RIP. One of my faves at the time ... and probably the only one who was actually better than I thought he was.

Key part of those awesome Oakland teams. What a cast of characters

Vida Blue
Bando
Joe Rudi
Reggie
Bill north
Campy
Catfish
Holtzman
Dick green
Blue moon
Darold Knowles and his two brothers Darold and Darold
Rick Monday
Gene Tenace
Billy Williams
Dick green
Dave Duncan
Mudcat Grant
Diego Segui
Silent George
Ray Fosse
And the immortal Herb Washington

And I will add that Charley O, those mustaches and beautiful uniforms completed what I believed was the perfect team. Other than my home team Cards, they are my Favorite non Cards teams ever.

If you read "Sal Bando" as a Spanish word you get "salvando", which is "saving" in the heroic sense, not in the preserving sense. So a common trope among us Puerto Rican elementary school kids was that if you made a big play in a sandlot game, you were "sal bando".

Probably the best offensive player on the Mustache Gang after Reggie. And by all accounts a great on-field leader and a stand-up guy.

RIP.

Bando retired when I was an infant, so if I ever saw him play I don't remember it. But I've always enjoyed his baseball stylings, in the weird way one does with that kind of player. Once upon a time he was as good as a 3B got. Super perfundo.

Definitely a candidate to man 3B for the HOVG team(though there is some serious competition for this spot), just a terrific player.

RIP

It's funny what you remember about people. There was an old 19th Century music hall song named "McNamara's Band", which was very popular in its day, and which I somehow knew as a child. John McNamara became Bando's manager when he managed the A's in 1969 and 1970, and I couldn't help thinking of Sal as "McNamara's Bando". I have no idea if anyone else in the world made the connection, but for some reason I did.

2023 HOM results

2023 Hall of Merit Election Results

Congratulations to our 2023 Hall of Merit Inductees. We have elected outfielders Carlos Beltran, Lance Berkman and Bobby Bonds.

player name pts ballots 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15
Carlos Beltran 606 26 22 2 1 1
Lance Berkman 314 19 2 5 1 1 3 2 1 1 1 2
Bobby Bonds 237 17 2 1 4 1 1 2 1 1 2 1 1
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Buddy Bell 221 15 4 1 1 2 3 1 1 1 1
David Ortiz 207 13 2 2 2 1 1 2 1 1 1
Sal Bando 178 13 1 2 1 1 1 2 2 1 1 1
Tim Hudson 170 12 2 3 1 1 1 1 1 2
Tommy John 158 11 2 2 2 1 1 1 2
Bob Johnson 153 11 1 4 1 1 1 1 1 1
Thurman Munson 142 9 1 3 1 1 1 1 1
Kevin Appier 140 10 1 1 1 2 2 1 1 1

Sal Bando 178 13 1 2 1 1 1 2 2 1 1 1

From 1971-74, Bando finished 2nd, 3rd, and 4th in MVP voting. Who knew? He was only bested by his teammate Blue in 71.

From 1969-78, Bando had the same WAR as Reggie Jackson, who was waaay more well-known and thought of as the main player of the A's (and Yankees).

A friend of mine went to some big game at the Metrodome back in the early 90s, playoffs maybe. They were a big baseball family, so while she wasn't an athlete she did know who people were and could recognize faces. She wasn't given to hyperbole, so when she returned to the office the day after the game I believed her when she said "We sat next to Sal Bando, and my God is he a gorgeous man." Huh. Fair winds and following seas, Mr Bando. Rest in peace.

buy your friend this Sal Bando Topps card

"Boyhood Photos of the Stars"

Sal did have a certain rugged look to him.

The 1971-75 A's arguably (or maybe inarguably) had the greatest non-Yankee run of all time. And out of their core team, only 3 Hall of Famers (Reggie, Catfish, Rollie), two of which frequently receive criticism for their worthiness. Surprising that a team that good did it on the basis of very good players like Bando, Campy, Tenace, Holtzman, Blue. Certainly cases can be made for Campy and Bando, and a very strong case can be made for Finley.

#2 ... nitpick: Monday & Holtzman were traded for each other so never part of the same A's team. Monday did play for the 71 ALW champs that got swept by the O's but he was not part of their WS teams. Eventually CF was taken over by Cub prospect Bill North in one of the dumber trades in Cubs history (saying a lot).

I was born in 1974, started following baseball in 1981 (basically, after the strike ended). I was a voracious reader, especially about baseball history.. When you are 7 or 8 years old, "history" is pretty much all you've got, and it pretty much all looks the same. 1975 and 1957 are the same thing in 1982, when you are eight years old, because you weren't around for any of it.

So for years, I used to mix up Sal Bando and Ron Santo:

- They were both third basemen
- They were both classified as "really good", but not quite "Hall of Famers"
- Their names are obviously extremely similar
- I wouldn't say they looked the same, but they looked more similar to each other than, say, either of them looked like Mike Schmidt, much less Dick Allen
- Their careers overlapped a little bit in the late 60s and early 70s, but (again) to a little kid, being a 1960s player vs a 1970s player seemed pretty interchangeable.

Santo was the better player, but Bando got the rings as a key member of one of the greatest dynasties of all time, and then was able to stick around the game for decades after.

He is another example of a player who, while not a part of my favorite team, nor even really active as a player during my lifetime as a fan, was nonetheless a small part of my memories as a young, deliriously-in-love-with-baseball kid. Those are really good memories, and all of these players contributed to making my childhood better, and the memories richer. How wonderful is that? Thank you very much, Mr. Bando - rest in peace.

My Sal Bando memory was a PS game at Fenway, where he put 4 dents in the Monster - might've been 4 dingers at home but only 2 singles and 2 doubles at Boston. (Roger Angell described those hits as only he could.) That might've been the game in which Herb Washington "fielded" in LF, playing an easy FB into a double by positioning to take the bounce off the Monster while the ball hit the grass in front of it.

Sal Bando is handsome like say Justin Verlander or Steven Vogt. They have the face of a character actor not a leading man.

His playing career was before my time, but I remember his time in Brewers management and that he had a great baseball name.

Sal had a homer in the second game I ever attended live ... checks BBRef ... Saturday July 24, 1971. Afternoon game. Don't really remember Sal's dinger, but do remember (we got there really early) running into Curt Gowdy and Tony Kubek outside the stadium -- they actually said hi to us -- and my dad swooning after the game to my mom about Rick Monday's warmup arm. (He did kind of have a cannon and "looked like a ballplayer" in the way that early Frenchy "looked like a ballplayer" to a swooning Gary Cohen. Rick might have actually looked "more like one.") Vague memories of Blue Moon Odom, who started for the A's.

Primary memory by far is the A's gray vest uniforms over green long (*) sleeves, in their last year before they went full-on pullover. Pretty much a picture-perfect baseball uniform. Trying to find a YouTube of a game with them sounds like a good downtime next few days project.

Sal of course was a glue anchor for that A's team in their entire run and a really good player, after being an anchor guy for the Arizona State program that was best-in-class in his day. The A's team as portrayed in Sports Illustrated and other national media, as well as the era which was replete in both compelling baseball and compelling business of baseball (**) as the bell tolled for inevitable free agency were a massive part of my early formative years and Sal played a feature role in both parts.

RIP.

(*) And maybe even short for some guys, which would be really cool to remember or catch up on, but no memories at all. Pretty young.

(**) And then as I got older even served as a de facto case study in workplace relationships and going about your business even if you detest your bosses, as Sal and a bunch of his colleagues obviously did.

If you read "Sal Bando" as a Spanish word you get "salvando", which is "saving" in the heroic sense, not in the preserving sense. So a common trope among us Puerto Rican elementary school kids was that if you made a big play in a sandlot game, you were "sal bando".

Love this!

It's funny what you remember about people. There was an old 19th Century music hall song named "McNamara's Band", which was very popular in its day, and which I somehow knew as a child. John McNamara became Bando's manager when he managed the A's in 1969 and 1970, and I couldn't help thinking of Sal as "McNamara's Bando".

That's great! After McNamara became the manager in San Diego the Tuba Man, who would march around the stadium with a small group of musicians during Padres games, became McNamara's Band and had that printed on the big drum!

Posted this in the HOF ballot thread, but thought it should go here as well.

I loved those 70's A's teams! So many great players, loved the uniforms, too, so colorful! Bando was, clearly, an integral part of that dynasty. It's interesting to look at JAWS for 3B, and keeping in mind what I mentioned about 3B post 1950 having the highest average career WAR of any position, you see 8 of the to 10 in, although Rolen still has a good shot and Beltre is a shoo in. With both in it's 10 for 10, 9 for 10 if you drop Molitor and Edgar as DH guys, with Nettles moving up to 10. Then it's HR Baker, Boyer, Bell and Bando. I remember when I first started reading here people talk about Bando as a HOF caliber guy and I was fascinated as I'd never thought of him that way or heard anything like it before. It was so cool to start learning about era and park factors, and realizing how valuable a guy who averaged 23 HR and 90 BB a year (1969-19076) in a tough hitters park and a low offense era was!

Re 16: Bando played 87 games in Fenway Park and slashed 273/345/446 with a tOPS+ of 107. None of these games featured Herb Washington misfielding a ball since Herb Washington never played an inning on defense in his life.

It's always kind of made me wonder: just how good would a full-time pinch-runner have to be to justify a roster spot? Would he have to steal second, third and home in every game? How valuable is a guy who scores 162 runs a year but with no batting or fielding ability?

And he appeared on The Simpsons.

This is the Roger Angell article.

The second game, which Alvin Dark had singled out as the crucial one in any three-of-five series, was much better. Oakland jumped away to a 3–0 lead, after a first-inning homer by Jackson, and Sal Bando whanged four successive hits—bong! whang! bing! thwong!—off the left-field wall during the afternoon. The second of these, a single, was converted into a killing out by Yastrzemski, who seized the carom off the wall and whirled and threw to Petrocelli to erase the eagerly advancing Campaneris at third—a play that Yaz and Rico first perfected during the Garfield Administration. The same two elders subsequently hit home runs—Yaz off Vida Blue, Rico off Rollie Fingers—and Lynn contributed a run-scoring single and a terrific diving cutoff of a Joe Rudi double to center field that saved at least one run. The Sox won by 6–3. The A’s complained after the game that two of Bando’s shots would have been home runs in any other park, and that both Yastrzemski’s and Petrocelli’s homers probably would have been outs in any other park. Absolutely true: the Wall giveth and the Wall taketh away.

I really enjoyed the championship A's teams of the seventies. They were so much fun to watch for a kid (middle-school aged) in love with baseball. I still remember pretending to be Joe Rudi while shagging fly balls. Always thought Bando was underrated.

Herb Washington never played a MLB game in the field. He only pinch-ran.

#16 may have confused Herb and Claudell who was in LF for all of G1 of the series. But it was Rudi in LF for all of G2 so if there were any Monster foibles, they either weren't in the same game as the Bando 4-hit game or they were Rudi's fault.

I raised the "best PR of all time" discussion last year. Or maybe it was just most prolific. It takes some digging and I don't remember where we ended up but I think Matt Alexander was in the lead when I checked out. He's still on negative WAR. (It's ironic that Herb Washington has negative baserunning value at b-r. Apparently you'd have been better off with Sal Bando as your pinch-runner.)

Tony Campana of the Cubs might be the ideal type for this sort of player? OUtstanding speed, good defense, good running -- he came out to 1.3 career WAR on -22 Rbat (in jusr 477 PA) but +18 baser/DP and +4 Rfield. I don't know how easily it is to track PR to defense and PH to defense transitions at b-r but generally, once you had Campana in the game for his offensive speed, it usually made sense to keep him out there for defense. Overall he appeared in 257 games but started in just 85 -- giving him 76 PH appearances might not have been the wisest move.

Anyway, a guy with good defense and excellent baserunning might be worth a roster spot -- probably more useful than a 3rd C anyway. But a guy like that is really all about his WPA not his WAR which is to say he's about whether there are enough high-leverage opportunities and the manager does a good job of using him. Campana might be really useful only four times a season but if one of those wins a game and you can keep him from losing you games the rest of the time ...

It was Claudell, not Herb, and in Game One, not Game Two.

From the start, the A's seemed lost in Fenway. Young Claudell Washington never did learn where left field ends and the monstrous green wall begins. In the first game he backed away from the barrier to field Fred Lynn's fly ball off it, attempting to appear as casually professional as his counterpart, Yaz. But the ball hit just a few feet from the bottom of the fence and Washington stared, in wonder. It was, as Yaz himself was to say contemptuously, "an easy catch." Washington looked the fool. In the second game he was spared further indignity by being transferred to designated hitter.

I've always thought that having a starting pitcher who could pinch run on days he wasn't pitching would be ideal. That wouldn't work for a relief pitcher, because you'd never know if he was going to pitch in a particular game, but a starter would be more sure of when he would pitch. Pedro Ramos pinch ran 120 times during his career, but that was when he was primarily a starting pitcher - after he became a reliever with the Yankees in 1964, a role he kept until his retirement in 1970, he only pinch ran twice. But in his early years, he had a reputation as one of the fastest runners in baseball, regardless of position. Yet in his career, he was only 2 for 4 as a base stealer, so that didn't translate to steals. But 120 PR appearances for a pitcher is a lot.

Maddux pinch-ran 8 times in his first 2+ seasons then (I assume) the Cubs decided that was a silly way to risk an arm. He did it twice more at ages 41-42. 19 years between PR appearances might be a record. :-)

120 PR appearances might be the all-time record, P or not. It never occurred to me to look at a P but I suppose in those days of shorter rosters and Ps being real men, it make plenty of sense if you had a fast one. 120 PR appearances but "just" 73 CGs.

EDIT: silly me, Alexander had 271.

I'd never really noticed this before. Herb got all the press for 1974 but was released on May 5, 1975, one week after the A's picked up Alexander from the Cubs. I knew Alexander took over the role, I didn't realize it was a direct replacement. He got his first PA with the A's in his 14th game, finally got more than one on Sept 25. (He already had several with the Cubs.)

Nuh ... PR get assigned (negative) value for Rpos. I suppose it maybe makes sense in a roster spot penalty sort of way -- obvious in Herb's case, not so much Alexander or Campana -- but really the "position" is "be faster than the guy on base" which, granted, is awfully fungible but it's hard to see how it contributes negatively.

31. Scipio Spinks this is a terrible idea

Spinks was exceptionally fast for a pitcher, and for that reason the Cardinals frequently used him as a pinch runner. Spinks' career was drastically altered on July 4, 1972. While scoring from first on a double, he ran into Cincinnati Reds catcher Johnny Bench in a collision at home plate. While Spinks scored, he tore ligaments in his right knee during the collision, and missed the rest of the season.[

The 1975 A's also had Don Hopkins, and Herb Washington and Matt Alexander overlapped for three games. So Oakland briefly had three designated pinch runners on the roster. The three of them pinch ran a total of eight times in those three games and didn't score any runs.

FWIW, Spinks was the SP in that game so, butterfly wings aside, he'd have gotten hurt anyway. (Which of course doesn't mean it was smart to PR him in other games.) And he might argue in favor of PHing for your pitcher when he's already down 5-0 after 2 rather than letting him double then tear up his knee in the 3rd. :-) He was having a very fine season to that point.

The dynasty-era A's occasionally used pitcher Blue Moon Odom as a pinch-runner.

In Game 5 of the 1972 World Series, he was thrown out at home to end the game, trying to score on an infield pop to Joe Morgan.

Morgan caught the ball with his back to the plate, and he slipped after he caught it, so it wasn't quite as bad an idea as it seemed.

But still... you can probably pull that off against the Texas Rangers or the Milwaukee Brewers. Against Joe Morgan and Johnny Bench... probably not.

Finley loved all sorts of weird batting/fielding/running reserves

1971
1B Mike Hegan 65 G, 61 PA
INF Tony La Russa 23 G, 8 PA (0 for 8 with 4 K)

1972
1B Mike Hegan 98 G, 91 PA (145 OPS+!)
1B Gonzalo Marquez 25 G, 21 PA (159 OPS+!)
OF Allen Lewis 24 G, 10 PA

1973
1B Mike Hegan 76 G, 77 PA
UT Gonzalo Marquez 23 G, 25 PA
INF Dal Maxvill 29 G, 21 PA
2B Manny Trillo 17 G, 12 PA

1974
PR Herb Washington 92 G, 0 PA
SS Dal Maxvill 60 G, 66 PA
INF Phil Garner "30 for 30"

1975
PR Matt Alexander 63 G, 11 PA (1 for 10)
PR Don Hopkins 82 G, 8 PA (1 for 6)
PR Herb Washington 13 G, 0 PA
1B Jim Holt 102 G, 137 PA
SS Teddy Martinez 86 G, 97 PA
C Larry Haney 47 G, 27 PA
MI Dal Maxvill 20 G, 10 PA

1976
PR Larry Lintz 68 G, 4 PA (0 for 1, .667 OBP)
PR Matt Alexander 61 G, 30 PA (1 for 30)

1977
PR Matt Alexander 90 G, 47 PA
2B Larry Lintz 41 G, 40 PA

1978
SS Rob Picciolo 79 G, 98 PA
INF Darrell Woodard 33 G, 10 PA (0 for 9)
OF Dwayne Murphy 60 G, 62 PA

NOTE: Small beverage to Itchy for his 1975 observation

I've always thought that having a starting pitcher who could pinch run on days he wasn't pitching would be ideal.

A starting pitcher is too valuable to risk injuring as a pinch runner though, IMO. Duke had a great example above of a collision injury, then there's plain old pulling a muscle, or twisting an ankle, or jamming a finger/wrist/elbow/shoulder if you're a head first slider. Maybe find a really athletic, fast 5th starter?

Herb Washington is the all time leader in runs scored without a plate appearance, with 33. The second-most is four, co-held by Eddie Phillips, a 22-year-old kid who was used as a pinch runner nine times by the 1951 Cardinals, and some guy from Louisiana.

The Red Sox used to use Clay Buchholz as a pinch runner since he was the fastest player in their organization. But then he'd wear his jacket and just seem generally awkward when he pinch ran, and never really scared anyone.

We had discussion somewhere here recently about limiting pitchers and making starters go longer. I'm all for it because it would help increase scoring. It also means that teams could have more specialists. Awesome field -no hit infielders, herb Washington pinch runners, swing from the heels pinch hitters and three catchers. I think breeding guys who can steal bases in the late innings could be quite a weapon. Washington's issue was that he had no baseball IQ. You need guys who know how to run the bases and get good jumps.

I still believe Matt Alexander changed my life. When I got the Baseball Encyclopedia as a birthday present, I found Matt and was immediately obsessed with how a career like that could happen. Of course, this was in the mid-80s and there was no real way for me to figure that out.

My OOTP team currently has a 1B/2B/SS/3B/LF/CF/RF/PR who can't hit a damn thing and I love him. 37 G, 38 AB. It's not the best use of a roster spot, I guess, but those players are the most fun.

Thanks, Matt!

It's ironic that Herb Washington has negative baserunning value at b-r. Apparently you'd have been better off with Sal Bando as your pinch-runner.

there seems to be something problematic with the Rbaser stat. It seems to do a good job of weighing sb vs cs but after that it seems to be little or no attention to baserunner advances, bases taken, OOB, etc. Ive pointed out elsewhere that wartime Ernie Lombardi compares favorably to mid career Clemente. It doesnt seem to give Campaneris any credit for his ability to move up on the bases to cite another example.

#19 My first trip ever to the Oakland Coliseum was July 7, 1970. Twins at A's divisional battle. Sal Bando hit a 2 run HR to left to give Oakland a 2-0 lead, but the play I remember most is Killebrew coming up with the bases loaded and hitting a drive off the very top of the wall in center that just missed being a grand slam by a few inches! Still was a 3-run double that gave the Twins the lead!

Suddenly I miss my dad who took me to that game...

re: 28: Bingo! I had the wrong Washington. Checking on Claudell, 1974 was his rookie year and G1 of that series was the first time he'd ever played in the field at Fenway, though he had a pinch single there in August. I guess he should be given some slack.

Re #38 (Howie), that 1973 team also infamously rotated light-hitting second basemen (Green, Kubiak, Maxvill, Andrews, McKinney). Total of 260 games played at 2B, vs. a more normal load of 188 at 3B or 194 at SS. Ultimately led to the Mike Andrews incident in the World Series where Finley tried to "fire" him after two errors in one game.

Tom Browning was an occasional PR for the Reds, 20 times from 1985-90.

The Braves used Max Fried to pinch run some, but I think they stepped back from that strategy after this one.