oliva

THE SAGA OF SAL BANDO Dec 16, '06 12:09 AM
by Jim for everyone


neverlast
I grew up in a suburb of Cleveland, Ohio called Warrensville Heights. A decade before I graduated from that high school, a fellow by the name of Sal Bando graduated. He would go on to be the cornerstone of some great Oakland A's ball clubs and one of the best third basemen of his era.

Sal started his career in 1966 with the lowly Kansas City Athletics. By 1968 when the colorful owner Charlie Finley moved the club to Oakland, Sal had become a starter. It was also the beginning of the A's becoming one of the best teams in baseball for the next several seasons. Graced with players like Rick Monday, Bert Campanaris, Joe Rudi, Gene Tenace, Vida Blue, Ken Holtzman and Hall Of Famer's, Jim " Catfish " Hunter and Reggie Jackson...a dynasty was born.

Sal would spend nine seasons as an Oakland Athletic. During that time he was as steady and solid as any third baseman in the American League. He belted out 192 home runs and drove home 722 runs. That's an average of 21 HR's and 80 RBI's a year.

In 1977 he went to the Milwaukee Brewers where he also had some success. His career ended after 1981. In all he was in the Major League for sixteen seasons. In his career he appeared in 2,019 games. He batted officially 7,060 times. He had 1,790 hits. He had 242 home runs and 1,039 runs batted in. He stole 75 bases, 20 of which came in 1976.

Although he was a career .254 hitter, he had six seasons with over twenty home runs. One time he went over thirty. Twice he surpassed the century mark in RBI's and he went over ninety on two other occasions. He was really the foundation that Charlie Finley built on. It's an honor to say he was from my hometown.