{"id":12821,"date":"2015-08-08T11:30:15","date_gmt":"2015-08-08T16:30:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.orangewhoopass.com\/?p=12821"},"modified":"2015-08-08T11:30:15","modified_gmt":"2015-08-08T16:30:15","slug":"kansas-city-as","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.orangewhoopass.com\/2015\/08\/08\/kansas-city-as\/","title":{"rendered":"Kansas City A’s"},"content":{"rendered":"

Submitted by\u00a0NeilT<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

A\u2019s 3
\nAstros 1<\/p>\n

There were points during the last two seasons when I took solace from the A\u2019s. They have a funny history. Sometimes early they were the best team in baseball, dynasties, really, but then Connie Mack would break them up because he couldn\u2019t afford them. It had nothing to do with rebuilding, it was money. Mack was owner, general manager, and manager, and sometimes he won, but he also had 17-year losing streaks. Mack lost the most games of any manager in baseball, 1,489, for a winning percentage of .398. He\u2019s in the Hall of Fame though.<\/p>\n

Then his sons and the Shibe heirs took over the team, squabbled, and lost more games. I think I recall there was a daughter, too, but Connie wouldn\u2019t leave his baseball team to the daughter. In the end the Phils were in the World Series, the A\u2019s were averaging 1,978 fans per game, and Roy and Earle Mack were broke, over-leveraged, and forced to sell the team. In 1954 the A\u2019s won 51 games.<\/p>\n

Arnold Johnson\u2014who had owned Yankee Stadium and was a business partner of the Yankee owners\u2014bought the A\u2019s. The American League helped them to move to Kansas City. Nobody in Philadelphia cared.<\/p>\n

Kansas City was ecstatic. Johnson was a hero.<\/p>\n

The Kansas City Blues were the Yankees top farm team, and Johnson owned Blues stadium. He sold it to Kansas City, and leased it back under\u2014believe it or not\u2014advantageous terms. Kansas City had major league baseball.<\/p>\n

The first year the A\u2019s were in Kansas City, 1955, they drew 1,393,054. They also went 58-96. For the next six years under Johnson, their best record was 1958, 73-81. Overall they went 371-552, for a .401 winning percentage. By 1960, attendance was 774,944.<\/p>\n

The team under Johnson is famous, though, for completely different reasons. Kansas City is a railroad town, and from 1955 to 1960 every train pointed north and east. They were the Yankee\u2019s farm team.<\/p>\n

While Johnson owned the A\u2019s, the Yankees were the best team in baseball. Through 1953, the Yankees had won the World Series a record five times in a row. From 1955 to 1960, the Yankees won the World Series twice, lost it three times, and once, 1959, came in third in their division. Nobody\u2019s perfect. And part of their success was their trades with Kansas City.<\/p>\n

The Yankees\/A\u2019s trades were so frequent, and so one-sided, that the rumors at the time was that there was some secret agreement between the teams. There were 16 total trades. The A\u2019s sent 27 players and cash to the Yankees for 35 players and cash. The Yankees got Roger Maris, Clete Boyer, Ralph Terry, Bobby Shants, Art Ditmar, and Hector Lopez. The A\u2019s got Marv Throneberry. They also got the Yankee\u2019s aged, problems, and guys who needed more playing time like Bob Cerv. When the Yankees needed Cerv, he went back to New York.<\/p>\n

Maybe there was collusion. Maybe the A\u2019s just needed cash for operations. There\u2019s a nice summary of the trades here: http:\/\/www.baseball-almanac.com\/corner\/c042001b.shtml<\/p>\n

I didn\u2019t see much of last night\u2019s game. I picked my son up at the airport, and his plane was later than I thought it would be. I got home in the 7th. Keuchel was still pitching, so was Sonny Gray. Gray had the better of it.<\/p>\n

Gray pitched a complete game, 5 Ks, 5 hits, no walks. The Astros one run came on another Valbuena solo shot in the 5th. Keuchel gave up 3 earned runs on 10 hits, with one solo home run to Valencia in the 3rd. Wojo got one out in the 8th.<\/p>\n

For those keeping track, the Astros OF was Gomez (CF), Rasmus (RF), and Tucker (LF). The outfield combined for 0 hits. Castro caught, and got a single.<\/p>\n

The Astros are now1 for 5 on their road trip, and I\u2019m looking at the history of the A\u2019s again.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Submitted by\u00a0NeilT A\u2019s 3 Astros 1 There were points during the last two seasons when I took solace from the A\u2019s. They have a funny history. Sometimes early they were the best team in baseball, dynasties, really, but then Connie Mack would break them up because he couldn\u2019t afford them. It had nothing to do […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.orangewhoopass.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12821"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.orangewhoopass.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.orangewhoopass.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.orangewhoopass.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.orangewhoopass.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12821"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.orangewhoopass.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12821\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12823,"href":"http:\/\/www.orangewhoopass.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12821\/revisions\/12823"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.orangewhoopass.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12821"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.orangewhoopass.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12821"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.orangewhoopass.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12821"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}