The Kansas City Athletics: A Baseball History, 1954-1967

Rating:
Summary: Were the Kansas City A's the Worst in the American League?
Review: Most people assign that distinction either to the old Washington Senators (3 pennants, 1 world championship in nearly 60 years) or to the St. Louis Browns (1 pennant in more than 50 years), but for my money the Kansas City Athletics were worse. They never finished higher than 6th in the American League, their first year in KC, and finished in the cellar 5 times.

This book is the story of that team, but it is really one about exploits off the field well captured in this fascinating new book. The business of baseball is well served in this study, for it shows much about how MLB teams are organized and promoted, and winners are built.

Arnold Johnson bought the Athletics from Connie Mack and moved them to Kansas City for the 1955 season. The team then began making so many trades with the New York Yankees, including the famous deal that sent Roger Maris to the Yankees in time to win the MVP award in 1960 and hit *61 homers in 1961. But these famous transactions tell very little about Johnson's success in the trade market. In all, Johnson made sixteen trades with the Yankees in five years, involving sixty-seven players. The author of this book analyzes each of these trades using the Bill James "Win Shares" system, however, and concludes that Johnson's trade record of 1,572-1,109 was impressive.

What Johnson failed to do, John Peterson writes, was to develop a farm system that could produce quality major leaguers. He comments, "During this same period [as the trades with the Yankees] the Athletics produced only one player, Lou Klimchock, who became an everyday player in the major leagues....These trades, especially the trades with the Yankees, were blamed for the team's poor record, but the real reason the team failed to improve during the Johnson era was the failure of the Athletics minor league system to produce major league players." (p. 288).

After Arnold Johnson's death in 1960 Charles O. Finley purchased the Athletics and quite a lot of the book discusses his hijinks in Kansas City until he finally moved the team to Oakland after the 1967 season. Finley warred with the baseball establishment. He fought with the local sportswriters. He battled the local politicians who refused to give him whatever he wanted. Needless to say, Finley wore out his welcome quickly, and Peterson discusses this aspect of the story in detail.

Finley also steamrolled his employees on a regular basis. He was notoriously cheap, engaging in exceptionally public and enormously petty arguments with players over salaries. At the same time, if it was his idea, he could be outrageously paternalistic and generous.

But Finley was also full of ideas, and he wanted everyone to hear them and to embrace them and feuded with those who dismissed them. In another strength of this book, Peterson discusses how Finley scrapped the standard issue home white and gray road flannels in favor of colorful uniforms for his players. Clothing them in his favorite colors of Kelly Green and Ft. Knox Gold, the Athletics were the subject of ridicule for years. Only in the 1970s did most of the other major league teams adopt colorful and unusual uniforms. He dressed young women on his ground crew in skimpy costumes. He instituted a mechanical rabbit in Kansas City, complete with a little Athletics uniform, to deliver balls to the umpire during the game. He set up picnic tables beyond the outfield for fans to come and have supper. He placed lights in the dugout so that the fans could see what the team did there. He adopted several ideas from Bill Veeck, including an exploding scoreboard that launched fireworks whenever a Kansas City player hit a homerun. Finley's innovations also included the primetime World Series and the Designated Hitter rule.

While in Kansas City Finley invested heavily in the farm system to sign and develop good ballplayers. Acting essentially as his own general manager he signed the stars-especially Catfish Hunter, Reggie Jackson, Rollie Fingers, Joe Rudi, Bert Campaneris, Rick Monday, and Sal Bando-that carried the Oakland A's to three successive world championships between 1972 and 1974.

Peterson also discusses in depth the movement of the Athletics from Kansas City to Oakland. Throughout his ownership of the A's in Kansas City Finley constantly tried to move them elsewhere. Additionally, Finley was always duplicitous about his commitment to Kansas City. Rumors circulated every year that Finley was moving the team, first to Dallas, then to Seattle, then to San Diego, then to "who knows where." Finley always publicly denied these rumors, all the while he was negotiating to move the team first to Dallas, then to Seattle, then to San Diego, then to "who knows where." By the time of the departure of Finley's A's, few mourned the loss. Missouri Senator Stuart Symington summed up the position of most Missourians about this move, "Oakland is the luckiest city since Hiroshima." Peterson has a whole chapter with this title and it gives a blow by blow account of the move.

While there is much to praise in this book, there are a few caveats that I must pass on to potential readers. At times the text appears disjointed and incomplete. On a few occasions the author raises what seem to be important issues but fails to explore them satisfactorily. There is also dizzying dichotomy between the on the field exploits of the team and the adventures of the owners, especially Finley.

But these are minor criticisms and I recommend this book as a very useful study of the history of the Athletics while they had a cup of coffee in Kansas City enroute from Philadelphia to Oakland. And yes, the A's were the worst in the American League while in Kansas City.