Steve Sax honors late father, fallen Marine son as he works A’s games in hometown
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Steve Sax returns to Sacramento as A’s analyst, blending insight with legacy.
- Sax survived a near-fatal heart condition with surgery on anniversary of father’s death.
- Sax honors his late Marine son by sharing stories and inspiring audiences.
Steve Sax is the homegrown kid who dreamed big and achieved it.
He grew up in West Sacramento, on a farm, active as a ballplayer, a curious sort who explored the country side with a stick or rock in hand. He was a star baseball player at since-closed Marshall High School, earning Sacramento Bee All-Metro and All-Star honors. He was drafted by a Major League Baseball team in 1978, the Los Angeles Dodgers. He logged 14 big-league seasons, was a five-time All-Star infielder and was a member of two World Series championship teams.
And more good living: Sax makes a living as a longtime motivational speaker as well as a versatile television and radio analyst for the A’s, whose temporary home at Sutter Health Park isn’t too far away from his home roots.
Sax was a bright spot on the air, sharing insight with humor on the rising star-power of the A’s, including slugger Nick Kurtz and shortstop Jacob Wilson, in a season that had promise and misery all rolled into one.
He takes none of his good fortune for granted. Sax worked tirelessly on his baseball craft, growing from a 5-foot-3, 105-pound high school freshman into a brick, relentlessly honing his skills and driven by the the fear that his career could be over in a flash. He had the same approach as a broadcaster, studying player tendencies and getting to know them beyond the box score.
Said A’s radio play-by-play voice Johnny Doskow before a recent game, “That’s the great Steve Sax!”
Sax laughed and returned the compliment to Doskow.
The good vibes, the kudos, the opportunities seized.
Sax takes none of it for granted.
‘Glad to be alive’
He looks fit at 64 with a trim build, a full shock of hair and his guns — big biceps — that snake out of his A’s polo shirt.
That he is alive especially moves Sax.
Sax in June underwent open-heart surgery, not because he had symptoms, but because his instincts told him to get checked out. He lost his father John to a heart attack, and his grandfather, and others. Doctors told Sax he had 95-98% blockage of his arteries.
He would have surely been stricken with a heart attack, he was told, with his physician slapping his hand on a table to punctuate how quickly it could get him. He could have been stricken while driving, or sitting in the backyard, or in the grocery store, or while on the air.
Sax, ever the trooper, missed just 11 days of work.
“Glad to be alive,” Sax said. “I knew I had to go in, no real signs. I had my heart surgery on June 10, the same day my dad lost his life. I changed the narrative of my family by having surgery, quadruple bypass and gained another 40 years of life. This happened to too many men in my dad’s family. My dad, my grandfather, my great grandfather, all of them died by 47, and many men and my cousins an relatives have died before 50 because of this. I’m trying to lean on my brother (Dave) to get checked. He’s like a mule. He’s got to go get checked out.”
Sax’s father suffered five heart attacks. One of them occurred in 1978. Sax did not sign his professional baseball contract following his 1978 high school graduation until he played in a summer All-Star game. He promised his father, in the hospital for heart surgery, that he would hit a home run for him.
That’s storybook stuff that really happened.
“I hit the homer run at Clark Field in Woodland, where he played high school games, and I kept my promise,” Sax said. “Dad got that ball.”
In 1983, while Sax and brother Dave were living the dream of being teammates with the Dodgers, the were crushed to hear the news. They were informed by Dodgers manager Tommy Lasorda that their father had suffered a heart attack, his fifth. He didn’t make it. He was 47.
The Sax brothers immediately flew home to Sacramento to be with their mother, Nancy.
Mourning a lost son
Sax said he thinks of his father every day — lessons learned, the love and loyalty they shared and their fondness for sports. He also thinks of his son, named after his father, and it tears him up.
This loss is especially difficult to comprehend.
John Sax, a Marine Corps captain, died in the summer of 2022 when he and his four-member crew went down during a training mission near San Diego. He was 33.
Sax in a statement then wrote, “It is with complete devastation that I announce that my precious son, Johnny, was one of the five US Marines that perished on Wednesday, June 8, in the Osprey Military crash. For those of you that knew Johnny, you saw his huge smile, bright light, his love for his family, the Marines, the joy of flying airplanes and defending our country! He was my hero and the best man I know, there was no better person to defend our country.”
Sax said in an interview with The Sacramento Bee last month, “Anytime you lose a son, it’s a life-altering experience, that life will never be the same, and you never move on from losing a child. That’s for sure. It shouldn’t be that way. You try to move on, but you’re never going to move on, and I resigned myself to know that. Both engines collapsed on them in that flight. They had no chance to get out, because the plane doesn’t glide. You can’t get out. Eject? There was no possibility.”
Sax then pulled out his cellphone and proudly showed scores of photos of his son.
“You can see what he was like,” Sax said. “You can see it. You can see it in his face. You can look in his eyes and you can see what kind of young man he was. You can tell by looking at his picture.”
Sax recalled the knock on his door in Placer County, men in Marine Corps uniforms with stern expressions and the bearers of bad news.
“The worst thing you can possibly imagine,” Sax said.
‘I’ve got a big mouth’
Sax has always been a talker, always has something to say. He honors his son by talking about him. He honors baseball by talking about what makes the game so fun, and what makes it so frustrating.
He travels the country to share his stories, to inspire people to think big, to seize life, because tomorrow is not promised.
“I’ve got a big mouth,” Sax said with a laugh. “I’m a speaker, so I speak to corporate America in the offseason. I’m a motivational speaker, so thank God I’ve got a big mouth.”
Sax added, “Baseball has opened every door for me in my life, every single door. It’s been a wonderful thing. I talk for a living. I love it. As a kid, I’d pick up a rock on that farm, and I’d pretend I was with the Giants with Curt Gowdy calling the game.
“People dream, people make plans, and God laughs sometimes, and you know what? Sometimes good things happen. That’s kind of what happened to me.”
