The Kansas City Athletics

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The Athletics spent thirteen seasons in Kansas City before moving to Oakland--a colorful history despite one of the worst records in baseball history. Even so, many of the players who were part of the world championship teams in Oakland in the 1970s began their careers in Kansas City. This work presents the relatively short history of the Kansas City franchise from 1954, when Arnold Johnson purchased the Philadelphia Athletics and moved the team to Kansas City because of the financial benefits the city provided, to 1967, when Charles Finley moved the team to Oakland (after unsuccessful attempts to move it to Dallas, Atlanta, Louisville, Milwaukee and Seattle). In the 1950s, the team was called "a Yankee farm team" because of the numerous trades with the Yankees that favored the latter. The author re-evaluates these trades and concludes that they were not as one-sided as previously thought and really did benefit the team. The author also carefully considers Charles Finley's intentions to keep the team in Kansas City and his reasons for having to move them to Oakland. Inhaltsverzeichnis Table of Contents Preface      1. Big League Dreams      2. A Clever Businessman      3. Quest for the A's      4. Last-Minute Maneuvering      5. Going to K.C.      6. How to Buy a Ballclub for Peanuts      7. Arnold Johnson's Ultimate Plan      8. The 90-Day Wonder      9. 1955: Big League Baseball Comes to K.C.      10. 1956: Listless and Bad      11. 1957: Big Trades Bring New Faces      12. 1958: Cerv's Amazing Season      13. 1959: Great Expectations      14. 1960: A Very Difficult Year      15. Who Will Buy the Team?      16. Charles O. Finley-The "O" Stands for Owner      17. Trying to Outdo Veeck      18. 1961: Gordon, Lane and Charlie O.      19. Courting Dallas      20. 1962: Let Bygones Be Bygones      21. 1963: Everything's Green and Gold      22. Happiness Is Being Somewhere Else      23. 1964: Rocky, Jim and a Pennant Porch      24. 1965: Charlie O.-The Man or the Mule?      25. 1966: The Dark Ages      26. 1967: "A Menace to Baseball"      27. "Luckiest City Since Hiroshima"      28. A Bad Marriage      29. Just a Yankees Farm Team      30. No More Trades with the Yankees      31. Crop Failure      32. Growing a Championship Team      Notes      Bibliography      Index