Long before the book and movie “Moneyball” put the Oakland A’s and general manager Billy Beane in the Major League Baseball spotlight, the A’s of the early 1970s brought even more attention to the team by winning three consecutive World Series in 1972, ’73, and ’74. That’s something that only the New York Yankees have ever done (three separate times), but they did it playing in baseball’s biggest market. The A’s, once viewed as a virtual Yankee farm team, did it after owner Charlie Finley moved the lackluster club from Kansas to Oakland in 1968. How he managed to completely turn around the franchise with the help of his righthand man, his cousin Carl, is told in “Finley Ball.” The author, Nancy Finley, was Carl’s daughter. She was 2 years old when the two men joined forces. As a “dugout daughter,” she grew up watching how the maverick owner and her dad shook up the baseball world, including with brightly colored uniforms and players who were actually encouraged to grow mustaches.
Here’s an excerpt from Finley Ball:
“Charlie [Finley] was constantly calling for rule changes that would produce more offense and speed up the game. He called for a designated hitter long before the American League added it. Today the All-Star game is played at night, as are most of the World Series games. Charlie was the first to call for that. ‘The kids can’t see the games in the afternoon,’ he said. ‘Neither can the working man in the steel mills or coal mines.’
“Some of is other ideas went nowhere. For example, he talked about having a designated runner, and he wanted a clock to force quicker pitching, and he wanted baseballs to be a more visible orange. But many of Charlie’s ideas were vindicated, despite the initial ridicule by other owners. The first World Series night games were played in 1971. The American League adopted the designated hitter in 1973.”
