contributed by NeilT
I love the A’s. If I didn’t have a kick-ass team like the Astros to follow, I might well like following the A’s, what with their Southern Baptists stylings of green and gold polyester with white shoes, and Mr. Bean as their general manager. Plus they have a storied history that could serve as a model for other franchises.
When Connie Mack finally stepped down as manager of the A’s in 1950, they had a losing record that covered almost all of the 17 years from their last dynasty. Overall during that period Connie Mack would lose 1,489 games and win 986. That’s a winning percentage of .398. In 1950 they finished with the worst record in baseball, 52-102. Mack had given a minority interest in the A’s to his three sons, and they finally did the only thing that they could do: they fired the manager. It’s just like King Lear.
Being good sons, having slain their father, they immediately fell to disagreeing. Mack had owned the team with Tom Shibe, and then Shibe’s sons, and Connie, Jr. and the Shibe heirs allied against Roy and Earle Mack and put the team up for sale. Roy and Earle had a first option, and to buy the team they mortgaged it to Connecticut General Life Insurance Company for $1.74 million, with annual payments of $200,000 for the first five years of the loan.
The team had been cheaply run since the 30s, except for a brief period in 1950 when Connie Jr. tried to spend some money on improvements. Now Roy and Earle — you got to wonder who played the banjo and who played the fiddle — did what their father would have done: they cut costs. They had a winning season in 1952, but otherwise they were about as bad as a bad baseball team could be. They were purposefully bad, and it wasn’t for any rebuilding purpose either.
The Phightin’ Phils meanwhile were playing well. In 1950 the A’s were in last place while the Phils went to the World Series. Roy and Earle again faced the problem and cut more player and front office costs, turned over the rents to Connecticut General, cut minor league teams, and began phightin’ among themselves. In 1954 the A’s finished 51-103, with season attendance of 304,666, or 1,978 per game.
It’s hard to imagine a team winning only 51 games.
By 1954, the Macks were heading to bankruptcy, the Phils controlled Philadelphia, and the American League owners were bitching about the lousy gate. The American League president, Will Harridge, forced a move to the Midwest, to Kansas City, where the Yankees AAA affiliate played in Blues Stadium. Arnold Johnson bought the club. In 1955 opening day for the A’s was in Kansas City. Johnson — and write this in your notes ‘cause there may be a quiz — owned Yankee Stadium and was a business partner of the Yankee owners. And it wasn’t like the Brooklyn Dodgers or the New York Giants. No one in Philadelphia seemed unhappy to see them go.
The take from Johnson was $3.5 million, which paid off the mortgage and gave a nice return. The Macks sold Shibe Park to the Phils.
***
With thanks to Wikipedia. There’s also a very good article here: http://sabr.org/research/departure-without-dignity-athletics-leave-philadelphia
***
What can you say about a game like tonight’s? I have to admit, I left in the 9th after fields? gave up the first three runs on sucky relief work and sucky fielding. It was almost 11, and I wanted to go fishing in the morning.
Into the 9th the score was tied, 0-0, or 5-5, or 25-25. Ok, 5-5. Peacock gave up 4 in the second, and one more in the fourth, and did not look like the 30-game winner we all know he is. It wasn’t tied because of excellent pitching and fine crisp defense. Nossir. It was tied because both teams had sucked in about equal ways, with lots of walks given by Peacock, men stranded, and poor fielding, but in the 3rd the the ‘Stros scored one off of Chavez, and in the 4th scored four more.
Going into the 9th, tie game, I was thinking man, we could win this thing.
We didn’t. In the 9th the Astros showed their love, taking it at about every angle in every orifice. I left maybe 4 batters into the 9th, walked 8 blocks to my car, drove up out of the garage and drove through downtown and midtown and Montrose to home, and when I got home the ninth inning wasn’t over yet. It was the longest 9th inning ever, and the pukiest. The A’s scored 5 ER off of fields? and 2 off of Bass.
End of the game, 5-12 A’s. The A’s had sent 48 people to the plate in the 9th, including their team trainer, the headshot coordinator, and the dog walker.
Thank goodness I love the A’s, because otherwise I’d hate the A’s.
