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A's outfielder Josh Reddick, dressed as Spider-Man, gives Coco Crisp a pie in the face after Crisp beat the Toronto Blue Jays with a sacrifice fly in the 15th inning on Aug. 3 2012.

OAKLAND -- Josh Reddick, the A's right fielder and head pastry chef, altered his famous pie recipe only once. He used shaving cream instead of whipped cream for rookie catcher Derek Norris, a decision that earned a scathing review for both taste and customer service.

"I don't think it was so much just the shaving cream that was the issue," said Norris, whose eyes burned for two days. "It was the force that was applied with the shaving cream."

Luckily, Reddick got another chance. And another. And another. With all that practice, he has become the master of the postgame pie in the face.

His flying treats are the signature celebration for the A's, whose surprising playoff hopes no longer look like a pie-in-the-sky dream. They lead the American League wild-card standings by one-half game as they open a six-game trip through Chicago and Kansas City starting Friday night.

The A's are in the race largely on the strength of their 13 walk-off wins, the most in majors this season and within range of the big-league record of 18 set by the 1959 Pittsburgh Pirates.

"Five would be a lot," outfielder Jonny Gomes said. "Thirteen is double a lot."

Reddick reasons that walk-off victories also are infinitely more fun when they are multiplied by pie. The basics are simple: While the game's hero is being interviewed on live television, Reddick will sneak up and smash a plate of whipped cream into the face of the unsuspecting player.

Yes, unsuspecting.

"You'd imagine the element of surprise would be gone, but, god, these guys get caught off guard so many times," said Gomes, a frequent co-conspirator. "I think our team needs some better peripheral vision, some better court awareness."

Reddick delivered his historic first pie May 8 after Brandon Inge hit a walk-off grand slam to beat the Toronto Blue Jays 7-3. And because the dramatic victories kept rolling in, so did the dessert cart.

After winning two of three in a crucial series against the Los Angeles Angels this week, the A's are 38-21 since June 2 for the best mark in the majors. That total includes 10 walk-off wins, a stretch that has given Reddick time for hot streaks and slumps, not just at the plate but with the plate.

Just a week ago, reliever Travis Blackley fretted that Reddick was losing his once powerful stroke. He wasn't creaming them like usual.

"He's been a getting a bit weak on them lately. He's been ear-muffing them instead of getting them in the face, you know?" Blackley said. "He needs to clean that up a little bit."

Two nights later, as if to silence his critics, Reddick responded with a bravura performance. Coco Crisp hit a sacrifice fly to topple the Blue Jays 5-4 in 15 innings and -- in just over 2 minutes -- Reddick bounded onto the field dressed as Spider-Man and delivered a pair of pies to Crisp's kisser.

How did Spidey strike so quickly? It's because he had help. The concessionaires for the Diamond Level seats know the drill, too, so after a walk-off victory they now set down a can of Reddi-wip and a biodegradable plastic plate or two in the restricted walkway behind home plate. The concessionaires don't do the actual pie-making, though, leaving that honor to the player dubbed Reddick-wip.

Let him take you through the rest of his a la mode-us operandi:

"It's sneaking around, more than anything," Reddick said. "Our (stadium) is hard to be sneaky in, so I go around to the visitor's side. There's a little door where the umpires walk through."

Then, he circles his prey.

"Half the time they're facing the camera and half the time they're not looking because Jonny has already gotten them with the water bucket and they're running around."

The ritual is not without peril. Two television headsets have been ruined by the dousing, leaving Comcast SportsNet with some dead air to fill. And even when the sound still works, broadcasters Glen Kuiper and Ray Fosse gamely try to coax coherent answers from a player who is soaking wet and dripping in whipped cream.

"My favorite was when Reddick hit the walk-off, he stood there and took it," Fosse said. "He said, 'If I can dish it out, I can take it,' which was a credit to him."

The A's didn't invent these shenanigans, nor do Reddick or Gomes claim credit for doing so. They are not pie-oneers. The slapstick bit goes back at least as far as 1909, when actor Ben Turpin took what is to believed to be the first recorded pie in the face in a silent short "Mr. Flip."

Future comedians -- and baseball pranksters -- have made it a staple since, although the definition of "pie" might no longer meet USDA requirements. A.J. Burnett, the quick-strike artist for the 2009 New York Yankees, would simply apply shaving cream to a towel.

What distinguishes the Oakland pie ritual is the sheer volume of opportunities. In amassing 13 walk-off wins, 11 different players delivered the winning RBI. Everyone is getting a piece of the pie.

"I have no problem if it means we're winning games and winning them dramatically," manager Bob Melvin said.

The A's have eight weeks to tie the walk-off mark set by those '59 Pirates. (That team had a local radio man and a Hall-of-Fame third baseman named Harold Joseph Traynor, better known as Pie.)

For the A's to remain among the league's upper crust, they will need to keep up their late-inning magic. They are 9-3 in extra innings, 19-13 in one-run games and 19-10 in games decided in the last at-bat.

Reddick recently wore a T-shirt around the A's clubhouse. It said, "Come for the game, stay for the pie."

"Who doesn't want to have fun with a walk-off win?" he said. "It's our way of showing our guys -- and the league -- that we're not ever going to give up as long as the game is going on."

Contact Daniel Brown at