The Circus And The Dynasty

The promotions get remembered as whimsy. They were austerity.

Charlie Finley never moved to Oakland. He ran the ballclub out of his insurance office in downtown Chicago, three time zones from the Coliseum, and he fired nearly everyone who might have run it for him. At one stretch the entire A's front office was about half a dozen people, one of them his own cousin. Green and gold uniforms, white shoes, a mule on the field, hot pants on the infield. All of it cheaper than a functioning organization. Finley understood that a spectacle you invent yourself costs nothing but nerve.

The part that still gets underrated is that it worked. Not the promotions, the team. Catfish Hunter, Reggie Jackson, Vida Blue, Sal Bando, Campy Campaneris, Rollie Fingers. Three straight World Series titles from 1972 through 1974, the only club besides the Yankees ever to do that. The circus and the dynasty were the same operation, run by the same man, and you could not have pulled them apart.

Then free agency arrived and Finley, who had never once paid a nickel more than he had to, watched the whole thing walk out the door. He sold the team in 1980. The uniforms stayed. Almost nothing else did.