Kansas City A's

The Kansas City Athletics were a Major League Baseball team that played in Kansas City, Missouri, from 1955 to 1967, having previously played in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, as the Philadelphia Athletics. After moving in 1967, the team became the Oakland Athletics. The team is now known as the Athletics; they will play in West Sacramento, California, for the 2025–2027 seasons before a planned relocation to the Las Vegas metropolitan area.

The Kansas City franchise played at Municipal Stadium from 1955 to 1967.

The Kansas City Athletics had an overall win–loss record of during their 13 years in Kansas City. One Kansas City Athletics player was elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame, Reggie Jackson.

History

Relocation from Philadelphia

In 1954, Chicago real estate magnate Arnold Johnson bought the Philadelphia Athletics and moved them to Kansas City, Missouri. Although he was initially viewed as a hero for making Kansas City a major-league town, it soon became apparent that he was motivated more by profit than any particular regard for the baseball fans of Kansas City. He had long been a business associate of New York Yankees owners Dan Topping, Larry MacPhail, and Del Webb, and had even bought Yankee Stadium in 1953, though the league owners forced Johnson to sell the property before acquiring the Athletics. Johnson had also bought Blues Stadium in Kansas City, home of the Yankees' top Triple A level Minor league baseball farm team, the Kansas City Blues of the second American Association. After Johnson got permission from the American League to move the A's to Kansas City, he sold Blues Stadium to the city, which renamed it Kansas City Municipal Stadium and leased it back to Johnson. The lease 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 1960 contained an escape clause that lowered that threshold to 850,000 per season.

Normally, Johnson would have had to pay the Yankees an indemnity for moving to Kansas City, and also would have had to reimburse the Yankees for the costs they incurred for moving the Blues to Denver as the Denver Bears to make way for the A's. Major-league rules of the time gave the Yankees the major-league rights to Kansas City. However, the Yankees waived these payments as soon as the purchase was approved. Even though the Yankees had no intention of going anywhere, the waivers led to rumors of collusion between Johnson and the Yankees. The rumors grew louder due to the Yankees' thinly concealed support for the sale, to the point of planting rumors in the press to derail an 11th-hour attempt to keep the A's in Philadelphia.Warrington, Robert D
Departure Without Dignity: The Athletics Leave Philadelphia
Society for American Baseball Research, 2010.

1955–1960: Johnson era

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 (the Brooklyn Dodgers would later move there after the 1957 season). Whatever the concern about the move to Kansas City, fans turned out in record numbers for the era. In 1955, the Kansas City Athletics drew 1,393,054 to Municipal Stadium, a club record easily surpassing the previous record of 945,076 in 1948; in fact, it was the third-highest attendance figure in the majors, behind only the all-powerful Yankees and the also recently relocated Milwaukee Braves in the National League (1953–1965). That number would never be approached again while the team was in Kansas City, and would remain the club record for attendance until 1982—the Athletics' 15th season in Oakland. The A's of this era were barely competitive; in five years under Johnson's ownership, the closest they got to a winning record was 1958, when they finished 73–81, eight games below .500 and 19 games out of first.

During Johnson's tenure, virtually every good young A's player was traded to the Yankees for aging veterans and cash. Over the years, Johnson traded such key players as Roger Maris, Bobby Shantz, Héctor López, Clete Boyer, Art Ditmar and Ralph Terry to New York; in return, he did receive some talented younger players such as Norm Siebern and Jerry Lumpe, and the cash helped the team pay the bills. However, with few exceptions, the trades were heavily weighted in favor of the Yankees and arguably helped keep the Yankee dynasty afloat. For example, ten players from the 1961 Yankees, reckoned as one of the best teams of all time, came from the A's. This led to accusations from fans, reporters and even other teams that Johnson had reduced the A's to a Yankee farm team at the major-league level. Bill Veeck, for instance, recalled that under Johnson, the A's were "nothing more than a loosely controlled Yankee farm club."

On the positive side, Johnson devoted attention to player development for the first time in the history of the franchise. Under longtime owner and manager Connie Mack, the A's did not or could not spend any money building a farm system, a major reason why Mack's Philadelphia teams fell from World Series champions to cellar-dwellers so quickly. When Johnson bought the team, the A's only had three scouts in the entire organization. Johnson did make some improvements to the farm system, but was unwilling to pay top dollar for players that could get the A's within sight of contention.

1955

In the inaugural season of the Athletics in Kansas City, under new manager Lou Boudreau, saw the team slightly improve compared to the final dismal years in Philadelphia, but still perform poorly. Prior to the June 15 trade deadline, the Athletics mostly placed in fifth or seventh place, eventually falling to a record of , in seventh place. From June 18 through the end of the season, the team would not leave sixth place, ending the season with a record, 33 games behind the New York Yankees.

1956

The sophomore season of the Athletics in Kansas City saw the team slide further into mediocrity. Prior to June 27, the Athletics mostly wavered between sixth and seventh place, having a record of , in seventh place, by the June 15 trade deadline. From June 27 through the end of the season, the team would not leave last place, ending the season with a dismal record, 45 games behind the World Series winning New York Yankees.

1957

The season saw the Athletics hire George Selkirk as general manager, and saw an improvement relative to their previous season, though still perform poorly. Early in the season, the team was roughly an average team, though as the season progressed, would slowly fall in the standings. From June 20 through the end of the season, the team hovered between seventh and eighth place. Prior to the August 6 game against the Chicago White Sox, the Athletics fired manager Lou Boudreau on August 6 following a record, and Harry Craft was elevated from coach to manager. Following Craft's elevation to manager, the Athletics ended the season in seventh place, with a slightly improved record to , 38½ games behind the New York Yankees.

1958: Best season in Kansas City

The season saw the best season of the Athletics while in Kansas City, although still finishing with a losing record. Prior to the All-Star break, the Athletics were somewhat competitive, mostly placing between second and third place (alternating between the Boston Red Sox), with a record of by July 10. However, the Athletics were 12½ games behind the New York Yankees, who themselves were ahead of second place by 11 games. By August, the team fell to mostly seventh place, where they would roughly stay until seasons end, with a record of , 19 games behind the World Series winning Yankees.

1959

For the season, the Athletics hired Parke Carroll as their new general manager, in what would be a worse performance than the previous season. The season saw the Athletics falling and rising in the standings several times. Up to June 7, the team spent most of the season in or around fourth place, before dropping to sixth place by the June 15 trade deadline, with a record of . July would see the Athletics place at their lowest of the season in last place, but not before finishing the month in third place following an 11-game winning streak to bring the team record to and 8½ games behind on July 30. The success would not last long, as after having a great July of , what followed was a dismal August of , which saw the team fall to seventh place, and an even more dismal September of . The Athletics would remain in seventh place until the end of the season, 28 games behind the Chicago White Sox.

1960

Prior to the start of the season, owner Arnold Johnson was returning from watching the Athletics in spring training when he was fatally stricken with a cerebral hemorrhage. He died in West Palm Beach, Florida on March 3, 1960, at the age of 53. His estate continued to own the team until the end of the year.

The season saw the Athletics under new manager Bob Elliot. The team placed towards the bottom of the standings for most of the season. From May onwards, the Athletics would not place above sixth, and from August through the end of the season, the team would sit exclusively in last place, ending the season with a record, 39 games behind the New York Yankees.

1961–1967: Finley era

On December 19, 1960, Chicago insurance magnate Charlie Finley purchased a controlling interest in the team from Johnson's estate after losing out to Johnson six years earlier in Philadelphia. He bought out the minority owners a year later. Finley promised the fans a new day. In a highly publicized move, he purchased a bus, pointed it in the direction of New York, and burned it to symbolize the end of the "special relationship" with the Yankees. He called another press conference to burn the existing lease at Municipal Stadium which included the despised "escape clause". He spent over $400,000 of his own money in stadium improvements (though in 1962 the city reimbursed $300,000 of this). He introduced new uniforms which had "Kansas City" on the road uniforms for the first time ever and an interlocking "KC" on the cap. This was the first time the franchise had acknowledged its home city on its uniforms. He announced, "My intentions are to keep the A's permanently in Kansas City and build a winning ball club. I have no intention of ever moving the franchise." The fans, in turn, regarded Finley as the savior of Major League Baseball in Kansas City.

While the A's were still dreadful in the first eight years of Finley's ownership, he began to lay the groundwork for a future contender. Finley poured significant resources into the minor league system for the first time in the history of the franchise. By 1966, the A's were reckoned as having the strongest farm system in the majors. He was assisted by the creation of the Major League Baseball draft in 1965, which forced young prospects to sign with the team that drafted them—at the price offered by the team—if they wanted to play professional baseball. Thus, Finley was spared from having to compete with wealthier teams for top talent. The Athletics, owners of the worst record in the American League in 1964, had the first pick in the first draft, selecting Rick Monday on June 8, 1965.

In regards to managing the team, Finley would hire general managers Pat Friday, Hank Peters, and Eddie Lopat between 1961 and 1967, though they mere figureheads. With the firing of Frank Lane