A's Goodbye? They Did This 57 Years Ago
As the A's approach their final days in Oakland, we look back at the previous "A's Goodbye" when they left Kansas City in 1967.
IBWAA members love to write about baseball. So much so, we've decided to create our own newsletter about it! Subscribe to Here's the Pitch to expand your love of baseball, discover new voices, and support independent writing. Original content six days a week, straight to your inbox and straight from the hearts of baseball fans.
Pregame Pepper
Did you know…
. . . The Athletics moved from Philadelphia to Kansas City in 1955 and only resided in K.C. for 13 years, from 1955 through 1967. During that time, they did not post a single winning season. In their unceremonious final season, the Kansas City A’s went 62-99 for a 10th-place finish in the American League, and along the way manager Al Dark was fired after a 52-69 start and replaced by Luke Appling, who had been inducted into the Hall of Fame as a player in 1964 and stumbled to a 10-30 finish with Kansas City. The end of the 1967 season was Appling’s only stint as a Major League manager. Appling spent his entire 20-year playing career with the Chicago White Sox, whose season the A’s ended in ‘67 on their way out of the city.
. . . Charlie Finley, the owner who purchased the Athletics in 1960, had already unsuccessfully tried to move the A’s to the Dallas-Fort Worth area in 1962 before he succeeded in moving them to Oakland in 1968. The new incarnation of the Washington Senators had begun play the previous year in 1961, but in 1972, they moved to Dallas-Fort Worth and became the Texas Rangers, perhaps fulfilling the identity that Finley once had for the A’s.
Leading Off
Saying Goodbye To The A’s
By Paul Jackson
Given MLB’s prudent decision to schedule the end of the A’s season on the road in Seattle, the final home game the Athletics franchise will play for the city of Oakland will take place on Sept. 26, 2024. As the Bay Area prepares to say goodbye to the A’s, let’s look back 57 years (less one day), to Sept. 27, 1967, the last last night of A’s baseball.
It was unseasonably cold for Kansas City in late September, with temperatures in the low 50s and frost warnings punctuating the forecast. Fans came to Municipal Stadium bundled up and carrying extra blankets. Inside the park, hot chocolate and coffee outsold beer at the concession stands.
For one team, there was meaningful baseball. The visiting White Sox were in a photo-finish race with Boston and Detroit for the pennant, and winning both games of this doubleheader against Kansas City would give them the lead with three games to play.
The home crowd of 5,235 people knew what they were getting into, both in terms of the chill and the impending departure of the team, heading west at the command of owner Charles O. Finley.
“Might as well see the A’s now,” one of the fans said. “We might not see them again.” Others nearby agreed, remarking that these A’s would certainly be moving to Seattle for 1968.
Conversations were easy to overhear that night. Elsewhere in the quiet park, the thwock of pitches into the catchers’ gloves reverberated in the upper levels, where isolated packs of kids hunted foul balls.
The A’s took a commanding 3-0 lead by the end of the sixth inning of Game 1. Reporting for the Kansas City Star, Charles T. Powers wrote that the crowd “sounded like 10,000” when the A’s chased the Sox starter, Gary Peters. The A’s won, 5-2, and about half of the satisfied crowd headed for the exits. It was too cold.
Powers felt that many of the remaining fans seemed dazed. They stood quietly around the concession stands, topping off their coffee, their faces “as blank and cheerless as a bus load of rush-hour commuters,” giving odds on where their team would go next.
In between games, a young woman named Letha Luster was unironically introduced as “Miss Transportation,” as chosen by the Kansas City Transportation Association. Finding herself in a bit of an awkward situation, Miss Luster said, “I just hope we can transport enthusiasm about the A’s here in Kansas City.”
The second game featured an excellent pitching performance by the A’s Catfish Hunter, who pitched his 12th complete game and his fifth shutout of the season. Just one White Sox player reached second base. These A’s seemed like strangers already, playing spoiler to an erstwhile pennant-winner, rising up from the bottom of the American League standings to deliver two lethal blows.
Even the misbehavior felt subdued. The crowd of freeloaders who snuck in over the press gate after the second game started and the ticket offices were shut could be counted on one hand. The only on-field trespasser was a loose dog, easily captured after Hunter tricked it into a gentle but restraining embrace.
With Hunter clearly not about to let the Sox into the game, more and more people left with each run the A’s scored, taking one long look back at the field and making an instinctive shrug as they turned and disappeared into the concourse tunnels.
Kansas City won, 4-0. The victorious A’s left their dugout quickly and without ceremony, filing out a back door down the long passage to their clubhouse. Next to their coverage, the Star ran a photo of that quiet line of departing men, with pitcher Diego Segui at the rear, the last Athletic out of Kansas City.
After the players left, kids gathered around the dugout steps and pestered the bat boy for a souvenir. “Come on buddy,” one said. “Give me a bat. You don’t need it. You’re going to Seattle.”
In the clubhouse, players dressed, signed autographs, and practiced being diplomatic. Like Miss Transportation, this wasn’t really even their fight.
“We may never play another game in Kansas City,” Hunter said, “and the whole team wanted to go out a winner. And we did it.” Speaking of the uncertain future, the A’s best player in 1967 was half-apologetic, half-pragmatic. “I’d like to stay,” he said, “but I’ll have to go wherever the team moves. We’ll have to do our best wherever we play.”
At other lockers nearby sat future All-Stars, millionaires, and Hall of Famers – the bones of a dynasty that would break the sport competitively and then transform it financially. Hunter and Blue Moon Odom, Sal Bando, Joe Rudi, Bert Campaneris, and rookie Reggie Jackson (who was absent that night, having received permission to leave early and resume his college studies). One day, many of these players would be able to go where they pleased, but in 1967 they were along for the ride.
The A’s last act in Kansas City was to crush the White Sox pennant aspirations. Hoping to leave in first place, Chicago limped away in fourth. Powers, the Star writer (and future novelist), wondered if the pennant stakes had been a draw, yielding one of the better crowds of September despite the larger circumstances. But that wasn’t it, he decided.
The strongest magnet was the human compulsion to witness the death, to sit in on the wake, or simply say good-bye. For it had been widely rumored, generally feared, occasionally hoped and, last night, finally accepted that the Kansas City A’s were playing their last game as the Kansas City A’s.
Paul Jackson writes about baseball, history, and culture on Substack at Project 3.18. He has previously written for ESPN.com. Paul can be reached via email at pjacks2@gmail.com.
Cleaning Up
IBWAA 2024 awards voting is now open! If you are an IBWAA member, check your email inbox for the ballot in the latest “IBWAA Update” email. All IBWAA members are encouraged to vote for MVP, Cy Young, Rookie of the Year, Manager of the Year, and Reliever of the Year awards. Voting will close after Monday, September 30, before the start of the postseason.
Very nice piece. At least Kansas City only had to wait just a couple of years to get another team. Washington had to be without one for 33 years seasons (and lost a lot of fans to the Orioles.)