dave Stewart and Dennis Eckersley.

Those two pitchers made themselves available to the media after good and bad performances. They were stand-up guys, honest to the core, and they seemed to understand that we had a job to do while facing serious deadline pressures.

The A's were lucky to have both of them and they made the A's a playoff team. Eckersley's number is retired by the team, and Stewart's should be, too, even though it's the same as Rollie Fingers' 34. But four straight 20-win seasons -- you don't have to be in the Hall of Fame to have an impact.

Both these men experienced serious highs and lows in their careers, but Eckersley's nadirs were as significant as his summits. The worst was Kirk Gibson's home run in the 1988 World Series, the most amazing thing I ever saw in sports ... one leg, one swing, Gibson's only at-bat that series.

Several years later I was interviewing Eckersley in the A's clubhouse when he said, "They're showing it again." I turned around and there was Gibson's home run being replayed on television. I said to Eckersley, "How can you even watch it?"

His reply: "I was new to relief pitching that year, so I didn't know what to expect. But when Roberto Alomar hit that home run off me (in the 1992 playoffs), I went home and cried like a baby."

Eckersley hadn't ever made that admission publicly that I knew of, so I had what amounted to an exclusive story, or a scoop. He knew that I was writing it down, and it made for a great column, but it all goes back to his honesty, opening his heart and letting it all pour out. Special pitcher, special man.

Dave Newhouse's journalism career spans more than half a century, including 45 years at the Oakland Tribune before his retirement in November 2011. He will have written 11 books when his next two publications are released in the fall of 2015. He grew up in Menlo Park, graduated from San Jose State, and has radio and television experience in addition to his work as an award-winning sportswriter and columnist.

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