Swoonin' A's: A's outdrew Royals in the beginning

By Phil Ellenbecker
   From the start, the Royals had it all over the A's in Kansas City in terms of performance on the field. Each team finished third-from-last in their initial season in the American League. The A's were sixth in the eight-team AL in their first year in K.C. after moving from Philadelphia. The Royals took fourth in the six-team AL West in their first year as an expansion club in the AL West.
  But the Royals topped the A's in winning percentage, .426 to .409, as they would in every year in comparison through the time the A's left Kansas City for Oakland in 1968. And the comparison isn't even close. The Royals were a .500 team by their third year. The A's never finished above .474.
  Yet perhaps ironically and surprisingly, the A's actually drew better than the Royals in the two teams' first few years at Municipal Stadium.
  The A's topped 1 million fans in each of their first two years, while the Royals didn't draw a million until their fifth year. The A's brought in more fans than the Royals in three of the first four years the teams were in K.C. And it wasn't close – the margin was 490,640 the first year and was 322,107 the second and 217,435 the fourth. Only in the third year — 1957 vs. 1971  — did the Royals outdraw the Athletics, and the margin was only 9,717.

In a year-by-year comparison, despite performance that didn't match up on the field, the Kansas City A's outdrew the Kansas City Royals for the two teams' first four years in existence. While the A's topped a million fans in their first year, it took the Royals five years to do so.

 The A's drew more than 900,000 in each of their first five years, while the Royals slid to 693,047 in their second year and 707,656 in their fourth.
 It wasn't until their fifth year, 1973, when the Royals moved into their brand-spanking-new stadium, that they topped the A's and topped the million mark for the first time.
  And that's the way it stayed. The Royals were above a million the next year and have been ever since. The A's never brought in more than the 774,944 they drew in 1960, bottoming out at 528,344 in 1965 (an average of 6,500 a game)
   So why were the A's more popular than the Royals at the start? You got me. Perhaps Kansas City baseball fans were still miffed over the way the A's left town in 1967 when the Royals arrived two years alter.  Or perhaps living up to Missouri's Show Me State motto, they were waiting for a winner. Yet three years in the Royals were winning more than they lost and their attendance backslid from 910,784 to 707,656 one year later.
  Perhaps the stadium condition had something to do with it. While Municipal had been spruced up for its major league arrival in 1955, it was on list last legs by 1969. Certainly the new stadium made a difference in 1973.
  Yet these explanations don't entirely suffice to me. I would have thought the Royals would have generated more enthusiasm than they did. I'd like to see a study of this some day by somebody more learned and ambitious than me. At any rate, those are the facts.
 

Swoonin' A's: A last bang amid a whimper in '67

  The Athletics, or A's, exited Kansas City in 1967 in a final blaze of incompetence, as Jerry said to George once on "Seinfeld."
  In their final year in K.C., the A's finished in 10th place, their fifth last-place finish in 13 seasons in the Paris of the Plains. (Sixth place in the then-eight team American League in their first season in K.C. was the best the A's would ever muster in the city.)
  The A's of '67 also brought notoriety upon themselves with an airplane dust-up involving alcohol and stewardesses that led to a revolt against owner Charlie Finley, the firing of manager of Alvin Dark and the release of Ken "Hawk" Harrelson.
  But before the A's got the hell out of Kansas City, they managed one final blaze of glory, on the night of Wednesday, Sept. 27, five days before the end of the regular season, Municipal Stadium for a twi-night doubleheader.
  Before an announced crowd of 5,325, the A's took on the Chicago White Sox, who entered the night one game behind first-place MInnesota in the AL, tied with Boston, with Detroit one-half game behind the Soxes in perhaps the tightest multiteam pennant race in baseball history. Perhaps? Probably. Nearly half the teams in a 10-team league right there battling for first.
  (The only other comparison I can think of offhand is the 1973 NL Least, when the Mets topped four teams within three games of each other with a final record of 82-79, the worst record ever for a first-place finisher. The Mets went on to beat Cincinnati in the NL Championship Series and lost to Oakland in seven games in the World Series.)
  Amid this situation the White Sox sent their two best pitchers to the mound. Gary Peters started the first game and would finish the season 16-11 with a 2.28 ERA. Second-game starter Joe Horlen finished 19-7 with a 2.06 ERA. The two finished 1-2 in the AL in ERA.
  Result? The A's, who'd lost 26 of 34 games coming in, swept the Chisox, 5-2 and 4-0, behind Chuck Dobson and Jim "Catfish" Hunter. The White Sox were effectively out of the race after that, never closer than one game and three out at the end, in fourth place after getting swept on the final weekend by Washington.
  (The usually lowly Senators finished sixth that year under Gil Hodges, their best finish since becoming an expansion team in 1961 upon the departure of the original Senators for Minnesota.)

Chuck Dobson (above) and Jim "Catfish" Hunter beat the Chicago White Sox's best pitchers, Gary Peters and Joe Horlen, on Sept. 27, 1967, and effectively knocked the ChiSox out of the American League pennant race as the Kansas City's swept a twi-night doubleheader at Munipical Stadium. Four days later the A's ended their tenure in Kansas City.

  Dobson, 10-10 with a 3.69 ERA in 1967, went 8 1/3 innings and allowed two runs, both earned, and three hits in the opener while striking out five and walking two. Paul LIndblad relieved Lew Krausse in the ninth with the bases loaded and one out and got both batters he faced for the save.
 Future Hall of Famer Hunter (13-17, 2.81 ERA in '67) tossed a three-hit shutout in the nightcap, walking two and striking out two.
  Mike Hershberger put the A's ahead in the first game, in the second inning, when he doubled, stole third and scored on Sal Bando's sacrifice fly. The White Sox gifted the A's a pair of runs in the sixth. An error and passed ball led to an RBI single by Rick Monday, and a wild pitch by Don McMahon, who'd just relieved Peters, helped the A's add another unearned run on Jim Gosger's single that scored Monday.
  The A's made it 5-0 in the eighth off Hall of Famer Hoyt Wilhelm, triggered by Joe Rudi's leadoff double. Bando and Gosger, who went 3 for 4 in the game with three RBIs, had back-to-back RBI singles with one out.
  The White Sox, who finished last in the league in runs scored in '67, made it interesting in the ninth. Tommy Agee led off with a triple and Tommy McCraw walked after Don Buford flew out to Hershberger in right (Agee held). Dobson gave way to Krausse, who issued back-to-back walks, the second of which scored Agee. Rocky Colavito singled in McCraw and loaded the bases. Enter Lindblad, the Chanute, Kan., native, who got former Athletic Wayne Causey to fly out to Monday in center field and Ron Hansen to ground out to Bando at third, ending the game.
  Hunter got all the runs he needed in the second game with a four-run sixth, and Hunter got it started with a leadoff single. Ted Kubiak and John Donaldson followed with two more singles, Hunter scoring on Donaldson's hit. After Hershberger grounded out, rookie Ramon Webster delivered a two-run single.
  Three batters later Monday scored an unearned run (courtesy Don Buford's error in left) on a passed ball by Bob Locker.
  Meanwhile, Hunter was hardly threatened. "Catfish," who pitched a perfect game in 1968, retired the first nine batters he faced, 12 of the first 13, and never allowed more than one base runner in an inning. McCraw's one-out double in the seventh was the only occasion Chicago reached scoring position. Hunter retired the final eight batters he faced after that.
  Bolstered by all this momentum, the A's moved on to Yankee Stadium, and after a day off Thursday were swept by New York in four games over the final weekend. The once-mighty Yankees finished one place ahead of the A's in ninth, but they didn't need the final sweep to do so since they were five games ahead of K.C. coming in.
  And then it was off to Oakland and bigger and better things for the A's, where'd they become swingin', after 13 years of ineptitude in Kansas City.

Swoonin' A's: Campy goes 9 for 9 in '65

Bert Campaneris took the mound in the eighth inning and played every other position for the Kansas City A's on Sept. 8, 1965. The A's lost to the California Angels 5-3 in 13 innings.

Sheep graze beyond the right-field fence at Municipal Stadium during a game in 1963. This was one of many wild ideas owner Charlie Finley came up for the Kansas City A's during the 1960s. But Bert Campaneris playing all nine positions in a game in 1965 may have been his best promotional stunt.

By Phil Ellenbecker
  Among all the promotional stunts A's owner Charlie Finley trotted out during his infamous time in Kansas City, perhaps the most entertaining and intriguing occurred the night of Sept. 8, 1965.
  Mechanical rabbits to deliver balls to the umpire, a mule mascot (dubbed "Charlie O"), sheep grazing beyond the outfield fence, green and gold uniforms — those were interesting diversions.
  But that Wednesday night, before a crowd of 21,576 at Municipal Stadium, brought something more compelling, something that actually involved the playing of the game. That was the night Bert Campaneris, on "Campy Campaneris Night," became the first player to attempt and complete playing all nine positions in a single game, against the California Angels.
  Campaneris was a shining light for the A's in Kansas City before they left for Oakland, where he became a mainstay on three world championship teams in the early 1970s. While not a superstar, he was quite solid, a six-time All-Star and six-time stolen base champion in a 20-year major league career.
 That tenure shows he loved to play, and he was quite versatile, as he showed the night of Sept. 8, 1965. He started off the game at his regular position of shortstop and then moved, inning by inning, to second base, third, left field, center, right, first, pitcher and catcher. And when he took the mound, Campaneris threw right- and left-handed.
  Campaneris got knocked out of game on a collision at home plate in the ninth in a game won by the Angels 5-3 in 13 innings.
  Campy had only one chance in the field in the first three innings, becoming involved in the middle of a pickoff of Ed "Spanky" Kirkpatrick from his second-base position in the second inning, on a play that went 1-4-1-6.
  The action picked up when Dagoberto went around the horn in the outfield in the fourth through sixth, as he caught a fly ball playing left and center and then muffed a fly playing right that allowed a run to score in the sixth. The ball popped out of his glove on Jim Fregosi's drive to right-center. He caught a pop-up at first the next inning.
  Things got kind of interesting when he toed the slab in the eighth. Campy was ambidextrous, so he pitched from his normal right side to lefty to face righty-batting Jose Cardenal,  a second cousin to Campaneris. They grew up a few blocks apart in Matanza, Cuba. (Cardenal said in an interview that they played baseball together constantly during their youth.) Cardenal popped out to second.
  Campy then threw 10 straight balls and issued consecutive walks to Albie Pearson (back to right-handed) and Jim Fregosi (back to port side), followed by a single on the 2-0 count by Joe Adcock (Campy still southpaw) that scored Pearson and California a 3-1 lead. Campy got out  of the inning when Bobby Knoop (that's kuh-NOP, not NOOP, and righty batty so Campy so spent most of the inning as a lefty) struck out, and Billy Bryan caught Fregosi trying to steal second.
  Campy's line in his only-ever major league pitching appearance in his 19-year career was one run earned, one hit, one strikeout, two walks. Lifetime ERA: 9.00.
  Behind the plate in the ninth, Campaneris was tested by Kirkpatrick after a leadoff single, and Kirkpatrick stole second. After Campaneris walked Tom Egan, Paul Schaal lined out to center, Kirkpatrick advancing to third. While next batter Dean Chance was striking out, Kirpatrick and Egan tried to pull a double steal, but second baseman Dick Green cut off Campaneris' throw and gunned out Kirkpatrick at home.
  Kirkpatrick was out, and Campy was out, heading off for X-rays after a collision forced him to leave the field with injuries to his shoulder and neck
  (Couldn't find a report on extent of the injuries, but Campaneris didn't return to the lineup until the following Tuesday.)
  By holding on to Green's throw, Campy prevented Spanky from increasing the Angels' lead to 4-1, and RBI singles by Ken "Hawk" Harrelson and Green in the bottom of the ninth sent the game into extra innings. After the two teams went scoreless in the next three frames, the Angels pushed across two unearned runs in the top of the 13th as pitcher John O'Donoghue botched a bunt to let in one run and Cardenal brought in the other with a sacrifice fly.
  The A's went out in order in the bottom of the 13th, ending what was probably one of the most memorable nights, as least by comparison, at Municipal in the 13 years the A's called it home.
  Things were back to normal at the stadium the next night, 1,271 showing up to watch the Angels beat K.C. 7-2. The A's drew 528,344 in 1965, their lowest attendance during their K.C. tenure.
  Perhaps Campy's busy night affected his concentration at bat, as he went 0 for 4. In the field, his line was five putouts, one assist and one error.
  Three weeks later the A's finished at 59-103, last in the 10-team American League, their second straight last-place finish and fifth during their time in K.C. The Angels went 75-87 and placed seventh.
Musical chairs
  Besides posing a challenge for Campaneris, the night also kept A's manager Haywood Sullivan busy scratching on his lineup card as he shuttled players with Campy moving around the field. Here's a look at the changes to accommodate Campaneris inning by inning:
  Second inning: Wayne Causey went from second base to shortstop in a simple position swap.
  Third: Another swap with Ed Charles moving from third to second.
  Fourth: With Campy moving to left, Jose Tartabull went to right, Charles back to third, right-field starter Lou Clinton staying in the dugout, and Green going in at second and taking Clinton's lineup spot. Got it?
  Fifth: Tartabull goes back to left and Jim Landis moves over to right to make way for Campy in center.
  Sixth: Landis and Campy swap as Campaneris completes the outfield circuit in right.
  Seventh: As Campy takes first, MIke Hershberger goes to right field to replace first baseman Randy Schwartz.
  Eighth: Santiago Rosario comes in to play first and takes the place of pitcher Jim Dickson as Campy takes the mound.
  Ninth: Aurelio Monteagudo relieves Campy and takes the lineup spot of Bryan, who leaves the game to make way for Campy behind the plate.
   With all that shuffling, Kansas City used eight pitchers and 24 players in the game.
Take that, Earl
  Moving on to later in Campaneris' career, from Campy's Society for American Baseball Research biography: "Campaneris had a great season at Oakland in 1972, leading the league in chances (795), at-bats (625) and stolen bases (52). He finished second in the AL to Boston’s Luis Aparicio in balloting for the All-Star Game. Even after Aparicio broke a finger and couldn’t play, AL manager Earl Weaver selected Texas shortstop Toby Harrah. Harrah was also unable to play because of a sore shoulder, and Weaver then selected Orioles shortstop Bobby Grich, who played the entire 10 innings in the game, much to Campaneris’ chagrin.
  "Three weeks later Campaneris responded to the All-Star snub in a game at Baltimore: After collecting his third stolen base of the game in the fifth inning, he went to third on a throwing error by Orioles catcher Andy Etchebarren, then coaxed Jim Palmer into a run-scoring balk. While heading home, he looked into the Orioles dugout and tipped his hat to Weaver."
Infamy
  As positive a factor as Campaneris was on the field, he's perhaps best known for a bat-throwing incident that got him tossed out of the 1972 AL Championship Series. Again from the SABR bio:
  "After the A’s won Game One, 3-2, fireworks erupted during Game Two. In the bottom of the seventh, Campaneris, who was already 3-for-3 with two stolen bases and two runs scored, was hit in the ankle by a pitch from Lerrin LaGrow. Campaneris threw his bat toward LaGrow, who ducked to avoid being hit.
  With Detroit manager Billy Martin in the lead, the Tigers went for Campaneris.
   "(Afterward, Martin said of his role in the fracas, 'You bet I was after him! There’s no place for that kind of gutless stuff in baseball. That’s the worst thing I’ve ever seen in all my years of baseball. I would respect him if he went out to throw a punch, but what he did was the most gutless thing of any man to put on a uniform. It was a disgrace to baseball.')
  "Three umpires held Martin back, and home-plate umpire Nestor Chylak ejected LaGrow and Campaneris. Explaining his actions, Campaneris said, 'My ankle hurt so bad. I knew he was going to throw at me, but people now tell me it’s better to go and fight. I don’t know. I just lost my temper.'
  "Oakland’s Joe Rudi said he thought LaGrow threw at Campaneris because 'Campy had run the Tigers ragged in the first two games, and when (Billy) Martin gets his ears pinned down, he’s going to do something about it.' Teammate Mike Hegan said he thought Martin “wanted to light a fire under his ballclub, and Campy was the guy that they were going after because he was the guy that set the table for us. There’s no question that Billy Martin instructed Lerrin LaGrow to throw at Campaneris.'
  "American League President Joe Cronin suspended Campaneris for the remainder of the ALCS, fined him $500 and left the decision about a possible World Series suspension to Commissioner Bowie Kuhn. Kuhn ruled that Campaneris could play in the World Series, but would be suspended without pay for the first seven games of the 1973 season."
Other notes
    --Campaneris was one of the last players to leave Cuba for the United States before the Castro revolution made emigration extremely rare.
    --The highest praise for Campaneris may have come from his old boss Charlie Finley, who said in 1980, “You can talk about Reggie Jackson, Catfish Hunter and Sal Bando, all those great players, but it was Campy who made everything go.”
    --Other players to go nine positions in a game: Cesar Tovar, 1968; and Scott Sheldon and Shane Halter, both in 2000.
  Editor's notes: As with all of these "Swoonin' A's" articles, I relied extensively on retrosheet.com and baseballreference.com for play-by-play details. I also got some help filling in the blanks from sportseclopedia.com and parallelnarrative.com.
  And as be can seen above, I lifted profusely from Campaneris' entry in the  Society for American Baseball Research's Biography Project (saber.org/bioproject), from an article that originally appeared in "Mustaches and Mayhem: Charlie O's Three Time Champions: The Oakland Athletics: 1972-74" (SABR, 2015), edited by Chip Greene.
  (Behind Baseball Reference and Retrosheet, SABR's bio project may be the next-best contribution to the internet.)

Swoonin' A's: 7th come 11, via 10 walks in '59

  Almost three days to the day, three and four years after wild affairs took place between the Kansas City A's and White Sox in April, the two teams were at it again on April 22, 1959. 
  On April 23, 1955, the White Sox clobbered Kansas City 29-6 at Municipal Stadium in just the 10th game for the A's in their first year in the city after moving from Philadelphia.
  On April 21, 1956, the A's whipped the White Sox 15-1 at Municipal behind a 13-run second inning in which all the runs crossed the plate with two out to tie a major league record.
  And on this Wednesday in 1959 the White Sox subdued Kansas City 20-6, again at Municipal. You could say clobbered, whipped, hammered, belted or any other verb associated with a barrage of hits, but subdued is more apt because of the manner in which the White Sox piled up 11 runs in the seventh inning to put this game away.
  What did they actually do? Not much, at least with the bat. The Athletics put the 7,446 in attendance to sleep by issuing 10 walks.
  While the Chisox collected 16 hits in the game, they needed just one to push across the 11 in the seventh. That's because besides the 10 walks, the Chicagos reached twice on errors, picked up more bases on a Roger Maris error, and got hit by a pitch.
  The errors came on the first three batters of the inning. Only two of Chicago's runs in the inning were earned. The White Sox drew eight bases-loaded walks in the inning. A's pitchers had strings of four straight walks,  three walks and a hit by pitch, and another of three walks.
  The 10 walks issued by the A's were one short of the major league record for an inning set Sept. 11, 1949, by the Washington Senators against the New York Yankees.
  The A's were actually in this one entering the seventh, trailing 8-6 after letting a 6-1 lead through two innings slip away.
  Tom Morgan, Kansas City's fourth pitcher on the day coming on in relief in the seventh, might have escaped with no damage with a little help. But Ray Boone reached leading off the inning on Joe DeMaestri's error at shortstop, and both runners were safe when third baseman Hal Smith botched Al Smith's sacrifice bunt attempt. Johnny Callison followed with a single for the lone White Sox hit of the inning, scoring Boone, and Al Smith scored and Callison moved to third on right fielder Maris' error.
  Luis Aparicio, pitcher Bob Shaw, Earl Torgeson (Mark Freeman relieving Morgan in the middle of Torgeson's at-bat) and Nellie Fox drew four straight walks. Torgeson and Fox brought in runs to increase Chicago's lead to 12-6. Jim Landis hit back to the pitcher for a fielder's choice and first out of the inning, then the walk parade resumed with Sherm Lollar, Boone, Smith and Aparicio looking at free passes around Callison getting plunked by a pitch. Each of these at-bats brought in a run, making the score 17-6.
  All these ball calls must have been wearing out the clicker and the patience of home-plate umpire John Rice.

 

George Brunet issued five of the 10 walks the Chicago White Sox drew in the seventh inning of their 20-6 rout of the Kansas City A's on April 22, 1959. Brunet is pictured on his 1965 baseball card when he was with the California Angels, one of nine teams he pitched for in a 15-year major league career. The A's were the first.

  George Brunet had relieved Freeman after Lollar batted and finished the inning, and the game. (Brunet was in the third year of a 15-year major league career that led to a 15-year career in the Mexican League that ended in 1989 at at the age of 54. Brunet is also noted in Jim Bouton's "Ball Four" as the pitcher who didn't wear underwear.)
  After Brunet struck out Shaw, Bubba Phillips and Fox continued the game of move over Rover with two more bases-loaded walks, bringing Brunet's total to five and bringing the score to 19-6 before the inning mercifully ended when Landis went pitcher-to-first for the third out.
  So Landis was responsible for two outs in the inning, both on balls hit back to the pitcher.
  Shaw got the victory in relief of his mentor and Hall of Famer Early Wynn, finishing with 7 1/3 innings of shutout pitching.
  Bud Daley took the loss for the A's. In 1 2/3 innings he gave up three runs that allowed the White Sox to go ahead for good, after Ned Garver allowed five runs over 3 2/3 innings and left with K.C. still ahead 6-5.
  Chicago's stellar double-play combination of Fox and Aparicio, besides drawing two walks apiece in the fateful seventh, otherwise shined with the bat. Fox, the American League MVP that year, was 4 for 5 with five RBs. Aparicio went 3 for 4 with four RBIs and three runs scored, including a three-run homer in the fourth inning off Garver, Luis' second homer of six on the year.
  The White Sox went on to win the AL pennant that year, ending a four-year Yankees string, and lost the World Series to the Dodgers in six games.
  The A's finished seventh in the eight-team AL for the third straight year, with a 66-88 record.

Swoonin' A's: K.C. ties mark for two-out thunder in '56

 By Phil Ellenbecker
  Almost a year to the date after Chicago had pummeled the A's 29-6, 11 days into their inaugural season in Kansas City, the Athletics offered some payback with a 15-1 drubbing of the White Sox on April 21, 1956. It came before a Saturday crowd of 15, 608 at Municipal Stadium.  As in the 1955 April blowout between the two teams, in which the ChiSox took a 14-3 lead after three innings, this one was over early. And Kansas City's knockout blow this day was even more emphatic. A 13-run second and one more in the third put the A's up 14-1.
  What made Kansas City's second-inning outburst especially notable was that all of the 13 runs scored with two out. This tied the major league record for most runs scored with two out set by Cleveland in a 27-3 win over Boston in 1923.
  Not that Art Ditmar needed that much help. The K.C. starter, who qualified as A's ace this year with a 12-22 record and 4.42 ERA, threw a complete-game one-hitter, allowing no earned runs while striking out three and walking five, in winning his first start of the year.
  The A's sent 17 batters to the plate in the second, and mainly they stung the Sox to death with singles – 11 of them, along with two doubles, two walks and a triple.
   Although all the runs scored with two out, the A's jumped on Chicago starter Sandy Consuegra from the start. Jim Finigan led off with a single and advanced to third on Joe DeMaestri's double. After consecutive ground outs by Ditmar and Vic Power, Forrest "Spook" Jacobs beat out a grounder to shortstop Luis Aparicio for a hit, bringing in the first run of the inning.
  (Why Spook? Jacobs was dubbed “Spook” for his uncanny ability to dump baseballs just over the heads of opposing infielders. Also of note, he was the first  player to get hits on his first four at-bats in the major leagues.)
  Enos Slaughter followed with another RBI single, and Harry "Suitcase" Simpson added a two-run single.
  (It's been assumed that the "Suitcase” nickname came from the fact Simpson played with a total of 17 different Negro, major and minor league teams during his professional career. Actually, according to his Society for American Baseball Research biography {https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/e4cd0428}, he picked it up nickname during his Negro League days because he wore a size 13 shoe. A sports writer dubbed him “Suitcase” Simpson, based on a character by that name with feet as large as suitcases, in the comic strip “Toonerville Folks.”)
  After a walk to Gus "Ozark Ike" Zernial ("Ozark Ike" after a popular comic-strip character), Bill Fischer relieved Consuegra and Joe Ginsberg greeted him with a run-scoring single. Hector Lopez, who'd come in for Finigan as a pinch runner after Finigan turned an ankle at third in his earlier at-bat, then delivered the big blow of the inning with a two-run, opposite-field triple to right field, making the score 7-0. DeMaestri followed with his second hit of the inning, a run-scoring single, and Ditmar singled him to second.
  Goodbye Fischer, hello Harry Byrd, the AL Rookie of the Year in 1952 with the A's when they were in Philadelphia.
  And hello Byrd, Power said, with a two-run double. 10-0 Kansas City. Jacobs' second single of the inning scored another run. Slaughter walked, and back-to-back RBI singles by Simpson (also 2 for 2 in the inning) and Zernial made it 13-0.
  Morrie Martin, who fought in the Battle of the Bulge during World War II and received two Purple Hearts, relieved Byrd and brought an end to the lesser carnage at Municipal this day by retiring Ginsberg to end the inning.
  Ditmar gave up his only hit and only run in the fourth. Earl Battey singled with one out and came around to score courtesy two errors by Jacobs at second.
 Ditmar breezed after that, facing the minimum 15 batters, helped by a double play, over the final five innings.
  A's manager Lou Boudreau substituted freely after the second. Jacobs was the only position player to go all the way and finished the day 3 for 5 with two RBIs and two runs scored. Simpson was 2 for 4 with three RBIs and Ginsberg 2 for 5.
  The A's went on to finish 52-102 in the American League that season, eighth and last, with a final record of 52-102, their worst record in their 13-year tenure in K.C. The White Sox finished third, 15 games back of the Yankees, who won their seventh pennant and sixth World Series in eight years. 
 

  Art Ditmar threw a one-hitter while Harold "Spook" Jacobs was a key offensive contributor in Kansas City's 15-1 rout of the Chicago White Sox on April 21, 1956.

 

Swoonin' A's: ChiSox welcome K.C. to the bigs

Bobby Shantz was the starting pitcher in the 29-6 pounding the A's absorbed from the Chicago White Sox.
 
  Three weeks and nine games into the 1955 season, Kansas City received a rude how-di-do to major league baseball.
  Not that the Athletics' first season in the American League and Kansas City's first in major league baseball, after a move from Philadelphia, had been a honeymoon up until then. The A's entered their Saturday, April 23 game with Chicago with a 2-6 record.
  Then the bottom fell out. The White Sox raked through six Kansas City pitchers for 29 hits en route to 29-6 shellacking before before a crowd of 18,338 at Municipal Stadium.
  It got ugly before it got uglier. Chicago jumped on Kansas City for a 4-0 lead in the top of the first, but the A's closed to 4-3 in the bottom of the inning. The White Sox responded with seven runs in the second and three more in the third for a 14-3 lead, then made it more unsightly with six more runs in the sixth and seven more in the seventh and eighth frames.
  Starting pitcher Bobby Shantz, the American League's 1952 MVP while the A's were in Philadelphia, absorbed most of the damage, surrendering nine runs, eight earned, in 1 2//3 innings. But no one got off easy for the KC pitching staff this day. Lee Wheat (two earned runs in 1/3 inning), Bob Trice (5 ER, 1 1/3 IP), Moe Burtschy (6 ER, 2 1/3 IP), Bob Spicer (5 ER, 1 2/3 IP) and Ozzie Van Brabant (2 ER, 1 2/3 IP) all had hefty damage done to their ERA.
  (Season stats for those who mopped up for Shantz: Wheat, 22.50 ERA in two innings pitched; Trice, 9.00 ERA, 10 IP; Burtschy, 10.32 ERA,  11.1 IP; Spicer, 33.75, 2.2 IP; Van Brabant, 18.00, 2 IP. The A's had the AL's worst ERA that year of 5.35.)
  (Wheat, Trice and Van Brabant were gone for good from the major leagues by next season. Burtschy and Spicer were gone after 1956. Burtschy, who had a blazing fastball but was constantly plagued by lack of control, actually wasn't too bad in his final season: 3-1 record, 3.95 ERA in 43 IP; Spicer, on the other hand, 19.29, giving him a final major league ERA of 27.00 0 in 5.0 innings.)
  Thirteen White Sox runs on April 23 came across courtesy of the long ball. Bob Nieman was the biggest basher, unloading a three-run homer in the first inning and a two-run shot in the third en route to a 3-for-4 day with seven runs batted in from his No. 5 slot in the lineup. Those were Nieman's fourth and fifth homers of the season — nearly halfway to an 11-homer season with 53 RBI and a .283 average. (Nieman was a pretty solid hitter in a 13-year career with a .295 average and a best number of homers of 21 in 1959).
  Sherman Lollar, the No. 8 hitter, also padded his stats with two solo homers, his first two four-baggers of the year, as he went 5 for 6 with 5 RBIs. Minnie Minoso went 4 for 5 with 5 RBIs, including a two-run homer.
  Perhaps if Jim Finnegan hadn't erred on Minoso's grounder in the top of the first it might have been different. Maybe. Chico Carrasquel singled to center leading off the game and Nellie Fox flied out. Carrasquel scored on Finnegan's error and two batters later Nieman unloaded his first homer, scoring Minoso and George Kell. Shantz retired the next two batters.
  After the A's came back with three in their half of the first, including a two-run homer by Bill Renna, Lollar led off the second with a homer as the White Sox began to pull away with seven runs.
  And that's about all you need to know. Ugly from the start. And the rest, you could say, is history. Ugly history. All the way through 1967. And then onto Oakland and better days.

The swoonin’ A’s: Glimpses at some lowlights and highlights of the Kansas City A’s, 1955-1967

 

 

By Phil Ellenbecker
  Hi, welcome to "The Swoonin' A's." I've never tried to be a blogger before but I thought I'd try it by trotting out one of my favorite subjects — the hopelessly hapless Kansas City A's, who spend 13 ignominous seasons at Municipal Stadium. The Athletics' finishes in those years in the American League, in order — sixth, eighth, seventh, seventh, seventh, seventh (consistency!), eighth, ninth, eighth, 10th, 10th, seventh and 10th (AL was eight team through 1960, 10 teams after that). Five last-place finishes, never better than .500, best record 73-39, .474 winning percentage in 1958, good for seventh place; most wins, 74 in '66, also good for seventh place, best finish for K.C. since the AL went to 10 teams and equivalent to its sixth in the first year in the city in '55. Those were the best finishes for the A's in their 13 years.
  (The title for this blog comes from "The Swingin' A's," the Athletics' slogan during the late 1960s and early 1970s and which appeared on their team logo.)
  For a truly informed opinion on the A's in those years, find Bill James' 1986 "Baseball Abstract" and read his essay on what it was like to be a fan of the A's back then. An excerpt:
  "Under current conditions it would be very difficult, if not impossible, for any baseball team to become as bad as the Kansas City Athletics were … Thirteen straight losing seasons … not many teams have ever had thirteen … even the Browns. Even the St. Louis Browns, the hapless Brownies … yes, even the Browns never had thirteen consecutive losing seasons.
  "This one fact, however depressing, testifies only to the duration of the frustration; there was more to it than that. The A’s not only never had a winning record, they never came close to having a winning record. They were never in any danger of having a winning record."
  The most entertaining parts of James' essay were about Charlie Finley and all the crazy ideas he brought aboard when he became the A's owner in the 1960s. There were many, but my favorite was Finley's effort to move the fences in at Municipal Stadium, because he figured the reason the Yankees won so many pennants was their short porch, 296 feet, down the right-field line. The new dimensions would be named "Pennant Porch." When informed that current rules prevented him from moving in the fences closer than 325, Finley had a line painted in the outfield where he wanted to have the fences placed. Then he instructed the public address announcer to, whenever a ball was caught past the  line, to say, "That would have been a home run in Yankee Stadium."
  When it became apparent that far more batted balls were flying beyond the pseudo fence line by opponents than Athletics, the order was withdrawn.
  I came along too late as a Kansas City baseball fan for the A's (I started with the Royals in 1969), but I developed an early interest in them when I discovered some 8x10 photos of A's players that my brothers had collected on visits to A's games when they were kids. (I can still recall some of them — Hector Lopez, Joe DeMaestri, Virgil Trucks, Ned Garver; wish I know what happened to them.) The fascination kept growing through the years.
  What added to the fascination was how well the A's did after they left Kansas City. Three straight world championships from 1972-74, and added success since then.
  Along the way I've collected a few stories and box scores through the years, and now I'm attempting to put them together in a written fashion. I've tried to have fun with this, going beyond a straight-forward account to throw in some what I thought to be interesting sidenotes and trivia. In other words, I just wrote what I damned well pleased. Isn't that what blogging's all about?
  This is by no means meant to be anywhere near a comprehensive look at the highs and lows of the Kansas City A's from 1955-1967. It's just some things I've come across. If anybody out there reads this and has anything to add — either story ideas or stories you have written — feel free to chip in.
  Hope you enjoy and that this wasn't a complete waste of time.
Sincerely, Phil Ellenbecker
  P.S. It's just a coincidence, I believe, that most of these game accounts involve the Chicago White Sox, although the White Sox are one of my favorite teams besides the Royals. When the A's and White Sox hooked up back then, wacky things seemed to happen.
  Also, most of the details in these accounts came from retrosheet.org and baseballreference.com, which I consider to be the greatest contributions ever to the internet.