Texas Hold 'Em

Thanks to a 22-year-old Longhorn legend named Huston Street, the A's may finally have an unbeatable hand

The closer's life: hours of soul-crushing boredom followed by spasms of frantic action. Hurry up and wait is not a cliché, it's a way of life. The closer waits all day in the hope of finding work, then tries to finish as fast as he can. The tenets of the job traditionally demand a certain kind of man, one possessing a seen-it-all arrogance and blood that flows as cold as the North Sea.

Into this world we give you A's closer Huston Street, a just-turned-22-yearold rookie with bright brown eyes, curly hair and thick sideburns meticulously landscaped to finish ever so slightly below the earlobes. He's the closer in miniature, listed at six feet but admitting to something in the range of 5'10". He sprouted whole into this world hauling a strong Texas upbringing that had him calling teammates "sir" (Jason Kendall's wry reaction: "You don't have to do that.") and wondering what he was doing on the same Opening Day field with grown men like Sammy Sosa and Javy Lopez.

We give you Huston Street during batting practice, running around the outfield expanse shagging balls with a smile on his face, his unapologetic joy spreading throughout the park on the faces of teammates and opponents and fans. There's even a smile creasing the sentinel-like visage of A's coach Ron Washington, one of those grimly serious baseball men who stalk the outfield using fungo bats to catch and throw balls that come their way. Washington is beaming, proof that Street is not only happy, but a carrier.

This is August, the dog days. This is about the time a kid 14 months removed from pitching for Texas in the College World Series is supposed to go all fetal and succumb to the rigors of a pressure-filled job in the middle of a pennant race. This is where the Athletic's ridiculous folly-thinking they can compete in a man's game with a boy closer-is exposed for the Billy Beane fantasy-league experiment it is.

Except for one thing: the truth. The A's went from 15 games under .500 in May to overtaking the Angels for first place in the AL West in the second week of August. A return to the postseason, once a ludicrous proposition, is now likely. Sounds cruel to say, but one of the best things to happen to the A's was the season-ending elbow injury to closer Octavio Dotel. Street effectively took over the job on May 30, with his team at its low point, 17—32. Call it a coincidence, but the A's started on their epic tear that very same day.

Street's windup is an odd three-part journey that starts with an exaggerated side step toward first base, but it works. Through Aug. 14, he had 15 saves in his previous 17 chances, he was averaging a strikeout an inning and he'd allowed just two homers as a pro. In three years of college and two seasons of professional baseball, he's never had an ERA higher than 1.69.

"For him to come in a year after playing in the College World Series and do what he's done-are you kidding me?" says rookie outfielder Nick Swisher. "People ask, 'How can you guys have that kind of confidence in a kid 22 years old?' Well, we do. We just do."

This is an organization that has not just embraced the unconventional, it has made it mandatory. In that vein, rookie closers are the territory of the hopeless, not the contender. But Street manages to express awe at his good fortune while treating the job as his birthright. It really is a gift. Any attempt to discuss the supposed "grind" of his occupation-the travel, the late nights, the late-summer humidity in Kansas Cityis treated as blasphemy.

"People talk about a grind, but I don't get it," he says. "This is my favorite place to be in the whole world. I love the game. I love baseball. How lucky am I, that I get to come out and run around a big field of green, perfectly cut grass? I get to shag balls, I get to play catch, then I get to go in and eat as much food as I want to eat. I mean, people say this job is pressure? The way I see it, I've got nothing to worry about."

Why? Well, for that answer we give you Huston Street the child, not that long ago, listening to his father on the youth diamonds of Austin. His father is filling his son's mind with advice. "Winning is doing your best," he tells him. "Treat every pitch like it's the biggest pitch. Don't make excuses, and when you make a mistake, get over it."

Actually, there are four sons of James and Janie Street on that youth field in Austin. Huston is the oldest, twins Juston and Jordon are two years younger and Hanson is two years younger still. (When Hanson was born, 4-year-old Huston named him, proudly adding another H to a world of J's.) Juston and Jordon both pitch for the Longhorns, which raises a question: does Hanson even have a choice?

The boys on that field listen, but then again, everybody in Austin listens to James Street. He quarterbacked the Longhorns to a national championship in 1969, and was a star pitcher on a baseball team that made it to the College World Series. In Texas, you can't buy that kind of currency. James was a pro prospect in both sports, but he suffered a groin injury at the CWS and never played professionally in either one. Instead, he spent a year on the rodeo circuit as a singer, opening for his friend Willie Nelson.

Through football, James Street befriended another singer of some renown, Elvis Presley. They'd have lunch whenever The King made it to Austin and, as Huston says with a shrug, "My dad would do whatever you do when you hang out with Elvis."

When it comes to pressure, James raised Huston as an agnostic. Pressure is physiological, Huston says, as much a process of the body as a fever that fights infection. Consider the following dissertation on performance anxiety and ask yourself: how many just-turned-22-year-olds speak, and think, like this?

"Your body is designed for everything," Huston says. "If your body is getting anxious, that's your body's way of reacting to help itself. To me it's how you interpret that feeling. Some people get nervous and they can't make it. They get overwhelmed by the situation. Other people respond by throwing a ball 98 mph when they normally throw 94.

"People say, 'Gosh, it's a pressure situation.' Well, it would be if you're thinking about all the fans screaming and the guy on second who's the tying run and the batter at the plate. If you're thinking about all that, yeah, it's a pressure situation. But if you're thinking about throwing a fastball on the outside corner, well, I've done that a thousand million times. I do that every day, so that isn't necessarily a pressure situation. It's how you choose to interpret it in your brain."

Like some of his unconventional teammates, Street is a seeker. To fight boredom on the road, he bought a $100 acoustic guitar and started learning from Rich Harden and Barry Zito. One of Street's best days came earlier this year, when he walked up to his locker and found a new high-end Taylor guitar, a gift from Zito. "I'm impressed with your dedication to learning music," Barry told him. Street also writes every day, keeping a loosely connected journal that often includes simple observations intended to remind him of his good fortune. A recent entry describes the appreciation he saw a woman express when a man unexpectedly held open a door for her.

"He's a sponge, soaking up everything," says setup man Jay Witasick. "You talk to him and watch him, and you know why we have no doubt about turning the game over to him, none at all."

Minutes after closing out a 4-3 win over the Angels on Aug. 10, Street was in the video room, dissecting the slider that lefty Steve Finley hit over the rightfield fence to bring the Angels to within a run. Street was angry, knowing he had started the slider over the outside corner and let it seep across too much of the plate. The next batter, lefty Adam Kennedy, got two backdoor sliders that started off the plate and sneaked across the outside corner. Finley homered. Kennedy struck out. Street couldn't wait to examine the difference. He says, "I wanted to slow it down to see where my body was and where my arm was on the pitch to Finley, so I could compare it to the good pitches."

We close by giving you Huston Street on the mound, where his maturity (is there such a thing as prematurity?) joins with his physical ability to make you forget age or experience or the metaphysics of pressure. When the ball is in his hand, you see the competitor, the undersized free safety who had 17 tackles, most against Cedric Benson, in the Texas 5A state championship game his senior year at Westlake High School in Austin. You see the Texas freshman who set the CWS record for saves, the kid who spent less than a year in the minor leagues, the kid Witasick compares to Mariano Rivera and Trevor Hoffman and Robb Nen and whomever else you might want to mention.

And so, finally, we give you Huston Street, a young man with all the attributes to gain entry into the select world of the elite closer. If you still can't see it, well, here's a message from the people who trust in him: you will.

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