ShareThisOAKLAND, Calif. - He was the centerpiece of the old "Moneyball" Oakland A's, a patient work-the-count hitter with pop who would just as soon take a walk as swing for the fence.
No wonder, then, Nick Swisher, who had a starring role in the book, seemed more quizzical than bemused at the state of his old club Tuesday. No longer the sit-back-and-wait-for-the-three-run-homer A's, these fleet-of-foot newbies suddenly are the Runnin' A's.
"I guess if the way you were going about things wasn't working out anymore or you weren't having the success the way you wanted to, you've got to change it up," Swisher said in the New York Yankees' clubhouseTuesday before their 7-3 series-opening defeat of the A's.
He said it without a hint of acrimony and really, why be bitter? Since leaving the A's in general manager Billy Beane's franchise-turning, 11-month fire sale, Swisher has been the toast of Chicago with the White Sox and won a World Series in the Bronx.
Indignant? More like the paradox Swisher has always been.
He tugged on Oakland's heartstrings by growing his hair long so it could be cut to make wigs for female cancer patients in honor of his beloved grandmother Betty, who lost her fight with cancer. But you'd rarely find him without an enormous dip of chewing tobacco between his lip and gum.
With the loose A's, he was the fun-loving wild child whose night-owl ways were well chronicled. In the city that never sleeps, he says he's matured playing for the corporate Yankees, his head sheared and face shaved.
"His personality doesn't fit their mold," said A's designated hitter Eric Chavez. "It could have been a blessing in disguise for him (to go to the Yankees), and for them. They were already talented, obviously, but last year we even said, something's different about them."
Meaning Swisher might have loosened up that notoriously tight clubhouse.
Swisher, though, wasn't saying. In the fourth season of the five-year, $26.75 million contract extension he signed with the A's in 2007, he just thanked everyone for his good graces.
"Every game is intense," he said. "It's a 162 single-game season. When you play in an atmosphere like that, you realize you're not only representing yourself. I've grown up a lot."
He's also grown into one of the more feared and respected switch hitters in the game. Entering this season, his 131 home runs were the third-most among switch hitters since 2005.
He's the only player in the bigs to have hit at least 22 home runs for three franchises since 2007. The only other Yankee with such a three-year stretch -- Reggie Jackson, with the A's, Baltimore and the Yankees from 1975-77.
Yet, there's a sense of melancholy surrounding Swisher's annual returns to the East Bay. Especially since you wonder if Beane took the wrecking ball to the A's of Swisher, Dan Haren, Mark Kotsay, Rich Harden, Joe Blanton and Huston Street too soon with the trade flurry that saw those six in different uniforms beginning Dec. 14, 2007, and ending Nov. 12, 2008.
"I guess you could look at it that way and say it didn't work out," Swisher said. "Obviously, he had an agenda with us."
How ironic it was, then, that two players Beane got for Swisher from the White Sox -- Gio Gonzalez and Ryan Sweeney -- were in the lineup Tuesday. And how satisfying it must have been for Swisher to drive in two runs off Gonzalez with his two-out, bases-loaded single in the first inning.
(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)
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