1974 World Series

The 1974 World Series was the championship series of Major League Baseball's (MLB) 1974 season. The 71st edition of the World Series, it was a best-of-seven playoff played between the American League (AL) champion (and two-time defending World Series champion) Oakland Athletics and the National League (NL) champion Los Angeles Dodgers. The Athletics won the series, four games to one; after splitting the first two in Los Angeles, Oakland swept their three home games to close it out.

Rollie Fingers figured in three of the four Oakland victories, posting a win and two saves, and was honored with the World Series Most Valuable Player Award. Oakland became the first team to win three consecutive Series since the New York Yankees won five straight (1949– 1953); the win secured the Athletics' status as one of the truly dominant teams of the 1970s. (The other "team of the decade," the Cincinnati Reds, won consecutive World Series in 1975 and 1976, after falling short in 1970 and 1972.)

This was the first all-California World Series; these two teams met again fourteen years later, with a different result.

Background

The 1974 Los Angeles Dodgers were the second (after the runner-up 1962 squad) Dodger team to win at least 100 games since moving west from Brooklyn; they won the National League West division after a season long battle by four games over the Cincinnati Reds, then defeated the Pittsburgh Pirates three games to one in the National League Championship Series. The Oakland A's won the American League West division by five games over the Texas Rangers, then defeated the Baltimore Orioles three games to one in the American League Championship Series.

Oakland Athletics

The Oakland Athletics, at the height of their dynasty as the "Swingin' A's", had consistently matching their on-field heroics with locker-room meltdowns and intra-squad theatrics for the American League. After yet another banner year (Catfish Hunter won 25 games, Reggie Jackson knocked in 105 runs, and Billy North stole 54 bases), the team seemed to be winning more attention for its dysfunctional communication patterns than for its superior lineup. Hunter was threatening to file for free agency in 1975 if owner Charles O. Finley didn't come through with back pay Hunter claimed he had coming. Traumatized former second baseman Mike Andrews was considering legal action for the shabby treatment he received in the previous year's World Series. Teammates Rollie Fingers and Blue Moon Odom had gotten into a fistfight. And the Series-winning manager of the previous year, Dick Williams was long gone, having had one personality clash too many with the A's front office. Despite all the melodrama, the A's won the pennant for the third straight year, the first time a team had done so since the 1960-64 New York Y