Baseball's Last Dynasty: Charlie Finley's Oakland A's (review)

In 1968, Charles O. Finley moved the Kansas City Athletics to Oakland, California. During the eight years that Finley had owned the club, it had never finished higher than seventh place. Three times, including in 1967, the club had languished in the American League cellar. Finley himself had so alienated the Missouri citizenry that, on his departure, U.S. Senator Stuart Symington commented: "Oakland is the luckiest city since Hiroshima." But the team that Finley brought to California proved a far cry from the sad sack aggregation that had bedeviled Kansas City. The 1968 roster included Reggie Jackson, Rollie Fingers, Jim "Catfish" Hunter, Bert Campaneris, Sal Bando, and Joe Rudi. From 1971 to 1978, the Athletics would win five division crowns and three World Series championships. They accomplished this with swagger, flair, moustaches, and long hair, while warring endlessly with the irascible Finley and scuffling repeatedly among themselves.

Bruce Markusen recounts this lively tale in Baseball's Last Dynasty: Charlie Finley's Oakland A's, the winner of SABR's Seymour Award for the best baseball book of 1998. "Experts tell us that championship teams require cohesion and harmony to win pennants, not arguments and controversy," writes Markusen, but the A's won "in spite of constant in-fighting [and] persistent meddling by Charlie Finley."

Markusen has a colorful cast of characters and a wealth of engaging episodes to work with. Reggie Jackson, the club's superstar and catalyst, possessed a wealth of talent, an air of arrogance, and an element of unpredictability. Above all, according to pitcher Jack Aker, "The thing about Reggie is he could do everything he said he could do." Vida Blue also seemed invincible. He hurled a no-hitter in his first start in 1970 and a one-hitter in his second start in 1971. That season he won 10 of his first 12 starts and 24 games in all. But Finley wore Blue down, both physically and mentally. Finley insulted Vida by asking him to change his name to True Blue. Seeking increased attendance, he ordered Blue to pitch on short rest during home stands. In his first full season, Blue threw a staggering 312 innings. When Blue demanded a substantial increase in salary in 1972, Finley refused. "Finley treated me like a damn colored boy," charged Blue, who held out during a large part of the 1972 season.

Markusen also offers strong portraits of managers Dick Williams, whose "ability to teach and instill discipline" forged the Athletics into winners, and Alvin Dark, a former firebrand turned born-again Christian, who responded to player mistakes with homilies about religion and love and, despite widespread criticism, led them to a World Championship.

Finley, however, dominates this book as he did the team. He served as his own remarkably effective general manager, constantly shuffling players in and out to create the right mix. He experimented with orange-colored baseballs, the three-ball walk, and using track stars as designated base runners. Relentlessly stingy, Finley operated with a minimum of front office personnel, distributed cheap World Series rings, and asked starting pitchers to do radio color commentary on their off days to save money on broadcasting. He demanded total control over his managers, humiliating both them and his players with impetuous strategies and roster moves. At salary arbitration hearings, he repeatedly low balled his best players. When free agency beckoned, every one of his stars gleefully left. "I felt like I just got out of prison," crowed Jim Hunter.

Those who like a good, well-told baseball saga will doubtless enjoy Baseball's Last Dynasty. But Markusen's book ultimately suffers from a narrowness of vision. A senior researcher at the National Baseball Hall of Fame Library, Markusen relies almost exclusively on the sources available in Cooperstown: the Sporting News (especially the reports of Oakland writer Ron Bergman) and a handful of national periodicals. He has no feel for the Oakland and San Francisco Bay area...