They are most prominently nicknamed "the A's ", in reference to the Gothic script "A", a trademark of the team and the old Athletics of Philadelphia. This has gained very prominent use, and in some circles is used more frequently than the full "Athletics" name.
They are also known as "the White Elephants " or simply "the Elephants ", in reference to then New York Giants ' manager John McGraw 's calling the team a " white elephant ". During the team's s heyday, management often referred to the team as The Swingin' A's , referencing both their prodigious power and to connect the team with the growing disco culture.
One of the American League's eight charter franchises, the club was founded in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in as the Philadelphia Athletics. The team had some prominent success in Philadelphia, winning three of four World Series from to and two in a row in and After two decades of decline, however, the team left Philadelphia for Kansas City in and became the Kansas City Athletics.
After 13 mostly uneventful seasons in the Midwest, the team moved to Oakland in There a dynasty soon emerged, with three World Championships in a row from to led by players including Catfish Hunter , Reggie Jackson , ace reliever Rollie Fingers , and colorful owner Charlie O.
After being sold by Finley to Walter A. Haas, Jr. In more recent years, the A's have often been playoff contenders but have not returned to the World Series since In , the A's won 20 games in a row, which broke an AL record, as shown in the film Moneyball.
The name "Athletic" for Philadelphia's baseball team dates back to when an amateur team, the Athletic of Philadelphia , was formed. A famous image from that era, at left, published in Harper's Weekly in , shows the Athletic players dressed in uniforms displaying the familiar Old English "A" on the front.
The team later turned professional and joined the National Association in , winning the first-ever major league pennant that year. The Athletic played in the National Association through , becoming a charter member of the National League in , but were expelled from the N.
A later version of the Athletics played in the American Association from Newspaper writers also often referred to the team as the Mackmen during their Philadelphia days, in honor of their patriarch. Over the seasons, Athletic uniforms have usually paid homage to their amateur forebears to one extent or another. Until , when the uniforms had "Athletics" spelled out in script across the front, the team's name never appeared on either home or road uniforms.
Furthermore, not once did "Philadelphia" appear on the uniform, nor did the letter "P" appear on the cap or the uniform. The typical Philadelphia uniform had only an Old-English "A" on the left front, and likewise the cap usually had the same "A" on it.
The elephant was retired as team mascot in by then-owner Charles O. Finley in favor of a Missouri mule. In , the elephant was restored as the symbol of the Athletics and currently adorns the left sleeve of home and road uniforms.
The franchise that would become the modern Athletic team originated as the Indianapolis Indians of the Western League in , a minor league with teams concentrated in the Great Lakes states. The Western league was renamed the American League in by league president Bancroft Ban Johnson , in anticipation of becoming the second major league in Mack in turn persuaded Ben Shibe as well as others to invest in the team, which would again be called the Philadelphia Athletics , one of eight charter members of the American League.
The Athletics as well as the 7 other A. Philadelphia Phillies. This order, though, was only enforceable in the state of Pennsylvania. Lajoie was traded to the Cleveland Broncos now the Cleveland Indians and did not set foot on Pennsylvania soil until the National Agreement was signed between the two leagues in They won over games in and , and 99 games in Plank holds the club record for career victories, with In his book To Every Thing a Season , Bruce Kuklick points out that there were suspicions that the A's had thrown the Series, or at least "laid down", perhaps in protest of Mack's notorious thriftiness.
Mack himself alluded to that rumor years later, but also debunked it, asserting that factions within the team along with the allure of the Federal League had distracted the team. A third major league, the Federal League , had been formed to begin play in As the A. Mack refused to match the offers of the F. As a result, the Athletics went from a The team would finish in last place every year after that until , when it finished 7th.
After that, Mack began to build another winner. In and , the Athletics finished second to the New York Yankees , then won pennants in , and , winning the World Series in and In each of the three years, the A's won over games. After a second-place finish in and 3rd in , Mack again sold or traded his best players in order to reduce expenses. The construction of the "spite fence" at Shibe Park , blocking the view from nearby buildings, only served to irritate potential paying fans.
The Athletics finished fifth in , then last in In late , the controlling interest in the A's was purchased by Mack's eldest sons, Roy and Earle Mack, who bought out their stepmother, stepbrother Connie Mack, Jr. It soon became obvious that the cashflow was insufficient to service the new debt. Roy and Earle Mack began feuding with each other. The team continued to slide, attendance plummeted, and revenues continued to dwindle. The only bright spot during the last seasons in Philadelphia were the A.
The latter would be the last year in which an Athletic has led the American League in hitting. Though last minute offers were put on the table to buy the Athletics to keep them in Philadelphia including one made by a group which included Chicago insurance executive Charles O.
Finley , the American League owners were determined to "solve the Philadelphia problem" by moving the team elsewhere. On October 12, , the owners voted to approve the sale of the Athletics to another Chicago businessman, Arnold Johnson , so that he could move the team to Kansas City for the season. Though they won 5 World Series and 9 A. From the start, it was clear that Johnson was motivated solely by profit, not because of any regard for the baseball fans of Kansas City.
He was the owner of Yankee Stadium , though the American league owners forced Johnson to sell the property before acquiring the Athletics. The lease he signed with Municipal Stadium gave Johnson a three-year escape clause if the team failed to draw one million or more customers per season.
The subsequent lease signed in also contained an escape clause if the team failed to draw , per season. Rumors abounded that Johnson's real motive was to operate the Athletics in Kansas City for a few years, then move the team to Los Angeles. Whatever Johnson's motives were, the issue soon became moot. The Brooklyn Dodgers moved to Los Angeles after the season, thereby precluding any move there by the Athletics.
Moreover, on March 10, , Arnold Johnson died at the age of Whatever the concern about the move to Kansas City, fans turned out in record numbers for the era. In , the new Kansas City Athletics drew 1,, to newly renovated and newly renamed Municipal Stadium , a club record easily surpassing the previous record of , in To put this figure in perspective, in only the New York Yankees and Milwaukee Braves had higher home attendance than did the A's.
During the Johnson ownership, any good young players on the Athletics were invariably traded by general manager Parke Carroll to the Yankees for aging veterans and cash. The cash was used to pay the bills, with the veterans perhaps having star appeal that could improve attendance. The team remained mired in the second division. However, there were others. The Yankees brought up a promising young pitcher, Ralph Terry , in , but were reluctant to use him in critical situations.
So, in June, they traded him to the A's in an eight-player deal. Rogers 7. McGwire 3. McGwire 6. McGwire 5. Henderson 3. Henderson 4. Henderson 5. Henderson 9. Moore 5. Canseco 7. Lansford 5. Phillips 4. Moore , J. Newman and T. Davis 4. Henderson 6. Boros and J. Henderson 8. Langford 4. Keough 3. Winkles and J. Page 6. McKeon and B. Blue 7. Jackson 6. Hunter 6. Jackson 7.
Rudi 6. Blue 8. Bando 6. Jackson 9. Bauer and J. Campaneris 6. Hunter 5. Dark and L. Aker 4. Charles 3. McGaha and H. Colavito 4. Lopat and M. Drabowsky 4. Siebern 5. Archer 3. Gordon and H. Herbert 5. Daley 5. Cerv 6. Held 2. Boudreau and H. Burnette 2. Power 3. Boudreau Philadelphia Athletics AL 51 2. Portocarrero 3. Joost Philadelphia Athletics AL 59 95 3.
Kellner 3. Dykes Philadelphia Athletics AL 79 75 1. Shantz 9. Dykes Philadelphia Athletics AL 70 84 0. Joost 6. Dykes Philadelphia Athletics AL 52 0.
Fain 3. Mack Philadelphia Athletics AL 81 73 0. Mack Philadelphia Athletics AL 84 70 0. Scheib 4. Mack Philadelphia Athletics AL 78 76 2. Fain 4. Mack Philadelphia Athletics AL 49 1. Flores 4. Mack Philadelphia Athletics AL 52 98 3. Estalella 3. Mack Philadelphia Athletics AL 72 82 1. Newsom 3.
Mack Philadelphia Athletics AL 55 99 0. Johnson 3. Mack Philadelphia Athletics AL 64 90 0. Chapman 4. Mack Philadelphia Athletics AL 54 0. Babich 4. Mack Philadelphia Athletics AL 55 97 1.
Johnson 6. Melhuse struck out looking. After another walk loaded the bases, Long was called to pinch-hit, and he also struck out looking , on a pitch more or less right down the middle. What if Byrnes or Tejada had scored in Game 3? They dropped all nine. The next decade brought a new series of ALDS Game 5 defeats, to the Tigers in and , and then three losses in the one-and-done Wild Card Game in , , and against the Royals, Yankees, and Rays, respectively.
Those were all excellent teams, but none of them quite live up to the agonizing heartbreak of the Moneyball years. Those earlys teams felt like the most dominant of the bunch, and so many the key losses hinged on such weird plays. The Jeter Flip is also the single most devastating moment from any of these years. But if I had to pick the overall most crushing loss, it might be , due to the sheer quantity of choke moments as well as the fact that it was the fourth year in a row that they fell short.
How ecstatic I felt when they acquired Kevin Appier, one of my favorite pitchers at the time. Jeff Tam coming in for relief to induce that key double play, or Chad Bradford scraping the ground with his submarine delivery. Who could forget Olmedo Saenz, trusty DH? Happy ones, sad ones, or anything in between. Cookie banner We use cookies and other tracking technologies to improve your browsing experience on our site, show personalized content and targeted ads, analyze site traffic, and understand where our audiences come from.
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Filed under: A's Commentary and Analysis. Reddit Pocket Flipboard Email. He followed that up with a 9. Miguel Tejada was a perennial homer slugger at shortstop, at a time when that was still a novel concept. Eric Chavez won the Gold Glove at third base in each of these four seasons, while also averaging 30 homers at the plate. Each of them enjoyed a win season during this span, in three different years. Hudson was runner-up for Cy Young in , Mulder broke out in and finished runner-up himself, and Zito won the award in The closer spot was a turnstile but stayed consistently excellent.
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