Moneyball by Lewis, Michael (mobile ebook reader txt) 📕

Simple pop flies he’d lose in the air and they would drop ten yards away from him in the Coliseum’s vast foul territory. “On a lot of the pop-ups I missed it wouldn’t even look like an error,” he said, “because I’d never get anywhere near the ball.”

And then something happened: the more he went out to play first base, the more comfortable he felt there. By late June he could say, with a smile, that “the difference between spring training and now is that when a ground ball comes at me now, my blood pressure doesn’t go through the roof.” A large part of the change was due to Wash. Wash got inside your head because—well, because you wanted Wash inside your head. Every play Hatty made, including throws he took from other infielders, he came back to the dugout and discussed with Wash. His coach was creating an alternative scale on which Hatty could judge his performance. He might be an absolute D but on Wash’s curve he felt like a B, and rising. “He knew that what looked like a routine play wasn’t a routine play for me,” said Hatty. Wash was helping him to fool himself, to make him feel better than he was, until he actually became better than he was. At the Coliseum it was a long way from the A’s dugout to first base, but every time Hatty picked a throw out of the dirt—a play most first basemen made with their eyes closed—he’d hear Wash shout from the dugout:

“Pickin’ Machine!”

He’d look over and see Wash with his fighting face on:

“Pickin’ Machine!”

Hatty sensed that he was naturally more athletic than most guys management hid at first base, and he was right. He began to relax. He began to want the ball to be hit to him. He began to feel comfortable. He began to feel himself. One of the things he had always enjoyed as a catcher was the chance to talk to the other teams’ players. First base was a far richer social opportunity. First base made catching feeling like a bad dinner party—what with the ump hanging on your shoulder and all the fans and cameras staring at you. At first base you could really talk. Posted on the bulletin board of the Oakland A’s clubhouse was a memo, signed by Bob Watson, from Major League Baseball:

Players of the opposing teams shall not fraternize at any time while in uniform.

—Official Baseball Rule 3.09

By the summer of 2002, the memo might as well have been addressed directly to Scott Hatteberg. First base as he played it became a running social event. “Guys come to first,” he said, “and they step into my little office. And I do like to chat.” Rafael Palmeiro draws a walk and Hatty asks him which A’s lefty is tougher to hit, Mark Mulder or Barry Zito. (Mulder, Raffy says.) Jeff Cirillo hits a single and, with only the tiniest prompting, starts to bitch and moan about hitting ninth in the Seattle lineup. Jeff Bagwell gets on by a fielder’s error, and Hatty lets him know what a Bagwell fan he is, prompting Bagwell to go into this Eeyore-like dirge about what a poor natural hitter he actually is. “He keeps saying, ‘I hate my swing I hate my swing,’ and I’m like, ‘Dude, you are unbelievable.’” Hatty encouraged all of it, and more. “The funny part is the etiquette,” he said. “When a guy gets on, knowing when to break the ice. I try to be courteous. If a guy got a hit I might say, ‘Nice piece of hitting there.’ Before you know it, they’re chattering away.”

He was having fun. He began to make plays people didn’t expect him to make; he began to make plays Wash didn t expect him to make. He still thought the whole Oakland experiment had been more than a tad unorthodox. “I think it’s odd,” he said, “the way they shove guys in on defense every which way.” But by midsummer, he was overhearing people referring to him as an “aboveaverage” first baseman. By the end of July, when you asked Wash what he made of the transformation of Scott Hatteberg into an above-average first baseman, he just shook his head and smiled. “He made a liar of me,” he said. “Now he goes out and does what he does and he’s a ballplayer, reacting.” Then he’d think about it for a moment and say, “These are the kind of guys you go to war with. The Scott Hattebergs.”

A knack for playing first base had little to do with the Oakland A’s interest in Scott Hatteberg. It was a bonus that Hatty had made himself as good as he did but he could have played worse without wearing out his welcome. Hatty had been on a collision course with Oakland from the moment Paul DePodesta and Billy Beane had concluded that on-base percentage was three times more important than slugging percentage, and that certain secondary traits in a hitter, widely ignored by the rest of baseball, were also critically important to the success of the team. Hatty had some power, but what he really had was an approach to hitting that helped an offense to create runs. When he was with the Red Sox he had gotten on base at a rate about 25 points higher than the league average, and did so while (a) not playing regularly, and (b) being worn out behind home plate. Rested and playing regularly, he’d only get on base more.*

Despite hitting in a pitcher’s park, Hatteberg would finish the 2002 season tied—with A’s teammate Ray Durham—for thirteenth in the American League in on-base percentage. Behind him, in addition to the rest of the Oakland A’s, were a lot of multimillionaires you might not expect to find there: Derek Jeter, Johnny Damon, Nomar Garciaparra.

He’d do something else, too: wear out opposing pitching. Scott Hatteberg’s at bats went on and on; they