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Oakland Athletics
2025 Oakland Athletics season
File:ALW-OAK-Logo.png File:ALW-OAK-Insignia.png Logo Cap insignia
Established in 1901 'Based in Oakland since 1968'
Major league affiliations
American League (1901–present) West Division (1969–present)
Current uniform
File:ALW-Uniform-OAK.PNG
Retired numbers	9, 27, 34, 42, 43, (A's)
Colors
Green, Gold, White
Name
Oakland Athletics (1968–present) Kansas City Athletics (1955-1967) Philadelphia Athletics (1901-1954) (Referred to as "A's")
Other nicknames
The A's, The White Elephants, The Elephants
Ballpark
McAfee Coliseum (1968–present) a.k.a. Network Associates Coliseum (1998-2004) a.k.a. Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum (1968-1998) Municipal Stadium (Kansas City) (1955-1967) Shibe Park (Philadelphia) (1909-1954) a.k.a. Connie Mack Stadium (1953-1954) Columbia Park (Philadelphia) (1901-1908)
Major league titles
World Series titles (9)	1989 • 1974 • 1973 • 1972 1930 • 1929 • 1913 • 1911 1910
AL Pennants (15)	1990 • 1989 • 1988 • 1974 1973 • 1972 • 1931 • 1930 1929 • 1914 • 1913 • 1911 1910 • 1905 • 1902
West Division titles (14)	2006 • 2003 • 2002 • 2000  1992 • 1990 • 1989 • 1988  1981 • 1975 • 1974 • 1973  1972 • 1971
Wild card berths (1)	2001
- In 1994, a players' strike wiped out the last eight weeks of the season and all post-season. Oakland was one game out of first place in the West Division (despite being 12 games under .500) behind Texas when play was stopped. No official titles were awarded in 1994.
Front office
Principal owner(s)	Lewis Wolffy
General manager	Billy Beane
Manager	Bob Geren

The Oakland Athletics are a professional baseball team based in Oakland, California. The Athletics are a member of the Western Division of Major League Baseball's American League. From 1968 to the present, the Athletics have played in McAfee Coliseum.

The "Athletics" name originates from the late 1800s "athletic clubs", specifically the Athletic of Philadelphia. They are most prominently nicknamed "the A's", in reference to the blackletter "A", a trademark of the team and the old Athletic of Philadelphia. This has gained very prominent use, and in some circles is used more frequently than the full "Athletics" name. They are also known as "the White Elephants" or simply "the Elephants", in reference to then New York Giants' manager John McGraw's calling the team a "white elephant". This was embraced by the team, who then made a white elephant the team's mascot, and often incorporated it into the logo or sleeve patches.

One of the American League's eight charter franchises, the club was founded in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1901. Then the Philadelphia Athletics, the team moved to Kansas City in 1955 and became the Kansas City Athletics. It was not until 1968 that the team moved to Oakland.

Origins

Origin of the team name

The Athletics' name originated in the term "Athletic Club" for local gentlemen's clubs—dates to 1860 when an amateur team, the Athletic (Club) of Philadelphia, was formed. (A famous image from that era, at left, published in Harper's Weekly in 1866, shows the Athletic players dressed in uniforms displaying the familiar blackletter "A" on the front). The team later turned professional through 1875, becoming a charter member of the National League in 1876, but were expelled from the N.L. after one season. A later version of the Athletics played in the American Association from 1882–1891.

The team name is typically pronounced "Ath-LET-ics", but their longtime team owner/manager Connie Mack called them by the old-fashioned colloquial Irish pronunciation "Ath-uh-LET-ics". Newspaper writers also often referred to the team as the Mackmen during their Philadelphia days, in honor of their patriarch.

Uniform Emblem

Over the seasons, the Athletics' uniforms have usually paid homage to their amateur forebears to some extent. Until 1954, when the uniforms had "Athletics" spelled out in script across the front, the team's name never appeared on either home or road uniforms. Furthermore, not once did "Philadelphia" appear on the uniform, nor did the letter "P" appear on the cap or the uniform. The typical Philadelphia uniform had only an "A" on the left front, and likewise the cap usually had the same "A" on it. In the early days of the American League, the standings listed the club as "Athletic" rather than "Philadelphia", in keeping with the old tradition. Eventually, the city name came to be used for the team, as with the other major league clubs.

Though for a time as a Kansas City team, the "A"s wore "Kansas City" on their road jerseys and an interlocking "KC" on the cap, upon moving to Oakland the "A" cap emblem was restored, although in 1970 an "apostrophe-s" was added to the cap and uniform emblem to reflect the fact that then-team owner Charles O. Finley was in the process of officially changing the team's name to the "A's".

Currently, the team wears home uniforms with "Athletics" spelled out in script writing and road uniforms with "Oakland" spelled out in script writing, with the cap logo consisting of the traditional "A" with "apostrophe-s". The home cap is green with a gold bill and white lettering, while the road cap is all green with gold lettering.

The nickname "A's" has long been used interchangeably with "Athletics", dating to the team's early days when headline writers wanted a way to shorten the name. From 1972 through 1980, the team nickname was officially "Oakland A's," although, during that time, the Commissioner's Trophy, given out annually to the winner of baseball's world series, still listed the team's name as the "Oakland Athletics" on the gold-plated pennant representing the Oakland franchise. According to Bill Libby's Book, Charlie O and the Angry A's, owner Charlie O. Finley banned the word "Athletics" from the club's name because he felt that name was too closely associated with former Philadelphia Athletics owner Connie Mack, and he wanted the name "Oakland A's" to become just as closely associated with himself. The name also vaguely suggested the name of the old minor league Oakland Oaks, which were alternatively called the "Acorns". New owner Walter Haas restored the official name to "Athletics" in 1981, but retained the nickname "A's" for marketing purposes. At first, the word "Athletics" was restored only to the club's logo, underneath the much larger stylized-"A" that had come to represent the team since the early days. By 1987, however, the word returned, in script lettering, to the front of the team's jerseys.

The A's are the only MLB team to wear white cleats, both at home and on the road, another tradition dating back to the Finley ownership.

Elephant Mascot

After New York Giants' manager John McGraw told reporters that Philadelphia manufacturer Benjamin Shibe, who owned the controlling interest in the new team, had a "white elephant on his hands," Mack defiantly adopted the white elephant as the team mascot, and presented McGraw with a stuffed toy elephant at the start of the 1905 World Series. McGraw and Mack had known each other for years, and McGraw accepted it graciously. By 1909, the A's were wearing an elephant logo on their sweaters, and in 1918 it turned up on the regular uniform jersey for the first time. Over the years the elephant has appeared in several different colors. It is currently forest green. The A’s are still sometimes, though infrequently, referred to as the "Elephants" or "White Elephants".

The elephant was retired as team mascot in 1963 by then-owner Charles O. Finley in favor of a Missouri mule. In 1988, the elephant was restored as the symbol of the Athletics and currently adorns the left sleeve of home and road uniforms. The Elephant Mascot returned briefly in the mid eighties, under the name, Harry Elephante. In 1997, the elephant returned taking its current form, Stomper.

Franchise history

Philadelphia (1901–1954)

The beginning

The franchise that would become the modern Athletics originated in 1901 as a new franchise in the American League. The Western League had been renamed the American League in 1900 by league president Bancroft (Ban) Johnson, and declared itself the second major league in 1901.

In 1901, Johnson created new franchises in the east and eliminated some franchises in the West. (Seeks to snare Duffy of Boston, Chicago Daily Tribune, January 29, 1901, pg. 9.) Philadelphia seems to have been a new franchise created to compete with the National League’s Philadelphia Phillies. Former catcher Connie Mack was recruited to manage the club. Mack in turn persuaded Phillies minority owner Ben Shibe as well as others to invest in the team, which would be called the Philadelphia Athletics. He himself bought a 25 percent interest. The other 1901 American League teams included the newly-created Baltimore Orioles (now the New York Yankees) and Boston Americans (now Red Sox), as well as a Kansas City franchise relocated to Washington as the Senators (now the Minnesota Twins and previous members the Chicago White Stockings (now White Sox), Cleveland Blues (now Indians), Detroit Tigers, and Milwaukee Brewers (later the St. Louis Browns and now the Baltimore Orioles).

The new league recruited many of its players from the existing National League, persuading them to “jump” to the A.L. in defiance of their N.L. contracts. One of them was second baseman Nap Lajoie, formerly of the crosstown Phllies. He won the A.L.'s first batting title with a .426 batting average, still an A.L. record. The Athletics as well as the 7 other A.L. teams received a jolt when, on April 21, 1902, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court invalidated Lajoie's contract with the Athletics, and ordered him back to the Phillies. This order, though, was only enforceable in the state of Pennsylvania. Lajoie was sold to Cleveland, but was kept out of road games in Philadelphia until the National Agreement was signed between the two leagues in 1903.

The First Dynasty and aftermath

In the early years, the A’s quickly established themselves as one of the dominant teams in the new league, winning the A.L. pennant six times (1902, 1905, 1910, 1911, 1913 and 1914), winning the World Series in 1910, 1911 and 1913. They won over 100 games in 1911 and 1912, and 99 games in 1914. The team was known for its "$100,000 Infield", consisting of John "Stuffy" McInnis (first base), Eddie Collins (second base), Jack Barry (shortstop), and Frank "Home Run" Baker (third base) and as well as pitchers Eddie Plank and Charles "Chief" Bender. Rube Waddell was also a major pitching star for the A's in the early 1900s before flaming out. According to Lamont Buchanan in The World Series and Highlights of Baseball, the A's fans were fond of chanting, "If Eddie Plank doesn't make you lose / We have Waddell and Bender all ready to use!" Plank holds the club record for career victories, with 284.

In 1909, the A's moved into the majors' first concrete-and-steel ballpark, Shibe Park. This remains the last time in franchise history where a new ballpark was built specifically for the A's. Later in the decade, Mack bought another 25 percent of the team's stock to become a full partner with Shibe. Shibe ceded Mack full control over the baseball side while retaining control over the business side.

Business took a downturn in 1914. The heavily favored Athletics lost the 1914 World Series to the "Miracle" Boston Braves in a four-game sweep. Miracles often have two sides, and for a few years this "miracle" wrought disaster on the A's. Mack traded, sold or released most of the team's star players soon after, and the team fell into a lengthy slump. In his book To Every Thing a Season, Bruce Kuklick points out that there were suspicions that the A's had thrown the Series, or at least "laid down", perhaps in protest of Mack's frugal ways. Mack himself alluded to that rumor years later, but also debunked it, asserting that factions within the team along with the allure of a third major league, the Federal League had distracted the team. The facts at least in part support Mack's statement.

The Federal League had been formed to begin play in 1914. As the A.L. had done 13 years before, the new league raided existing A.L. and N.L. teams for players. Several of his best players, including Bender, had already decided to jump before the World Series. Mack refused to match the offers of the F.L. teams, preferring to let the "prima donnas" go and rebuild with younger (and less expensive) players. The result was a swift and near-total collapse, a "first-to-worst" situation. The Athletics went from a 99–53 (.651) record and a pennant in 1914 to a record of 43–109 (.283) and 8th (last) place in 1915, and then to 36–117 (.235, still a modern major-league low) in 1916. The team would finish in last place every year after that until 1922 and would not contend again until 1925. Shibe died in 1922, and his sons took over the business side, leaving the baseball side to Mack. By this time Mack had cemented his famous image of the tall, gaunt and well-dressed man (he never wore a uniform during his managerial career, preferring a business suit, tie and fedora; a not-uncommon practice for managers in his day) waving his players into position with a scorecard (since no one is allowed on the baseball field, during a game, without a proper uniform).

The Second Dynasty (1927–1933)

After that, Mack began to build another winner. In 1927 and 1928, the Athletics finished second to the New York Yankees, then won pennants in 1929, 1930 and 1931, winning the World Series in 1929 and 1930. In each of the three years, the A's won over 100 games.

As it turned out, this would be the Athletics' last hurrah in Philadelphia. Mack again sold or traded his best players in order to reduce expenses. The Great Depression was well under way, and declining attendance had drastically reduced the team’s revenues. The construction of a spite fence at Shibe Park, blocking the view from nearby buildings, only served to irritate potential paying fans. However, the consequences did not become apparent for a few more years, as the team finished second in 1932 and third in 1933.

The Meager Years

The Athletics finished fifth in 1934, then last in 1935. Mack was already 68 years old when the A’s last won the pennant in 1931, and many felt the game was passing him by. Although he had every intention of building another winner, he did not have the extra money to get big stars. Unlike most other owners, Mack had no other source of income aside from his baseball team, so the dwindling attendance figures of the early 1930s hit him especially hard. He was also unwilling (or unable) to invest in a farm system.

As a result, the A's went into a funk that lasted for over 30 years, through three cities. Save for a fifth-place finish in 1944, they finished in last or next-to-last place every year from 1935 to 1946. In 1936, Shibe's last son died, and Mack became the Athletics' sole owner. Even as bad as the club got during this time (some believe that many of his teams were major-league in name only), he had no intention of firing himself. Long after most other teams had hired a general manager, he remained essentially a one-man band, making all baseball decisions as well as leading the team on the field. To the surprise of most people in baseball, Mack managed not only to get out of the cellar in 1947, but actually finished with a winning record for the first time in 14 years. They contended for much of 1948 and 1949, only to collapse back to last place again in 1950.

The 1950 season would be the 88-year-old Mack’s 50th and last as A’s manager, a North American professional sports record that has never been threatened. He was reportedly pushed out by his sons from his first marriage, Roy and Earle. During that year the team wore uniforms trimmed in blue and gold, in honor of the Golden Jubilee of "The Grand Old Man of Baseball."

Final years in Philadelphia

In the late 1940s, Mack split day-to-day control over the team between Roy, Earle and his son from his second marriage, Connie Mack, Jr. After pushing their father out as manager, Roy and Earle assumed control of the team though their father remained nominal owner and team president. In order to do this, the Mack brothers mortgaged the team to Connecticut General Life Insurance Company (now part of CIGNA). However, the team continued to slide (the A's finished with a winning record only once from 1951 to 1954), attendance plummeted, and revenues continued to dwindle. It soon became obvious that the team's cash flow was insufficient to service the new debt, and Roy and Earle Mack began feuding with each other. Meanwhile, the Phillies, who had played second-fiddle to the A's for most of the last half-century (in fact, they had been the A's tenants in Shibe Park since 1938), made it to the World Series in 1950 and quickly passed the A's as Philadelphia's number-one team.

In spite of the turmoil, some Athletics players shone on the field. In 1951 Gus Zernial led the American League with 33 home runs, 129 RBI, 68 extra-base hits, and 17 outfield assists; in 1952 he swatted 29 homers and bagged 100 RBI, and hit 42 homers and drove in 108 runs in 1953. Also, in 1952, left-handed pitcher Bobby Shantz won 24 games and was named the league's Most Valuable Player, and Ferris Fain won AL batting championships in 1951 (with a .344 average) and 1952 (with a .320 average). His 1952 batting crown remains the last time an Athletic has led the league in hitting.

Though last-minute offers were put on the table to buy the Athletics to keep them in Philadelphia, including one made by a group led by Chicago insurance tycoon Charles O. Finley, the American League owners were determined to "solve the Philadelphia problem" by moving the team elsewhere. On October 12, 1954, the owners approved the sale of the Athletics to another Chicago businessman, Arnold Johnson, who moved the team to Kansas City for the 1955 season.

Kansas City (1955–1967)

The Johnson era

From the start, it was clear that Johnson was motivated solely by profit, not because of any regard for the baseball fans of Kansas City. He had long been a business associate of Yankee owners Dan Topping, Larry MacPhail and Del Webb. He had bought Yankee Stadium in 1953, though the league owners forced Johnson to sell the property before acquiring the Athletics. He'd also bought Blues Stadium in Kansas City, home of the Yankees' top farm team, the Kansas City Blues of the American Association. After Johnson got permission to move the A's to Kansas City, he sold Blues Stadium to the city, who 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 also contained an escape clause if the team failed to draw 850,000 per season. Johnson was still head of the company that managed Yankee Stadium; Webb's construction company rebuilt Municipal Stadium to meet major-league specifications; and Johnson held a mortgage of the Yankees'. (See The Baseball Hall of Shame for details.)

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. Whatever Johnson's motives were, the issue soon became moot. The Brooklyn Dodgers moved to Los Angeles after the 1957 season, thereby precluding any move there by the Athletics (although the Los Angeles Angels would begin play in the AL in 1961). Moreover, on March 10, 1960, Arnold Johnson died at the age of 53.

Whatever the concern about the move to Kansas City, fans turned out in record numbers for the era. In 1955, the new Kansas City Athletics drew 1,393,054 to Municipal Stadium, a club record easily surpassing the previous record of 945,076 in 1948 (To put this figure in perspective, in 1955 only the New York Yankees and Milwaukee Braves had higher home attendance than did the A's). What no one realized at the time was 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.

“Special relationship” with the Yankees

During the Johnson ownership, general manager Parke Carroll invariably traded any good young Athletics players to the Yankees for aging veterans and cash. The cash was used to pay the bills, with the veterans perhaps having star appeal that could improve attendance.

Though Johnson promised the fans that the trades would soon bring a world championship to Kansas City, it did not work that way. The A's won 63 games in 1955, only the fifth time in the last 20 years they managed to win more than 60 games. However, they never contended past June in the six years of Johnson's ownership, and finished either last or next-to-last each season. Attendance declined, with fans and even other clubs charging that the A’s were little more than a Yankee farm team at the major league level, citing Johnson's pre-existing cozy relationship with Topping and Webb. This obvious conflict of interest was merely winked at by the rulers of the game at that time. It is perhaps not a coincidence that the Yankees went into decline as soon as the A's stopped sending them talent. Johnson once gushed to The Sporting News, "I'd pay a million dollars for Mickey Mantle!" Assuming he had a million to give, that was a safe offer, as there was no chance the Yanks were going to trade their superstar to Kansas City.

The trade no one ever forgot was the one made after the 1959 season, when the A’s sent young right fielder Roger Maris to New York for his aging counterpart, Hank Bauer, in a seven-player deal. However, there were others. The Yankees brought up a promising young pitcher, Ralph Terry, in 1956, but were reluctant to use him in critical situations. So, in June 1957, they traded him to the A's in an eight-player deal. After getting nearly two years of experience facing A.L. batters, Terry apparently was ready to return. In May 1959, the Yankees sent Jerry Lumpe and two washed-up pitchers to the Athletics for Terry. Once "home," Terry became a 20-game winner for New York.

A detailed account of this period is The Kansas City A's and The Wrong Half of the Yankees, by Jeff Katz, published by Maple Street Press.

Finley era

On December 19, 1960, Charles "Charlie O." Finley purchased a controlling interest in the team from Johnson's estate after losing out to Johnson six years earlier. 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. 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.

Finley immediately hired Frank Lane, a veteran baseball man with a reputation as a prolific trader, as general manager. Lane began engineering trades with several other teams, including the Yankees, the bus-burning stunt notwithstanding. Lane lasted less than one year, being fired during the 1961 season. He was temporarily replaced by Pat Friday, whose sole qualification for the job was that he managed one of Finley's insurance offices. On paper, Friday remained general manager until Carl A. Finley Jr. took over as general manager in 1963, when he was replaced by Hank Peters. After only a year, Peters was fired, and the team had no formal general manager until 1981. In fact, Friday and Peters were mere figureheads. With the firing of Lane in 1961, Finley effectively became a one-man band as owner, president and de facto general manager, and would remain so for the duration of his ownership.

Finley made further changes to the team’s uniforms. The Philadelphia Athletics wore blue and white or black and gray outfits through most of their history;; in the last years in Philadelphia and the first in Kansas City, the team used a red, white and navy blue scheme. In 1963, Finley changed the team’s colors to “Kelly Green, Fort Knox Gold and Wedding Gown White” (which, although the kelly green was replaced by a darker, forest green shade in 1981, essentially remain the team colors today) and replaced Mack's elephant with a Missouri mule—not just a cartoon logo, but a real mule, which he named after himself: “Charlie O, the Mule.” He also began phasing out the team name "Athletics" in favor of simply, "A's." Some of his other changes—for instance, his repeated attempts to mimic Yankee Stadium's famous right-field "home run porch"—were less successful. AL President Joe Cronin ordered Finley to remove the fence which duplicated the 296-foot right-field foul line in Yankee Stadium. Smarting from this draconian ukase, Finley had his announcer comment "That would have been a home run in Yankee Stadium" whenever a fly ball passed the limit in Municipal Stadium's outfield.

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 resources into the minor league system for the first time in the history of the franchise. Mack never spent money on developing a farm system, which was a major reason his teams fell from contenders to cellar-dwellers so quickly. When Johnson bought the team in 1955, the A's had only three full-time scouts. While Johnson tried to make improvements, he wasn't willing to pay the bonuses necessary to get top talent. However, Finley steadily built up the team's farm system until by 1966, it was one of the best in the majors. He was assisted by the creation of the 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.

Finley looks for a way out

Almost from the minute the ink dried on his purchase of the Athletics, Finley began shopping the Athletics to other cities despite his promises that the A’s would remain in Kansas City. Soon after the lease-burning stunt, it was discovered that what actually burned was a blank boilerplate commercial lease available at any stationery store. The actual lease was still in force—including the escape clause. Finley later admitted he had no intention of rewriting the lease, that the whole thing was a publicity stunt.

On September 18, 1962, after less than two full years of ownership, Finley asked the A.L. owners for permission to move the Athletics to the Dallas-Fort Worth area. His request was denied by a 9–1 vote. In January 1964, he signed an agreement to move the A’s to Louisville, promising to change the team's name to the "Kentucky Athletics". (Other names suggested for the team were the "Louisville Sluggers" and "Kentucky Colonels," which would've allowed the team to keep the letters "KC" on their uniforms.) By another 9–1 vote his request was denied. Six weeks later, by the same 9–1 margin, the A.L. owners denied Finley's request to move the team to Oakland.

These requests came as no surprise, as impending moves to these cities, as well as to Atlanta, Milwaukee, New Orleans, San Diego and Seattle— all of which Finley had considered as new homes for the Athletics — had long been afloat. He also threatened to move the A's to a "cow pasture" in Peculiar, Missouri, complete with temporary grandstands. Not surprisingly, attendance tailed off. Finally, American League President Joe Cronin persuaded Finley to sign a four-year lease with Municipal Stadium.

Then on October 18, 1967, A.L. owners at last gave Finley permission to move the Athletics to Oakland for the 1968 season. According to some reports, Cronin promised Finley that he could move the team after the 1967 season as an incentive to sign the new lease with Municipal Stadium. The move came in spite of approval by voters in Jackson County, Missouri of a bond issue for a brand new baseball stadium (the eventual Kauffman Stadium) to be completed in 1973. Then-U.S. Senator Stuart Symington of Missouri blasted Finley on the floor of the Senate, calling him "one of the most disreputable characters ever to enter the American sports scene,” and said Oakland was “the luckiest city since Hiroshima.” When Symington threatened to have baseball's antitrust exemption revoked, the owners responded with a hasty round of expansion. Kansas City was awarded an American League expansion team, the Royals. They were initially slated to begin play in 1971. However, Symington was not willing to have Kansas City wait three years for another team, and renewed his threat to have baseball's antitrust exemption revoked unless the teams began play in 1969. The owners complied.

During the Johnson years, the Athletics' home attendance averaged just under one million per season, respectable numbers for the era, especially in light of the team's dreadful on-field performance. In contrast, during the years of Finley's ownership, the team averaged under 680,000 per year in Kansas City. According to baseball writer Rob Neyer (a native of the Kansas City area), this was largely because Finley tried to sell baseball tickets like he sold insurance. Just before the 1960 season, he mailed brochures to 600,000 people in the area, and only made $20,000 in ticket sales. During their 13-year stay in Kansas City, the Athletics were arguably one of the worst teams in baseball history, finishing last or next-to-last place in 10 of those years. Their overall record was 829–1,224, for a winning percentage of .404.

Oakland (1968–present)

The Third Dynasty (1971–1975)

The Athletics arrived in Oakland just as the team was beginning to gel. They moved into the one-year-old Oakland-Alameda Coliseum (now McAfee Coliseum). On May 8, 1968 in a game against the Minnesota Twins, Jim "Catfish" Hunter pitched the first perfect game in the American League since 1922, while burgeoning superstar Reggie Jackson clubbed 29 home runs. Managed by Bob Kennedy, the A's finished the 1968 season with an 82–80 record – their first winning season since 1952. With expansion to 12 teams in 1969, the American League was divided into two 6-team divisions. During that year, the Athletics finished second in the A.L. West Division behind the Twins, the first time they had finished in the first division since 1952. Finley officially changed the team name from the Athletics to the "A's" in 1970, the first year that an "apostrophe-s" appeared after the traditional "A" logo.

Everything finally came together for the A's as the 1970s dawned. After another second-place finish in 1970, the A’s won the A.L. West title in 1971 for their first postseason appearance of any kind since 1931. However, they lost to the Baltimore Orioles in the American League Championship Series. In 1972, the A's won their first league pennant since 1931 and faced the Cincinnati Reds in the World Series.

That year, the A's began wearing solid green or solid gold jerseys, with contrasting white pants, at a time when most other teams wore all-white uniforms at home and all-grey ones on the road. Similar to more colorful amateur softball uniforms, they were considered a radical departure for their time. Furthermore, in conjunction with a Moustache Day promotion, Finley offered $500 to any player who grew a moustache by Father's Day, at a time when every other team forbade facial hair. When Father's Day arrived, every member of the team collected a bonus. The 1972 World Series against the Cincinnati Reds was termed “The Hairs vs. the Big Squares,” as the Reds wore more traditional uniforms and required their players to be clean-shaven and short-haired. A contemporaneous book about the team was called Moustache Gang. The A's seven-game victory over the heavily favored Reds gave the team its first World Series Championship since 1930.

They defended their title in 1973 and 1974. Unlike Mack's champions, who thoroughly dominated their opposition, the A’s teams of the 1970s played well enough to win their division (which was usually known as the "American League Least" during this time). They then defeated teams that had won more games during the regular season with good pitching, good defense, and clutch hitting. Finley called this team the “Swingin’ A’s.” Players such as Reggie Jackson, Sal Bando, Joe Rudi, Bert Campaneris, Catfish Hunter, Rollie Fingers, and Vida Blue formed the nucleus of these teams.

The players often said in later years that they played so well as a team due to their universal dislike for Finley. For instance, Finley threatened to pack Jackson off to the minors in 1969 after Jackson hit 47 homers; Commissioner Bowie Kuhn had to intervene in their contract dispute. Kuhn intervened again after Blue won the A.L. Cy Young Award in 1971 and Finley threatened to send him to the minors. Finley's tendency for micromanaging his team actually dated to the team's stay in Kansas City. Among the more notable incidents during this time was a near-mutiny in 1967; Finley responded by releasing the A's best hitter, Ken Harrelson, who promptly signed with the Red Sox and helped lead them to the pennant.

The Athletics' victory over the New York Mets in the 1973 Series was marred by Finley's antics. Finley forced Mike Andrews to sign a false affidavit saying he was injured after the reserve second baseman committed two consecutive errors in the 12th inning of the A's Game Two loss to the Mets. When other team members, manager Dick Williams, and virtually the entire viewing public rallied to Andrews' defense, Kuhn forced Finley to back down. However, there was nothing that said the A's had to play Andrews. Andrews entered Game 4 in the eighth inning as a pinch-hitter to a standing ovation from sympathetic Mets fans. He promptly grounded out, and Finley ordered him benched for the remainder of the Series. Andrews never played another major league game. As it was, the incident allowed the Mets, a team that went but 82–79 during the regular season, to go seven games before losing to a superior team. Williams was so disgusted by the affair that he resigned after the Series. Finley retaliated by vetoing Williams' attempt to become manager of the Yankees. Finley claimed that since Williams still owed Oakland the last year of his contract, he could not manage anywhere else. Finley relented later in 1974 and allowed Williams to take over as manager of the California Angels.

After the Athletics' victory over the Los Angeles Dodgers in the 1974 Series (under Alvin Dark), pitcher Catfish Hunter filed a grievance, claiming that the team had violated its contract with Hunter by failing to make timely payment on an insurance policy during the 1974 season as called for. On December 13, 1974, arbitrator Peter Seitz ruled in Hunter’s favor. As a result, Hunter became a free agent, and signed a contract with the Yankees for the 1975 season. Despite the loss of Hunter, the A’s repeated as A.L. West champions in 1975, but lost the ALCS to Boston in a 3-game sweep.

Free agency, the dismantling of the A’s, and the end of the Finley years

1975

In 1975, fed up with poor attendance in Oakland during the team's championship years, Finley thought of moving yet again. When Seattle filed a lawsuit against Major League Baseball over the move of the Seattle Pilots to Milwaukee, Finley and others came up with an elaborate shuffle which would move the ailing Chicago White Sox to Seattle. Finley then would move the A's to Chicago, closer to his home in LaPorte, Indiana; and take the White Sox' place at Comiskey Park. The scheme fell through when Arthur Allyn sold the White Sox to another colorful owner, Bill Veeck, who was not interested in leaving Chicago.

1976

As the 1976 season got underway, the basic rules of player contracts were changing. Seitz had ruled that baseball’s reserve clause only bound players for one season after their contract expired. Thus, all players not signed to multi-year contracts would be eligible for free agency at the end of the 1976 season. The balance of power had shifted from the owners to the players for the first time since the days of the Federal League. Like Mack had done twice before, Finley reacted by trading star players and attempting to sell others. On June 15, 1976, Finley sold left fielder Rudi and relief pitcher Fingers to Boston for $1 million each, and pitcher Blue to the New York Yankees for $1.5 million. Three days later, Kuhn voided the transactions in the “best interests of baseball.” Amid the turmoil, the A's still finished second in the A.L. West, 2.5 games behind the Royals.

1977

After the 1976 season, most of the Athletics’ veteran players did become eligible for free agency, and predictably almost all left. Three thousand miles and several decades later, one of baseball’s most storied franchises suffered yet another dismemberment of a dynasty team. As happened with the end of the A's first dynasty in the early 1900s, the collapse was swift and total. The next three years were as bad as the worst days in Philadelphia or Kansas City, with the A's finishing last twice and next-to-last once. In 1977, for instance—only three years after winning the World Series—the A's finished with the worst record in the American League West, behind even the expansion Seattle Mariners (though by only 1/2 game, as one game with the Minnesota Twins was canceled by weather and never made up).

At the end of the 1977 season, Finley attempted to trade Blue to the Reds for a player of lesser stature and cash, but Kuhn vetoed the deal, claiming that it was tantamount to a fire sale of the star pitcher similar to the sales he voided during 1976. He also claimed that adding Blue to the Reds' already formidable pitching staff would make a mockery of the National League West race. Later, the Commissioner approved a trade of relief pitcher Doug Bair to the Reds in a deal that resembled a true trade. At the same time, Blue was traded across the bay to the San Francisco Giants in a multi-player trade that likewise received the Commissioner's blessing.

1978-1980

The A's had never drawn well since moving to Oakland (even during the World Series years), and during the next three years attendance dropped so low that the Coliseum became known as the "Oakland Mausoleum," and its upkeep went downhill. At one point during their championship years, the A's broadcast their games on KALX, a 10-watt college radio station run by the University of California, Berkeley (Finley himself remarked that the only other alternative at the time was to get on a soapbox and do it himself). Some fans nicknamed them the "Triple-A's." Finley nearly sold the team to buyers who would have moved them to Denver for the 1978 season and New Orleans for 1979. Though the American League owners appeared to favor the Denver deal, it fell through when the city of Oakland refused to release the A's from their lease. The city was in the midst of its battle with the Oakland Raiders over their move to Los Angeles and didn't want to lose both teams. Not surprisingly, only 306,763 paying customers showed up to watch the A's in 1979, the team's worst attendance since leaving Philadelphia.

After three dismal seasons on the field and at the gate, the team started to gel again. In a masterstroke, Finley hired Billy Martin to manage the young team, led by new young stars Rickey Henderson, Mike Norris, Tony Armas, and Dwayne Murphy . Martin made believers of his young charges, “Billyball” was used to market the team, and the Athletics finished second in 1980.

However, during that same season Finley's wife sought a divorce and would not accept part of a baseball team in a property settlement. With most of his money tied up in the A's or his insurance empire, Finley had to sell the team. Though Finley found a buyer in businessman Marvin Davis, who would have moved the Athletics to Denver, the tentative deal hit a snag when the Raiders announced their move to Los Angeles. Oakland and Alameda County officials, not wanting to be held responsible for losing Oakland's status as a big-league city in its own right, refused to let Finley break the lease with the Coliseum. Finley then looked to local buyers, selling the A's to San Francisco clothing manufacturer Walter A. Haas, Jr., president of Levi Strauss & Co. prior to the 1981 season. It would not be the first time that the Raiders directly affected the A's future.

Local ownership for the Athletics: the Haas era (1981–1995)

Despite winning three World Series and two other A.L. West Division titles, the A's on-field success did not translate into success at the box office during the Finley Era in Oakland. Average home attendance from 1968–1980 was 777,000 per season, with 1,075,518 in 1975 being the highest attendance for a Finley-owned team. In marked contrast, during the first year of Haas' ownership, the Athletics drew 1,304,052—in a season shortened by a player strike. Were it not for the strike, the A's were on a pace to draw over 2.2 million in 1981. The A's lost in the American League Championship Series after winning the "first half" AL West Division title of the strike-interrupted 1981 season. They finished with the second-best overall record in baseball, and the best record in the American League.

During the 15 years of Haas' ownership, the Athletics became one of baseball’s most successful teams at the gate, drawing 2,900,217 in 1990, still the club record for single season attendance, as well as on the field. Average annual home attendance during those years (excluding the strike years of 1981 and 1994) was over 1.9 million.

Haas set about changing the team's image. He ditched Charlie O. as the team mascot, and pictures of Connie Mack and other greats from the Philadelphia days appeared in the team office. The traditional team name "Athletics" was restored immediately, with the new ownership group formally known as "The Oakland Athletics Baseball Company." While the team colors remained green, gold, and white, the garish Kelly green was replaced with a more subdued forest green. After a 23-year hiatus, the elephant was restored as the club mascot in 1988. The script "Athletics," which had adorned home and road jerseys from 1954-1960, was returned to home jerseys in 1987.

Under the Haas ownership, the minor league system was rebuilt, which bore fruition later that decade as José Canseco (1986), Mark McGwire (1987), and Walt Weiss (1988) were chosen as A.L. Rookies of the Year. During the 1986 season, Tony La Russa was hired as the Athletics’ manager, a post he held until the end of 1995. In 1987, La Russa’s first full year as manager, the team finished at 81–81, its best record in 7 seasons. Beginning in 1988, the Athletics won the A.L. pennant three years in a row. Reminiscent of their Philadelphia predecessors, this A’s team finished with the best record of any team in the major leagues during all 3 years, winning 104 (1988), 99 (1989), and 103 (1990) games, featuring such stars as McGwire, Canseco, Weiss, Rickey Henderson, Carney Lansford, Dave Stewart, and Dennis Eckersley.

Regular season dominance led to some success in the post-season. Their lone World Series championship of the era was a four-game sweep of the cross-bay rival San Francisco Giants in the 1989 World Series. Unfortunately for the A's, their sweep of the Giants was overshadowed by the Loma Prieta earthquake that occurred at the start of Game 3 before a national television audience. This forced the remaining games to be delayed for several days. When play resumed, the atmosphere was dominated more by a sense of relief than celebration by baseball fans. Heavily favored Athletics teams lost the World Series in both 1988, to the Los Angeles Dodgers, and in 1990, to the Cincinnati Reds. The latter was a shocking four-game sweep reminiscent of the A’s loss to the Boston Braves 76 years earlier. The team began declining, winning the A.L. West championship in 1992 (but losing to Toronto in the ALCS), then finishing last in 1993.

The "Moneyball" years (1996–2004)

Walter Haas died in 1995, and the team was sold to San Francisco Bay Area real estate developers Steve Schott (third cousin to one-time Cincinnati Reds’ owner Marge Schott),silent partner David Etherege and Ken Hofmann, prior to the 1996 season. Once again, the Athletics’ star players were traded or sold, as the new owners’ goal was to cut payroll drastically. Many landed with the St. Louis Cardinals, including McGwire, Eckersley, and manager La Russa. In a turn of events eerily reminiscent of the A’s Roger Maris trade 38 years before, Mark McGwire celebrated his first full season with the Cardinals by setting a new major league home run record. In fact, McGwire came close to the record in 1997, when he split 58 homers between the A's and the Cards.

The Schott-Hofmann ownership allocated resources to building and maintaining a strong minor league system while almost always refusing to pay the going rate to keep star players on the team once they become free agents. Perhaps as a result, the A’s at the turn of the 21st century were a team that usually finished at or near the top of the A.L. West Division, but could not advance beyond the first round of playoffs. The Athletics made the post season playoffs for four straight years, 2000–2003, but lost their first round (best 3-out-of-5) series in each case, 3 games to 2. In two of those years (2001 against New York and 2003 against Boston), the Athletics won the first two games of the series, only to lose the next three straight and hence the playoffs. In 2004, the A's missed the playoffs altogether, losing the final series of the season—and the divisional title to the Anaheim Angels.

One of the most exciting periods in Oakland history can be characterized simply as “The Big Three.” Consisting of young talented pitchers Tim Hudson(R), Mark Mulder(L), and Barry Zito(L). Between the years of 1999 and 2006, these young cannon arms helped the Athletics to emerge into a perennial powerhouse in the American League West. They gave the Athletics a 1-2-3 punch to add to a potent lineup and instill fear into the hearts of opposing batters and managers. The Big three combined to have a collective record of 261 – 131 with the Athletics. However, with such promising young talent comes a hefty price tag, and as a small market organization, the Athletics could not afford to keep this trio. General Manager Billy Beane would use the three as trade bait and rebuilding blocks for the future of the franchise, just one in a series of rebuilding efforts. The young Athletics also featured talented infielders, Eric Chavez, Jason Giambi, and Miguel Tejada. After becoming free agents, Giambi left for the New York Yankees after the 2001 season, while Tejada departed for the Baltimore Orioles after the 2003 season.

The general manager of the Athletics, Billy Beane, has become notable in recent years for Michael Lewis's publicization of Beane's novel approach to business decisions and scouting referred to as Moneyball, both the title of the book, and hence the school of thought to management. The Athletics organization began redefining the way that major league baseball teams evaluate player talent. They began filling their system with players who did not possess traditionally valued baseball "tools" of throwing, fielding, hitting, hitting for power and running. Instead, they drafted for unconventional statistical prowess: on-base percentage for hitters (rather than batting average) and strikeout/walk ratios for pitchers (rather than velocity). These undervalued stats came cheaply. With the sixth-lowest payroll in baseball in 2002, the Oakland Athletics won an American League best 103 games. They spent $41M that season, while the Yankees, who also won 103 games, spent $126M. The Athletics have continually succeeded at winning, and defying market economics, keeping their payroll near the bottom of the league. For example, after the 2004 season, in which the A's placed second in their division, Beane shocked many by breaking up the Big Three, trading Tim Hudson to the Atlanta Braves and Mark Mulder to the St. Louis Cardinals. To many, the trades appeared bizarre, in that the two pitchers were seen to be at or near the top of their game; however, the decision was perfectly in line with Beane's business model as outlined in Moneyball. The Mulder trade, to many experts' surprise, turned into a steal for the Athletics, as little-known starter Dan Haren ended up pitching far better for Oakland than Mulder has in St. Louis.

The Wolff era (2005-present)

2005

On March 30, 2005, the Athletics were sold to a group headed by real estate developer Lewis Wolff. Wolff, though a Los Angeles businessman, he had successfully developed many real estate projects in and around San Jose. The previous ownership had retained Wolff to help them find an adequate parcel on which to construct a new stadium. Because of Wolff's background, rumors that he wanted to move the team to San Jose surfaced periodically upon his purchase of the team. However, any such plans were always complicated by the claims of the cross-bay San Francisco Giants that they own the territorial rights to San Jose and Santa Clara County. (See Stadium Issue, below.)

In 2005, many pundits picked the Athletics to finish last as a result of Beane's dismantling of the Big Three. At first, the experts appeared vindicated, as the A's were mired in last place on May 31 with a 19–32 (.373) won-loss record. After that the team began to gel, playing at a .622 clip for the remainder of the season, eventually finishing 88–74 (.543), seven games behind the newly-renamed Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim and for many weeks seriously contending for the AL West crown.

Pitcher Huston Street was voted the A.L. Rookie of the Year in 2005, the second year in a row an Athletic won that award, shortstop Bobby Crosby having won in 2004. For the fifth straight season, third baseman Eric Chavez won the A.L. Gold Glove Award at that position.

2006

The 2006 season brought the A's back to the postseason after a two year absence. After finishing the season at 93-69, four games ahead of the Angels, the A's were considered the underdog against the highly favored Minnesota Twins. The A's swept the series 3-0 however, despite having to start on the road and losing second baseman Mark Ellis, who sustained a broken finger after getting hit by a pitch in the second game. Their victory was short-lived though, as the A's were swept 4-0 by the Detroit Tigers. Manager Ken Macha was fired by Billy Beane on October 16th, four days after their loss in the 2006 American League Championship Series. Beane cited a disconnect between him and his players as well as a general unhappiness among the team as the reason for his sudden departure.

Macha was replaced by bench coach and former major league catcher Bob Geren. Following the 2006 season, the A's also lost ace Barry Zito to the Giants due to free agency. They also lost their DH and MVP candidate Frank Thomas to free agency but filled his role with future Hall of Famer Mike Piazza for 2007. Piazza, a lifetime National League player, agreed to become a full-time DH for the first time in his career.

2007

The 2007 season was a disappointing season for the A's as they suffered from injuries to several key players Rich Harden, Huston Street, Eric Chavez, and Mike Piazza. For the first time since the 1998 season, the A's finished with a losing record.

2008

The 2008 off-season started with controversy, as the A's traded ace pitcher Dan Haren to the Arizona Diamondbacks for prospects. This would be followed by trades of outfielder Nick Swisher, who was considered to be a fan-favorite, to the Chicago White Sox, and another fan-favorite Mark Kotsay (also outfielder) to the Atlanta Braves. The trades, especially the first two, caused a lot of anger among fans and the media. The A's were considered to be a "rebuilding" team and were expected to be among the bottom-feeders of the MLB in the 2008 season. However, the A's have performed well into the season as of late May, and have even held first place in the AL West for a good amount of time, but a 2-7 roadtrip in Mid-May allowed the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim to take first place for the time being. In addition, several players from the trades are on the roster and have performed well. For example, pitchers Dana Eveland and Greg Smith from the Dan Haren trade, are on the starting rotation and have pitched well. Outfielder Ryan Sweeney from the Swisher trade made it onto the opening-day roster and has played well, and reliever Joey Devine from the Atlanta Braves trade has also performed well. Carlos González and Gio Gonzalez (no relation) from the Haren and Swisher trades, respectively, have also performed well for the Triple A Sacramento Rivercats. It is worth pointing out that Haren, Swisher, and Kotsay have all played well in their new teams. Kotsay himself had a game-winning RBI, as a pinch-hitter, against his former team on May 16 in Game 1 of an Interleague series between the A's and Braves. Kotsay also hit for the cycle for the Atlanta Braves.

On April 24, just weeks after playing against him on the Blue Jays, Frank Thomas re-signed with the A's after being released by the Jays after a slow start.

On July 8, the A's were involved in a blockbuster trade, dealing Rich Harden and Chad Gaudin to the Chicago Cubs for Sean Gallagher, Josh Donaldson, Eric Patterson, and Matt Murton.

Then on July 17, the A's traded Joe Blanton to the Philadelphia Phillies for three minor leaguers.

Stadium Issue

Team owners have been faced for several years with a problematic venue issue. The Oakland Coliseum was originally built as a multi-purpose facility. After the Oakland Raiders football team moved to Los Angeles in 1982, many improvements were made to what was suddenly a baseball-only facility. The 1994 movie Angels in the Outfield was filmed in part at the Oakland Coliseum.

Then, in 1995, a deal was struck whereby the Raiders would move back to Oakland for the 1995 season. The agreement called for the expansion of the Coliseum to 63,026 seats. The bucolic view of the Oakland foothills that baseball spectators enjoyed was replaced with a jarring view of an outfield grandstand contemptuously referred to as "Mount Davis" after Raiders' owner Al Davis. Because construction was not finished by the start of the 1996 season, the Athletics were forced to play their first six-game homestand at 9,300-seat Cashman Field in Las Vegas.

Although "official" capacity was stated to be 43,662 for baseball, seats were sometimes sold in Mount Davis as well, pushing "real" capacity to the area of 60,000. The ready availability of tickets on game day made season tickets a tough sell, while crowds as high as 30,000 often seemed sparse in such a venue. On December 21, 2005, the Athletics announced that seats in the Coliseum's third deck would not be sold for the 2006 season, but would instead be covered with a tarp, and that tickets would no longer be sold in Mount Davis under any circumstances. That effectively reduced capacity to 34,077, making McAfee Coliseum the smallest stadium in Major League Baseball.

Since the expansion of Coliseum seating, ownership has stated that a new and smaller baseball-only facility is necessary to ensure the economic viability of the Athletics. In 2005, owner Wolff made public his plans to build a 35,000-seat baseball-only stadium not far from the present facility, as part of a larger commercial and residential development. However, those plans never moved past the nascent stage, in part because the cost of the renovations to McAfee Coliseum made public funding for a new ballpark too politically risky. After the city of Oakland failed to make any progress toward a stadium the A's began contemplating a move to the Warm Springs district of suburban Fremont just north of the Santa Clara County line in the vicinity of San Jose on a parcel of land just north of Mission Blvd currently owned by Cisco Systems. Fremont is about 25 miles south of Oakland.

Finally, on November 7, 2006, many media sources announced the Athletics would be leaving Oakland as early as 2010 for a new stadium in the city of Fremont which was confirmed the next day by the Fremont City Council. The team will be playing in what is planned to be called Cisco Field, a 36,000 seat baseball only facility. . The proposed ballpark would be part of a larger "ballpark village" which would include retail and residential development. While the existing Oakland Coliseum is easily accessible via public transit on BART, the new stadium does not lie near the existing BART lines, and could be problematic for those not wanting to drive to the stadium. However, the new stadium site does have direct access to both Amtrak's Capital Corridor train system and the Altamont Commuter Express rail lines. BART already has plans for a Warm Springs expansion station which, via a people mover or shuttle, would make the new stadium much more accessible by public transit as well. In addition, Wolff has stated the transit to and from the stadium is a prime concern of his and that it will be addressed. Speculation abounds that, when the move is made, the geographical part of the team's name might change accordingly.

Before the 2008 season began, the organization announced the reopening of the section of upper deck behind home plate in an "All You Can Eat" offer. Tickets are sold at $35 each, in which fans can enjoy as much as food as they like. Meanwhile, it is reported the completion date for new stadium, Cisco Field, will be likely delayed a year to 2012.

Rivals

See also: Bay Bridge Series (Athletics-Giants rivalry), City Series (former Athletics-Phillies rivalry)

The Angels have emerged as the principal rival of the A's due to the traditional animosity between Northern and Southern California and the great talent and farm systems of both clubs which have led to countless one-run contests. While the A's have been a member of the American League since 1901, the Angels, as well as their other divisional rivals, are of a more recent vintage. The Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim date from 1961, as do the Texas Rangers (but only since 1972 as a Dallas-Fort Worth team; the Rangers were the second incarnation of the Washington Senators from 1961-71). The Seattle Mariners were organized in 1977.

During the 1970s, the A's established a strong rivalry with the Kansas City Royals (then an A.L. West team), fueled by the Kansas City fans' resentment of the A's move to Oakland in 1968, and by the rivalry of the Oakland Raiders and Kansas City Chiefs football teams. Arguably, the Athletics' biggest American League rivals in recent years have been the teams that were their old traditional rivals from decades ago in Philadelphia—the New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox—if only because of the hard-fought playoff games between the teams.

The A's have also established a strong geographic rivalry with the San Francisco Giants. The teams faced each other in the 1989 World Series, which the A's won in a four-game sweep, interrupted by the Loma Prieta earthquake. After a decade-plus of interleague play, the A's hold a 38-30 edge against the Giants head-to-head through June 29, 2008 -- including a 16-8 record against the Giants during the 2005-08 seasons. In addition, the A's have won four World Series since moving to Oakland in 1968, while the Giants have not won a World Series since moving to San Francisco in 1958.

The A's have a history with the Minnesota Twins as well. Between 1987-92, the A's and Twins combined to win six consecutive American League West titles and reach the World Series five times. Oakland finished second to Minnesota in 1987, while the Twins placed second to the Division champion A's the following year. Recent events that have taken place between the A's and the Minnesota Twins suggest a renewing of an old rivalry. In 2002 the Twins snapped the A's 20-game win streak. The Twins also beat the heavily favored A's that year in the ALDS. The A's got revenge in 2006 when they swept the favored Twins out of the post season, defeating their two-time Cy Young ace Johan Santana in Game One.

Events and records of note

• 20-Game Win Streak: The Oakland Athletics won an American League record 20 games in a row, from August 13 to September 4, 2002. The last three games were won in dramatic fashion, each victory coming in the bottom of the ninth inning. Win number 20 was notable because the A's, with Tim Hudson pitching, jumped to an 11–0 lead against the AL-cellar dwelling Kansas City Royals, only to slowly give up eleven unanswered runs to lose the lead. Then, Scott Hatteberg, enduring criticism as Jason Giambi's replacement, hit a pinch-hit home run off Royals closer Jason Grimsley in the bottom of the 9th inning to win 12–11. The streak was snapped two nights later in Minneapolis, the A's losing 6–0 to the Minnesota Twins. The Major League record for consecutive games without a loss is 26, set by the NL's New York Giants in 1916. There was a tie game embedded in that streak (ties were not uncommon in the days before stadium lights) and the record for consecutive wins with no ties is 21, held by the Chicago Cubs on their way to the NL pennant in 1935.

• City Series Renewed: The Athletics played their former co-occupants of Shibe Park, the Philadelphia Phillies, for the first time in a regular season game in June of 2003. Previously they had only played each other in exhibition games, dubbed "The City Series", which was played annually from 1903-1954, with the A's winning 123 games to the Phils' 115, with two ties. Ceremonies were held for the first game of the 3 game series at Veterans Stadium, as former Philadelphia A's players were honored on the field. The Phillies took the series against the A's, 2–1. They played each other again in June of 2005 in Oakland, this time the White Elephants defeating their former rivals two games to one.

• Unassisted Triple Play: On May 29, 2000, Randy Velarde achieved an unassisted triple play against the Yankees. In the sixth, second baseman Velarde caught Shane Spencer's line drive, tagged Jorge Posada running from first to second, and stepped on second before Tino Martinez could return. (Velarde had also pulled off an unassisted triple play during a spring training game that year.) This was only the 11th unassisted triple play in the history of major league baseball.

• Rickey Henderson: Stolen Base King: In 1982, Rickey Henderson shattered Lou Brock's modern major league record by stealing 130 bases in a single season, a total which has not been approached since. On May 1, 1991, Henderson broke one of baseball's most famous records when he stole the 939th base of his career, one more than Lou Brock.

Season records

This table is a partial list of the seasons completed by the Athletics. For full season records see Oakland Athletics season records.

Quick facts

Founded: 1893, as the Indianapolis franchise in the minor Western League, which became the American League in 1900. Moved to Philadelphia in 1901 when the A.L. became a Major League. Moved to Kansas City in 1955 and to Oakland in 1968.

Current Uniform colors: Green, Gold and White: 1963-Present, Only MLB team that wears white cleats

Previous Uniform colors: Blue and White: 1901–04, 1909–49, 1951–53, 1961; Blue, Red and White: 1905–08, 1954–60, 1962; Blue, Gold and White: 1950,

Logo design: A blackletter "A's". The team also uses an elephant logo.

Team motto: 100% Baseball

Playoff appearances (23): 1905, 1910, 1911, 1913, 1914, 1929, 1930, 1931, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1974, 1975, 1981, 1988, 1989, 1990, 1992, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2006

Local Television: CSN Bay Area, KICU

Local Radio: KYCY, KFRC-FM

Mascot: Stomper

Spring Training Facility: Phoenix Municipal Stadium, Phoenix, AZ

The Spring Training Facility in Phoenix AZ has been the home of the Oakland A's since 1982.

Current roster

Oakland Athletics
[REDACTED] [REDACTED] Team logo Cap insignia
Information
League	American League (1968–2024) West Division (1969–2024)
Ballpark	Oakland Coliseum (1968–2024)
Established	1901 (franchise, Philadelphia) 1968 (Oakland)
Relocated	2024 (to West Sacramento, California; became the Athletics)
Nickname(s)	The A's Swingin' A's (1971–1981) The Green Elephants The Elephants The Green and Gold
World Series championships	9 (4 in Oakland) 1910 1911 1913 1929 1930 1972 1973 1974 1989
Wild Card championships	4 2001 2014 2018 2019
American League pennants	15 (6 in Oakland) 1902 1905 1910 1911 1913 1914 1929 1930 1931 1972 1973 1974 1988 1989 1990
West Division titles	17 1971 1972 1973 1974 1975 1981 1988 1989 1990 1992 2000 2002 2003 2006 2012 2013 2020
Colors	Green, gold, white
Mascot	Stomper Trunk Harry Elephante Charlie-O
Retired numbers	9 24 27 34 34 43 A's 42
Ownership	List of owners Charlie Finley (1968–1980) Walter A. Haas Jr. (1981–1995) Ken Hofmann (1995–2005) Stephen Schott (1995–2005) Lewis Wolff (2005–2016) John Fisher (2005–2024)
President	List of presidents Roy Eisenhardt (1981–1986) Walter J. Haas (1990–1992) Sandy Alderson (1993–1995, 1997–1998) Michael Crowley (1998–2016) Dave Kaval (2016–2024)
General Manager	List of general managers Charlie Finley (1968–1980) Billy Martin (1981–1982) Sandy Alderson (1983–1997) Billy Beane (1998–2014) David Forst (2015–2024)
Manager	List of managers Bob Kennedy (1968) Hank Bauer (1969) John McNamara (1969–1970) Dick Williams (1971–1973) Alvin Dark (1974–1975) Chuck Tanner (1976) Jack McKeon (1977) Bobby Winkles (1977–1978) Jack McKeon (1978) Jim Marshall (1979) Steve Boros (1983–1984) Billy Martin (1980–1982) Jackie Moore (1984–1986) Jeff Newman (1986) Tony La Russa (1986–1995) Art Howe (1996–2002) Ken Macha (2003–2006) Bob Geren (2007–2011) Bob Melvin (2011–2021) Mark Kotsay (2022–2024)
Current uniforms

The Oakland Athletics (often referred to as the Oakland A's) were an American professional baseball team based in Oakland, California. The Oakland Athletics competed in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) West Division from 1968 until 2024. The team played its home games at the Oakland Coliseum throughout their entire time in Oakland. The franchise's nine World Series championships, fifteen pennants, and seventeen division titles are the second-most in the AL after the New York Yankees.

Despite the team's success in Oakland, issues with the Oakland Coliseum throughout the decades led to the team trying to replace the aging venue multiple times, but after they were not able to secure locations in East Bay and San Jose, the team left Oakland after the 2024 season, temporarily moving to West Sacramento before a planned relocation to the Las Vegas metropolitan area. The move from Oakland was the franchise's third relocation after Philadelphia and Kansas City. The move also marked the end of professional major league sports in Oakland, as the California Golden Seals of the NHL, who had played at the next door Oakland Arena, relocated to Cleveland in 1976, the Golden State Warriors of the NBA, who also played at Oakland Arena, moved across the bay to San Francisco in 2019 and their former co-tenant Oakland Raiders of the NFL relocated to the Las Vegas metropolitan area in 2020.

The Oakland Athletics had an overall win–loss record of 4,614–4,387–1 (.513) during their 56 years in Oakland. Seventeen former Oakland Athletics players were elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame with Dennis Eckersley, Rollie Fingers, Rickey Henderson, and Dick Williams depicted with an Oakland Athletics cap.

History

Relocation from Kansas City

Almost as soon as the ink dried on his purchase of the Athletics in 1960, Charlie Finley began shopping the Athletics to other cities despite his promises that the A's would remain in Kansas City. Soon after the lease-burning stunt, it was discovered that what actually burned was a blank boilerplate commercial lease available at any stationery store. The actual lease was still in force—including the escape clause. Finley later admitted that the whole thing was a publicity stunt, and he had no intention of amending the lease.

In 1961 and 1962, Finley talked to people in Dallas–Fort Worth and a four-man group appeared before American League owners, but no formal motion was put forward to move the team to Texas. In January 1964, he signed an agreement on to move the A's to Louisville, promising to change the team's name to the "Kentucky Athletics". (Other names suggested for the team were the "Louisville Sluggers" and "Kentucky Colonels", which would have allowed the team to keep the letters "KC" on their uniforms.) The owners turned it down by a 9–1 margin on January 16, with Finley being the only one voting in favor. Six weeks later, by the same 9–1 margin, the AL owners denied Finley's request to move the team to Oakland.

These requests came as no surprise, as impending moves to these cities, as well as to Atlanta, Milwaukee, New Orleans, San Diego, and Seattle—all of which Finley had considered as new homes for the Athletics—had long been afloat. He also threatened to move the A's to a "cow pasture" in Peculiar, Missouri, complete with temporary grandstands. Not surprisingly, attendance tailed off. The city rejected Finley's offer of a two-year lease agreement; finally, American League President Joe Cronin persuaded Finley to sign a four-year lease with Municipal Stadium in February 1964.

During the World Series on October 11, 1967, Finley announced his choice of Oakland over Seattle as the team's new home. A week later on October 18 in Chicago, AL owners at last gave him permission to move the Athletics to Oakland for the 1968 season. According to some reports, Cronin promised Finley that he could move the team after the 1967 season as an incentive to sign the new lease with Municipal Stadium. The move came in spite of approval by voters in Jackson County, Missouri, of a bond issue for a brand new baseball stadium (the eventual Royals Stadium, now Kauffman Stadium) to be completed in 1973.

A new home and the emergence of a powerhouse (1968–1970)

The Athletics' Oakland tenure opened with a 3–1 loss to the Baltimore Orioles on April 10, 1968, and their first game in Oakland was on April 17, a 4–1 loss to the Orioles. They played their home games at the recently opened Oakland–Alameda County Coliseum, the home of the AFL's Oakland Raiders, with whom they shared the stadium. The Athletics drew national attention when, on May 8, 1968, Jim "Catfish" Hunter pitched a perfect game (the American League's first during the regular season since 1922) against the Minnesota Twins. The Athletics, under the leadership of manager Bob Kennedy, ended the 1968 campaign with an 82–80 record, their first winning record since 1952 (in Philadelphia). The team's output also represented a 20-win increase over the prior year's 62–99 finish. Bob Kennedy was fired at the end of the season.

Expansion brought optimism to Athletics fans after AL owners (unlike their counterparts in the National League) decided to realign their league strictly based on geography. Despite finishing in sixth place and only two games above .500 in 1968, Oakland actually had the best record of the four established teams to join the AL West, which also contained the two expansion teams. The Athletics began the 1969 season under the leadership of Hank Bauer. On July 20, 1969, future ace Vida Blue made his major league debut with a start against the California Angels. The Athletics' on-field performance continued to improve; led by Reggie Jackson's 47 home runs, the A's finished the season with a record of 88–74. However, this was only good enough for second place behind the Minnesota Twins, and was not good enough for Finley, who had been expecting his team to win the division title. Hank Bauer was fired (and replaced with John McNamara) near the end of the season. The team's record stood at 80–69 at the time of his firing. McNamara himself would be fired following an 89–73 finish in 1970. He was replaced by former Boston Red Sox manager Dick Williams.

Swingin' A's (1971–1975)

The Athletics, following two consecutive second-place finishes, finally claimed the division crown in 1971. The A's would win 101 games (their first 100-win season since finishing 107–45 in 1931). However, they lost to the Baltimore Orioles in the American League Championship Series. In 1972, the A's won their first league pennant since 1931 and faced the Cincinnati Reds in the World Series.

That year, the A's began wearing solid green or solid gold jerseys, with contrasting white pants, at a time when most other teams wore all-white uniforms at home and all-grey ones on the road. Similar to more colorful amateur softball uniforms, they were considered a radical departure for their time. Furthermore, in conjunction with a Moustache Day promotion, Finley offered $300 to any player who grew a moustache by Father's Day, at a time when every other team forbade facial hair. When Father's Day arrived, every member of the team collected a bonus. The 1972 World Series against the Cincinnati Reds was termed "The Hairs vs. the Big Squares", as the Reds wore more traditional uniforms and required their players to be clean-shaven and short-haired. A contemporaneous book about the team was called Mustache Gang. The A's seven-game victory over the heavily favored Reds gave the team its first World Series Championship since 1930.

They defended their title in 1973 and 1974. Unlike Mack's champions, who thoroughly dominated their opposition, the A's teams of the 1970s played well enough to win their division (which was usually known as the "American League Least" during this time). They then defeated teams that had won more games during the regular season with good pitching, good defense, and clutch hitting. Finley called this team the "Swingin' A's". Players such as Reggie Jackson, Sal Bando, Joe Rudi, Bert Campaneris, Catfish Hunter, Rollie Fingers, and Vida Blue formed the nucleus of these teams.

The players often said in later years that they played so well as a team because almost to a man, they hated Finley with a passion. For instance, Finley threatened to pack Jackson off to the minors in 1969 after Jackson hit 47 homers; Commissioner Bowie Kuhn had to intervene in their contract dispute. Kuhn intervened again after Blue won the AL Cy Young Award in 1971 and Finley threatened to send him to the minors. Finley's tendency for micromanaging his team actually dated to the team's stay in Kansas City. Among the more notable incidents during this time was a near-mutiny in 1967; Finley responded by releasing the A's best hitter, Ken Harrelson, who promptly signed with the Red Sox and helped lead them to the pennant.

The Athletics' victory over the New York Mets in the 1973 Series was marred by Finley's antics. Finley forced Mike Andrews to sign a false affidavit saying he was injured after the reserve second baseman committed two consecutive errors in the 12th inning of the A's Game Two loss to the Mets. When Williams, Andrews' teammates, and virtually the entire viewing public rallied to Andrews' defense, Kuhn forced Finley to back down. However, there was nothing that said the A's had to play Andrews. Andrews entered Game 4 in the eighth inning as a pinch-hitter to a standing ovation from sympathetic Mets fans. He promptly grounded out, and Finley ordered him benched for the remainder of the Series. Andrews never played another major league game. As it was, the incident allowed the Mets, a team that went but 82–79 during the regular season, to stretch the Series to the full seven games against a far superior team. Williams was so disgusted by the affair that he resigned after the Series. Finley retaliated by vetoing Williams' attempt to become manager of the Yankees. Finley claimed that since Williams still owed Oakland the last year of his contract, he could not manage anywhere else. Finley relented later in 1974 and allowed Williams to take over as manager of the California Angels.

After the Athletics' victory over the Los Angeles Dodgers in the 1974 Series (under Alvin Dark), pitcher Catfish Hunter filed a grievance, claiming that the team had violated its contract with Hunter by failing to make timely payment on an insurance policy during the 1974 season as called for. On December 13, 1974, arbitrator Peter Seitz ruled in Hunter's favor. As a result, Hunter became a free agent, and signed a contract with the Yankees for the 1975 season. Despite the loss of Hunter, the A's repeated as AL West champions in 1975, but lost the ALCS to Boston in a 3-game sweep.

Free agency, the dismantling of the A's, and the end of the Finley years

1975

In 1975, fed up with poor attendance in Oakland during the team's championship years, Finley thought of moving yet again. When Seattle filed a lawsuit against Major League Baseball over the move of the Seattle Pilots to Milwaukee, Finley and others came up with an elaborate shuffle which would move the ailing Chicago White Sox to Seattle. Finley then would move the A's to Chicago, closer to his home in LaPorte, Indiana; and take the White Sox' place at Comiskey Park. The scheme fell through when White Sox owner John Allyn sold the team to another colorful owner, Bill Veeck, who was not interested in leaving Chicago.

1976

As the 1976 season got underway, the basic rules of player contracts were changing. Seitz had ruled that baseball's reserve clause only bound players for one season after their contract expired. Thus, all players not signed to multi-year contracts would be eligible for free agency at the end of the 1976 season. The balance of power had shifted from the owners to the players for the first time since the days of the Federal League. Like Mack had done twice before, Finley reacted by trading star players and attempting to sell others. On June 15, 1976, Finley sold left fielder Rudi and relief pitcher Fingers to Boston for $1 million each, and pitcher Blue to the New York Yankees for $1.5 million. Three days later, Kuhn voided the transactions in the "best interests of baseball". Amid the turmoil, the A's still finished second in the AL West, 2.5 games behind the Royals.

1977

After the 1976 season, most of the Athletics' veteran players did become eligible for free agency, and predictably almost all left. More than 40 years and 3,000 miles (4,800 km) after Connie Mack's last dynasty, one of baseball's most storied franchises suffered yet another dismemberment of a dynasty team. As happened with the end of the A's first dynasty in the early 1900s, the collapse was swift, sudden and total. The next three years were as bad as the worst days in Philadelphia or Kansas City, with the A's finishing last twice and next-to-last once. In 1977, for instance—only three years after winning the World Series and two years after playing for the pennant—the A's finished with the worst record in the American League, and the second-worst record in baseball. They even trailed the expansion Seattle Mariners (though by only 1⁄2 game, as one game with the Minnesota Twins was canceled by weather and never made up).

At the end of the 1977 season, Finley attempted to trade Blue to the Reds for a player of lesser stature and cash, but Kuhn vetoed the deal, claiming that it was tantamount to a fire sale similar to the sales he voided a year earlier. He also claimed that adding Blue to the Reds' already formidable pitching staff would make a mockery of the National League West race. Later, Finley sent Doug Bair to the Reds in a deal that Kuhn deemed a true trade. At the same time, Blue was traded across the bay to the San Francisco Giants in a multi-player trade that likewise received the Commissioner's blessing.

1978–1980

Despite Finley's reputation as a master promoter, the A's had never drawn well since moving to Oakland, even during the World Series years. In the three years after the veterans from the championship years left, attendance dropped so low that the Coliseum became known as the "Oakland Mausoleum". At one point during the late 1970s, crowds could be counted in the hundreds. The low point came in 1979, when an April 17 game against the Mariners drew an announced crowd of 653. However, A's officials claimed the actual attendance was 550, while first baseman Dave Revering thought the crowd was closer to 200. What is beyond dispute is that it was the smallest "crowd" in the West Coast portion of A's history. The Coliseum's upkeep also went downhill. The franchise's rapid deterioration so soon after being the most powerful team in the game led some fans to nickname them "the Triple-A's".

For most of Finley's ownership, the A's rarely had radio or television contracts, rendering them all but invisible in the Bay Area even during the World Series era. For the first month of the 1978 season, the A's broadcast their games on KALX, a 10-watt college radio station run by the University of California, Berkeley. KALX was practically unlistenable more than 10 miles (16 km) from Oakland. At that time, the A's had a radio network stretching all the way to Hawaii, leading one fan to joke, "Honolulu? How about here?" In 1979, the A's did not sign a radio contract until the night before opening day. The A's near-invisibility prompted Oakland and Alameda County to sue Finley and the A's for breach of contract in 1979.

Finley nearly sold the team to buyers who would have moved them to Mile High Stadium in Denver for the 1978 season and the Louisiana Superdome in New Orleans for 1979. Though the American League owners appeared to favor the Denver deal, it fell through when the city of Oakland and Alameda County refused to release the A's from their lease. At the time, the Oakland Raiders were threatening to move to Los Angeles, and city and county officials were not willing to lose Oakland's status as a big-league city in its own right. Not surprisingly, only 306,763 paying customers showed up to watch the A's in 1979, the team's worst attendance since leaving Philadelphia.

After three dismal seasons on the field and at the gate, the commissioner's office seriously considered selling the team out from under Finley and moving it to New Orleans. Rather than acquiesce, Finley hired Berkeley native Billy Martin to manage the young team, led by new young stars Rickey Henderson, Mike Norris, Tony Armas, and Dwayne Murphy. Martin made believers of his young charges, "Billyball" was used to market the team, and the Athletics finished second in 1980.

However, during that same season Finley's wife sought a divorce, and would not accept a stake in the A's in a property settlement. With most of his money tied up in the A's or his insurance empire, Finley had to sell the team. He agreed in principle to sell to businessman Marvin Davis, who would have moved the Athletics to Denver. However, just before Finley and Davis were due to sign a definitive agreement, the Raiders announced their move to Los Angeles. Oakland and Alameda County officials let it be known that they would not allow any prospective owner to break the Coliseum lease, forcing Davis to call off the deal. Forced to turn to local buyers, Finley sold the A's to San Francisco clothing manufacturer Walter A. Haas, Jr., president of Levi Strauss & Co. prior to the 1981 season. It would not be the last time that the Raiders directly affected the A's future; Denver would eventually get an MLB team in 1993 when the Colorado Rockies began play.

Local ownership for the Athletics: the Haas era (1981–1995)

Despite winning three World Series and two other AL West Division titles, the A's on-field success did not translate into success at the box office during the Finley era in Oakland. Average home attendance from 1968 to 1980 was 777,000 per season, with 1,075,518 in 1975 being the highest attendance for a Finley-owned team. In marked contrast, during the first year of Haas' ownership, the Athletics drew 1,304,052—in a season shortened by a player strike. Were it not for the strike, the A's were on a pace to draw over 2.2 million in 1981. This lent credence to the theory that Bay Area residents stayed away from the Coliseum because they did not want to give their money to Finley.

Haas set about changing the team's image. He ditched Charlie O. as the team mascot and restored the traditional team name of "Athletics" as soon as he closed on the purchase, with the ownership group formally known as "The Oakland Athletics Baseball Company". He also installed pictures of Connie Mack and other greats from the Philadelphia days in the team office; Finley had scarcely acknowledged the team's past. While the team colors remained green, gold, and white, the bright Kelly green was replaced with a more subdued forest green. After a 23-year hiatus, the elephant was restored as the club mascot in 1988. The script "Athletics", which had adorned home and road jerseys from 1954 to 1960, was returned to home jerseys in 1987.

The Haases gave Martin complete control of the baseball operation with the title of "player development director", effectively making him his own general manager. The A's lost in the American League Championship Series after winning the "first half" AL West Division title of the strike-interrupted 1981 season. The club finished with the second-best overall record in baseball, and the best record in the American League. Had the season not been split in half, the 1981 A's would have gone wire-to-wire. However, an injury-riddled team significantly regressed in 1982, falling to 68–94. Although Martin was not blamed for the debacle, growing concern about his off-field behavior resulted in his firing after the season.

During the 15 years of Haas' ownership, the Athletics became one of baseball's most successful teams at the gate, drawing 2,900,217 in 1990, still the club record for single season attendance, as well as on the field. Average annual home attendance during those years (excluding the strike years of 1981 and 1994) was over 1.9 million.

Under the Haas ownership, the minor league system was rebuilt, which bore fruit later that decade as José Canseco (1986), Mark McGwire (1987), and Walt Weiss (1988) were chosen as AL Rookies of the Year. During the 1986 season, Tony La Russa was hired as the Athletics' manager, a post he held until the end of 1995. In 1987, La Russa's first full year as manager, the team finished at 81–81, its best record in seven seasons. Beginning in 1988, the Athletics won the AL pennant three years in a row. Reminiscent of their Philadelphia predecessors, this A's team finished with the best record of any team in the major leagues during all 3 years, winning 104 (1988), 99 (1989), and 103 (1990) games, featuring such stars as McGwire, Canseco, Weiss, Rickey Henderson, Carney Lansford, Dave Stewart, and Dennis Eckersley.

During this time, Rickey Henderson shattered Lou Brock's modern major league record by stealing 130 bases in a single season (1982), a total which has not been approached since. On May 1, 1991, Henderson broke one of baseball's most famous records when he stole the 939th base of his career, one more than Brock.

Regular season dominance led to some success in the post-season. The Athletics' lone World Series championship of the era was a four-game sweep of the cross-bay rival San Francisco Giants in the 1989 World Series. Unfortunately for the A's, their sweep of the Giants was overshadowed by the Loma Prieta earthquake that occurred at the start of Game 3 before a national television audience. This forced the remaining games to be delayed for ten days. When play resumed, the atmosphere was dominated more by a sense of relief than celebration by baseball fans. Heavily favored Athletics teams lost the World Series in both 1988, to the Los Angeles Dodgers, and in 1990, to the Cincinnati Reds. The latter was a shocking four-game sweep reminiscent of the A's loss to the Boston Braves 76 years earlier. The team began declining, winning the AL West championship in 1992 (but losing to Toronto in the ALCS), then finishing last in 1993.

The "Moneyball" years (1996–2004)

In 1995, the Raiders returned to Oakland after spending 12 years in Los Angeles; with this, the Coliseum underwent an $83 million facelift that altered the Coliseum significantly. Walter Haas died in that same year, and the team was sold to San Francisco Bay Area real estate developers Steve Schott (third cousin to one-time Cincinnati Reds' owner Marge Schott), silent partner David Etheridge and Ken Hofmann, prior to the 1996 season. Once again, the Athletics' star players were traded or sold, as the new owners' goal was to cut payroll drastically. Many landed with the St. Louis Cardinals, including McGwire, Eckersley, and manager La Russa. In a turn of events eerily reminiscent of the A's Roger Maris trade 38 years before, Mark McGwire celebrated his first full season with the Cardinals by setting a new major league home run record.

The Schott-Hofmann ownership allocated resources to building and maintaining a strong minor league system while almost always refusing to pay the going rate to keep star players on the team once they become free agents. Perhaps as a result, at the turn of the 21st century, the A's were a team that usually finished at or near the top of the AL West Division, but could not advance beyond the first round of the playoffs. The Athletics made the playoffs for four straight years, from 2000 to 2003, but lost their first round (best three-out-of-five) series in each case, 3 games to 2. In two of those years (2001 against the Yankees and 2003 against the Red Sox), the Athletics won the first two games of the series, only to lose the next three straight. In 2001, Oakland became the first team to lose a best-of-five series after winning both of the first two games on the road. In 2004, the A's missed the playoffs altogether, losing the final series of the season—and the divisional title—to the Anaheim Angels by one game.

This period in Oakland history featured splendid performances from a trio of young starting pitchers: right-hander Tim Hudson and left-handers Mark Mulder and Barry Zito. Between 1999 and 2006, the so-called "Big Three" helped the Athletics to emerge into a perennial powerhouse in the American League West, combining for a collective record of 261–131. They gave the Athletics a 1–2–3 punch to add to talented infielders and potent hitters, such as first baseman Jason Giambi, shortstop Miguel Tejada, and third baseman Eric Chavez. Giambi was named American League MVP in 2000, and Tejada won an MVP Award of his own in 2002, a year which also saw Zito win 23 games and the Cy Young Award.

On May 29, 2000, Randy Velarde achieved an unassisted triple play against the Yankees. In the sixth, second baseman Velarde caught Shane Spencer's line drive, tagged Jorge Posada running from first to second, and stepped on second before Tino Martinez could return. (Velarde had also pulled off an unassisted triple play during a spring training game that year). This was only the 11th unassisted triple play in the history of Major League Baseball.

The general manager of the Athletics at the time, Billy Beane, became notable due to Michael Lewis's book portrayal of Beane's novel approach to business decisions and scouting, referred to as Moneyball. Through Beane, the Athletics organization redefined the way major league baseball teams evaluate player talent. They began filling their system with players who did not possess traditionally valued baseball "tools" of throwing, fielding, hitting, hitting for power and running. Instead, they drafted for unconventional statistical prowess: on-base percentage for hitters (rather than batting average) and strikeout/walk ratios for pitchers (rather than velocity). These undervalued stats came cheaply. With the sixth-lowest payroll in baseball in 2002, the Oakland Athletics won an American League best 103 games. They spent $41 million that season, while the Yankees, who also won 103 games, spent $126 million.

The Athletics continually succeeded at winning, and defying market economics, keeping their payroll near the bottom of the league. After the 2004 season, in which the A's placed second in their division, Beane shocked many by breaking up the Big Three, trading Tim Hudson to the Atlanta Braves and Mark Mulder to the St. Louis Cardinals. To many, the trades appeared bizarre, in that the two pitchers were seen to be at or near the top of their game; however, the decision was perfectly in line with Beane's business model . The Mulder trade, to many experts' surprise, turned into a steal for the Athletics, as little-known starter Dan Haren ended up pitching far better for Oakland than Mulder did for St. Louis.

Also during this time, the Athletics won an American League record 20 games in a row, from August 13 to September 4, 2002. The last three games were won in dramatic fashion, each victory coming in the bottom of the ninth inning. Win number 20 was notable because the A's, with Tim Hudson pitching, jumped to an 11–0 lead against the AL-cellar dwelling Kansas City Royals, only to slowly give up 11 unanswered runs to lose the lead. Then, Scott Hatteberg, enduring criticism as Jason Giambi's replacement, hit a pinch-hit home run off Royals closer Jason Grimsley in the bottom of the 9th inning to win 12–11. The streak was snapped two nights later in Minneapolis, with the A's losing 6–0 to the Minnesota Twins.

The Wolff era (2005–2016)

2005

On March 30, 2005, the Athletics were sold to a group fronted by real estate developer Lewis Wolff, although the majority owner is John J. Fisher, son of The Gap, Inc.'s founder. Wolff, though a Los Angeles businessman, had successfully developed many real estate projects in and around San Jose. The previous ownership had retained Wolff to help them find an adequate parcel on which to construct a new stadium. Because of Wolff's background, rumors that he wanted to move the team to San Jose surfaced periodically upon his purchase of the team. However, any such plans were always complicated by the claims of the cross-bay San Francisco Giants that they own the territorial rights to San Jose and Santa Clara County.

In 2005, many pundits picked the Athletics to finish last as a result of Beane's dismantling of the Big Three. At first, the experts appeared vindicated, as the A's were mired in last place on May 31 with a 19–32 (.373) win–loss record. After that the team began to gel, playing at a .622 clip for the remainder of the season, eventually finishing 88–74 (.543), seven games behind the newly renamed Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim and for many weeks seriously contending for the AL West crown.

Pitcher Huston Street was voted the AL Rookie of the Year in 2005, the second year in a row an Athletic won that award, shortstop Bobby Crosby having won in 2004. For the fifth straight season, third baseman Eric Chavez won the AL Gold Glove Award at that position.

2006

The 2006 season brought the A's back to the postseason after a three-year absence. After finishing the season at 93–69, four games ahead of the Angels, the A's were considered the underdog against the highly favored Minnesota Twins. The A's swept the series 3–0 however, despite having to start on the road and losing second baseman Mark Ellis, who sustained a broken finger after getting hit by a pitch in the second game. Their victory was short-lived though, as the A's were swept 4–0 by the Detroit Tigers. Manager Ken Macha was fired by Billy Beane on October 16, four days after their loss in the 2006 American League Championship Series. Beane cited a disconnect between him and his players as well as a general unhappiness among the team as the reason for his sudden departure.

Macha was replaced by bench coach and former major league catcher Bob Geren. Following the 2006 season, the A's also lost ace Barry Zito to the Giants due to free agency. They also lost their DH and MVP candidate Frank Thomas to free agency but filled his role with Mike Piazza for 2007. Piazza, a lifetime National League player, agreed to become a full-time DH for the first time in his career.

2007

The 2007 season was a disappointing season for the A's as they suffered from injuries to several key players Rich Harden, Huston Street, Eric Chavez, and Mike Piazza. For the first time since the 1998 season, the A's finished with a losing record.

The Athletics signed international free agent Michael Inoa to the largest bonus in team and international free agent history.

2008

The 2008 off-season started with controversy, as the A's traded ace pitcher Dan Haren to the Arizona Diamondbacks for prospects. This would be followed by trades of outfielder Nick Swisher, who was considered to be a fan-favorite, to the Chicago White Sox, and another fan-favorite Mark Kotsay (also outfielder) to the Atlanta Braves. The trades, especially the first two, caused a lot of anger among fans and the media. The A's were considered to be a "rebuilding" team and were expected to be among the bottom-feeders of MLB in the 2008 season. However, the A's performed well into late May, and even held first place in the AL West for a good amount of time, but a 2–7 roadtrip in mid-May allowed the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim to take first place.

On April 24, just weeks after playing against them while on the Blue Jays, Frank Thomas re-signed with the A's, having been released by the Jays after a slow start. On July 8, the A's were involved in a blockbuster trade, dealing Rich Harden and Chad Gaudin to the Chicago Cubs for Sean Gallagher, Josh Donaldson, Eric Patterson, and Matt Murton. Then on July 17, the A's traded Joe Blanton to the Philadelphia Phillies for three minor leaguers. An 18–37 record for the months of July and August (including a 10-game losing streak) dropped the A's into third place, where they would finish the season. They ended 2008 with a disappointing 75–86 record.

Several players were acquired in the offseason trades (pitchers Dana Eveland and Greg Smith from the Dan Haren trade, outfielder Ryan Sweeney from the Swisher trade and reliever Joey Devine from the Mark Kotsay trade). Carlos González and Gio González (no relation) from the Haren and Swisher trades, respectively, also performed well for the Triple-A Sacramento River Cats. It is worth pointing out that Haren, Swisher, and Kotsay have all played well in their new teams. Kotsay himself had a game-winning RBI as a pinch-hitter, against his former team on May 16 in Game 1 of an interleague series between the A's and Braves.

2009

In the 2009 offseason, the A's traded promising young star OF Carlos González, closer Huston Street and starting pitcher Greg Smith for Matt Holliday of the Colorado Rockies. On January 6, 2009, Jason Giambi signed a one-year, $4.6 million contract with a 2nd year option. Giambi said he was glad to be back as he put on his old number 16. Also signed were infielders Orlando Cabrera of the Chicago White Sox and Nomar Garciaparra of the Los Angeles Dodgers. The first half of the season the team played relatively poor, but finished the second half strong, yet still posting a losing record. Holliday was dealt to the St. Louis Cardinals for prospects and Giambi was released in August after spending time on the DL.

On December 22, 2009, Sports Illustrated named general manager Billy Beane as number 10 on its list of the Top 10 GMs/Executives of the Decade (in all sports).

2010

The offseason was busy from the start. The team dealt the key-player from the Holliday trade, Brett Wallace, to the Toronto Blue Jays for OF Michael Taylor. After missing all of the 2009 season, Ben Sheets signed a 1-year deal. The team had a decent spring, posting a better record than other AL West teams. To begin the regular season, the team had 2 walk-off wins.

On May 9, 42 years almost to the day after Catfish Hunter, A's pitcher Dallas Braden pitched a perfect game, the 19th in Major League history, in a 4–0 victory over the Tampa Bay Rays at the Coliseum. The next homestand was a week-long celebration of the feat, with a commemorative graphic placed on the outfield wall on May 17.

Oakland finished the 2010 season with an 81–81 record; 2nd in the division, 9 games behind Texas, and 1 game ahead of Los Angeles.

2011

Oakland finished the 2011 season with a 74–88 record; 3rd in the division, 22 games behind Texas. Pitcher Rich Harden returned on a one-year deal. Hideki Matsui was signed as a DH on a one-year deal. Vin Mazarro was traded to the Royals for David DeJesus. Travis Buck, Jack Cust, and Edwin Encarnación were lost to the Indians, Mariners, and Blue Jays (respectively). Encarnacion was later claimed off waivers. Rajai Davis was traded to Toronto for two pitchers. Eric Chavez was lost to the Yankees as a free agent.

2012

After an offseason that saw All Star pitchers Gio González, Trevor Cahill, and Andrew Bailey traded away, the A's entered the 2012 season with low expectations. This season was Bob Melvin's first full season as the A's manager. During the trading period, the A's had traded fan-favorite catcher Kurt Suzuki to the Washington Nationals for cash considerations. The A's also traded relief pitcher Fautino de los Santos to the Milwaukee Brewers for catcher George Kottaras. On August 15, veteran starting pitcher Bartolo Colón received a 50-game suspension after testing positive for performing-enhancing drugs. On September 5, veteran pitcher Brandon McCarthy was struck in the head by a line drive off of the bat of Erick Aybar ending his 2012 season. The A's entered the last month of the season with an all-rookie starting rotation, but by the end of the month, they had pulled within 2 games of the Texas Rangers for the AL West lead, setting the stage for a season ending, 3-game series that would decide the winner of the 2012 division title. The A's swept the series, culminating in 12–5 victory which saw the A's come back from a 4-run deficit to clinch the AL West for the first time since 2006. The A's ended the regular season with a record of 94–68, leading the Major Leagues in walk-off wins, with 14 in the regular season, and one in Game 4 of the American League Division Series. The A's lost the ALDS to the eventual American League Champion Detroit Tigers in 5 games.

Bob Melvin was awarded the 2012 AL Manager of the Year award, and outfielder Josh Reddick was awarded a Gold Glove, becoming the first A's outfielder since 1985 to do so. Following the season shortstop Cliff Pennington was traded to the Arizona Diamondbacks for outfielder Chris Young, as part of a 3 team trade.

2013

In 2013, under manager Bob Melvin after going 96–66 and claiming their second straight division title over the heavily favored Texas Rangers and Los Angeles Angels, the Athletics lost Game 5 of the ALDS to Justin Verlander and the Detroit Tigers for the second straight season in their own ballpark. Josh Donaldson had an MVP-caliber season, with a .301 batting average 24 home runs, and 93 RBIs. Despite his age, Bartolo Colón was in contention for a Cy Young Award, going 18–6, with 117 strikeouts and a 2.65 ERA. During the regular season the A's saw the additions of former A's catcher Kurt Suzuki from the Washington Nationals, Alberto Callaspo from the Los Angeles Angels, and Stephen Vogt off waivers from the Tampa Bay Rays.Grant Balfour broke the A's record for most consecutive saves and the A's saw the growth of young players like Jed Lowrie, Yoenis Céspedes, Josh Donaldson, and Sonny Gray. The A's would finish in the top 3 of the Major League Baseball in home runs and OPS. Even after the devastating loss to the Detroit Tigers, the A's retained most of their 2013 roster, only losing Colon and Balfour to free agency.

2014

The A's started out as a favorite to win the AL West again, and played up to that, having the best record in baseball at the All-Star break. To bolster their starting rotation, they acquired pitchers Jeff Samardzija and Jason Hammel from the Chicago Cubs for several top prospects on July 4, and later acquired Jon Lester from the Boston Red Sox at the July 31 non-waiver trade deadline for Yoenis Céspedes. However, without the big bat of Cespedes, poor production from All-Stars Josh Donaldson and Brandon Moss, and an injury to closer Sean Doolittle, they struggled in August and the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim caught up, sweeping them in a key 4-game series between the two teams. At the August 31 waiver trade deadline, the A's acquired first baseman Adam Dunn from the Chicago White Sox and cash considerations for a minor league player. Despite their struggles which continued into September, they made the playoffs on the last day of the season, and faced the Kansas City Royals in the Wild Card Game. While they carried a 7–3 lead going into the bottom of the 8th inning, they managed to relinquish it due to the Royals' baserunning skills coupled with ineffective pitching, allowing them to tie the game. They did regain the lead in the top of the 12th, but the Royals responded with 2 runs in the bottom of the inning, winning on a walk-off single by Salvador Pérez.

2015

In the off-season the A's started to rebuild with trading Josh Donaldson, Jeff Samardzija, Brandon Moss, and losing Jon Lester to free agency.

The A's ended 2015 with a disappointing 68–94 record that put them in last place in the AL West. This despite Sonny Gray emerging as an ace of the staff with a 2.73 ERA and 14 wins in 31 starts. Nevertheless, the team brought in future key pieces in Marcus Semien, Mark Canha and Chris Bassitt, all of whom would become integral to the A's success later in the decade.

The John J. Fisher years (2016–2024)

2016

Like in 2015, the A's were in last place with a 69–93 record, despite a breakout season from newcomer Khris Davis, whose 42 home runs began a three-year stretch of 40 home run seasons. New arrivals in Sean Manaea and Liam Hendriks later became key pieces on the pitching staff moving forward. In November 2016, after the season ended, Wolff sold his 10% stake in the team to John J. Fisher, who became the full owner of the team; Wolff is now the chairman emeritus.

2017

For the third straight year, the A's were in last place with a 75–87 record. The A's traded away ace Sonny Gray to the New York Yankees midway through the season, but brought in struggling reliever Blake Treinen from the Washington Nationals. In addition, Matt Chapman was called up as the third baseman of the future.

The team won 10 of their last 14 games, and rookie Matt Olson hit 24 home runs in just 189 at bats, finishing 4th in AL Rookie of the Year voting.

2018

On April 21, Sean Manaea threw the Athletics franchise's 12th no-hitter, and their first since Dallas Braden in 2010.

The A's surprised the American League by winning 97 games, and earned a trip to the postseason as a wild card team. Bob Melvin became the American League Manager of the Year for the third time in his coaching career.

2019

On May 7 versus the Cincinnati Reds at the RingCentral Coliseum, Mike Fiers threw the Athletics franchise's 13th no-hitter. It was the second no-hitter of his career, and the 300th no-hitter in MLB history. To bolster the pitching rotation, on July 14, the Athletics acquired RHP Homer Bailey from the Kansas City Royals in exchange for SS Kevin Merrell. On July 27, to improve on their lack-luster bullpen, the Athletics acquired LHP Jake Diekman for OF Dairon Blanco and RHP Ismael Aquino. For the second consecutive season, the A's won 97 games and a playoff berth, earning the right to host the Tampa Bay Rays in the American League Wild Card game at Oakland Coliseum on October 2, 2019. The A's were 52–27 at home on the season.

2020

The Athletics finished with a 36–24 record in the shortened 2020 Major League Baseball season. The A's beat the Chicago White Sox two games to one in the first round of the expanded MLB postseason to face the Houston Astros. The Athletics lost to the Astros three games to one in the Division Series.

2021

In 2021, the Athletics finished third the AL West with an 86–76 record, missing the playoffs for the first time since 2017. Following the season, longtime manager Bob Melvin left the organization to become the manager of the San Diego Padres.

On May 11, 2021, Major League Baseball granted the Athletics permission to explore relocation, saying that the Oakland Coliseum "is not a viable option for the future vision of baseball".

2022

Prior to the 2022 season, the Athletics traded several key players away or let them leave during free agency. These players included Olson, Chapman, Bassitt, Manaea, Canha, and Starling Marte. Because the team's future in Oakland began looking more uncertain, some observers suspected that the organization was tanking with the hopes of fielding a competitive team in a new city.

The Athletics wound up having a disastrous 2022 season in which the team finished last in the AL West with a 60–102 record. It was the worst record in the American League and Oakland's worst record since 1979.

Relocation to Sacramento and Las Vegas

2023

In April 2023, the Athletics finalized plans to relocate to Las Vegas, purchasing a 49-acre plot on the site of the Wild Wild West Gambling Hall & Hotel near the Las Vegas Strip for the construction of a new ballpark, ending negotiations with the city of Oakland. On May 9, 2023, the Athletics switched their planned location to the site of Tropicana Las Vegas, which was demolished in October to make room for a 33,000-seat retractable roof stadium. By June 2023, the team's 33,000-seat ballpark was approved through the Nevada Legislature voting in favor of its bill SB1 and sent to the desk of Governor Joe Lombardo where he would sign it into law. After SB1's signing, the Athletics announced the relocation process to the Las Vegas area would begin with the team drafting an application for the move by June 21. The team would submit its relocation application fully on August 21.

The Athletics finished the 2023 season with a 50–112 record, the worst in the major leagues.

2024

On November 16, 2023, the Athletics received official approval from MLB to relocate to Las Vegas. By April, the team officially announced that 2024 would be its final season in Oakland and would spend three seasons at West Sacramento's Sutter Health Park until their new ballpark in Las Vegas is complete. The Athletics played their final game at both the Coliseum and in Oakland on September 26, 2024, winning 3–2 against the Texas Rangers in front of 46,889 fans. On September 29, 2024, the Athletics played their final game as an Oakland-based team, losing 6–4 against the Seattle Mariners on the road. The Athletics finished 69–93, fourth in the AL West.

On May 13, 2024, in a game between the Houston Astros and the Athletics, Jenny Cavnar and Julia Morales became the first two women to do the play-by-play on television for the same Major League Baseball game.

Fan reaction

The A's plan to relocate to Las Vegas has garnered an overwhelmingly negative reception from Bay Area fans, baseball writers, former executives, and even some current players, including Las Vegas natives Bryce Harper, Bryson Stott, and Paul Sewald. Many have argued that Fisher's lack of spending on the team was a deliberate effort to sink the club and keep fans away from the Coliseum in order to sabotage negotiations in Oakland. Others have opined that by many measures, such as public money available and market size, Oakland was actually offering the better stadium deal, and that the relocation was purely an effort for the A's to remain on revenue sharing with no other factors considered, as some commentators have speculated that Fisher was no longer able to afford his part of the Howard Terminal project. Outside of Oakland, fan protests against the move took place at Oracle Park in San Francisco, Coors Field in Denver, Nationals Park in Washington D.C., and the 2023 MLB All-Star Game at T-Mobile Park in Seattle. Many of Manfred's comments and actions during the process received backlash as well, with several commentators feeling that he was being disrespectful towards Oakland and ignoring the reality of the situation in order to support an owner who could not afford to keep the team in Oakland. The Sell movement continued into the 2024 season, and some fans have also begun supporting the Oakland Ballers of the Pioneer League.

Uniforms

At the start of their tenure in Oakland, owner Charles O. Finley used the team's colors of what he termed "Kelly Green, Wedding Gown White and Fort Knox Gold", which was changed during the team's tenure in Kansas City. It was here that he began experimenting with dramatic uniforms to match these bright colors, such as gold sleeveless tops with green undershirts and gold pants. The uniform innovations increased after the team's move to Oakland, which came with the introduction of polyester pullover uniforms.

During their dynasty years in the 1970s, the A's had dozens of uniform combinations with jerseys and pants in all three team colors, and never wore the traditional gray on the road, instead wearing green or gold, which helped to contribute to their nickname of "The Swingin' A's". After the team's sale to the Haas family, the team changed its primary color to a more subdued forest green in 1982 and began a move back to more traditional uniforms.

The 2023 team wore home uniforms with "Athletics" spelled out in script writing and road uniforms with "Oakland" spelled out in script writing, with the cap logo consisting of the traditional "A" with "apostrophe-s". The home cap, which was also the team's road cap until 1992, is forest green with a gold bill and white lettering. This design was also the basis of their batting helmet, which is used both at home and on the road. The road cap, which initially debuted in 1993, is all-forest green. The first version had the white "A's" wordmark before it was changed to gold the following season. An all-forest green batting helmet was paired with this cap until 2008. In 2014, the "A's" wordmark returned to white but added gold trim.

From 1994 until 2013, the A's wore green alternate jerseys with the word "Athletics" in gold, for both road and home games.

During the 2000s, the Athletics introduced black as one of their colors. They began wearing a black alternate jersey with "Athletics" written in green. After a brief discontinuance, the A's brought back the black jersey, this time with "Athletics" written in white with gold highlights. The cap paired with this jersey is all-black, initially with the green and white-trimmed "A's" wordmark, before switching to a white and gold-trimmed "A's" wordmark. Commercially popular but rarely chosen as the alternate by players, the black uniform was retired in 2011 in favor of a gold alternate jersey.

The gold alternate has "A's" in green trimmed in white on the left chest. With the exception of several road games during the 2011 season, the Athletics' gold uniforms were used as the designated home alternates. A green version of their gold alternates was introduced for the 2014 season, serving as a replacement to the previous green alternates. The new green alternates featured the piping, "A's" and lettering in white with gold trim.

In 2018, as part of the franchise's 50th anniversary since the move to Oakland, the A's wore a kelly green alternate uniform with "Oakland" in white with gold trim, and was paired with an all-kelly green cap. This set was later worn with an alternate kelly green helmet with gold visor. This uniform eventually supplanted the gold alternates by 2019, and in 2022, after the forest green alternate was retired, it became the team's only active alternate uniform.

The nickname "A's" has long been used interchangeably with "Athletics", dating to the team's early days when headline writers used it to shorten the name. From 1972 through 1980, the team name was officially "Oakland A's", although the Commissioner's Trophy, given out annually to the winner of baseball's World Series, still listed the team's name as the "Oakland Athletics" on the gold-plated pennant representing the Oakland franchise. According to Bill Libby's Book, Charlie O and the Angry A's, owner Charlie O. Finley banned the word "Athletics" from the club's name because he felt that name was too closely associated with former Philadelphia Athletics owner Connie Mack, and he wanted the name "Oakland A's" to become just as closely associated with him. The name also vaguely suggested the name of the old minor league Oakland Oaks, which were alternatively called the "Acorns". New owner Walter Haas restored the official name to "Athletics" in 1981, but retained the nickname "A's" for marketing. At first, the word "Athletics" was restored only to the club's logo, underneath the much larger stylized-"A" that had come to represent the team since the early days. By 1987, however, the word returned, in script lettering, to the front of the team's jerseys.

Prior to the mid-2010s, the A's had a long-standing tradition of wearing white cleats team-wide (in line with the standard MLB practice that required all uniformed team members to wear a base cleat color), which dated to the Finley ownership. Since the mid-2010s, however, MLB has gradually relaxed its shoe color rules, and several A's players began wearing cleats in non-white colors, such as Jed Lowrie's green cleats.

Ballpark history

The Oakland Coliseum—originally the Oakland–Alameda County Coliseum, and later named as Network Associates, McAfee, Overstock.com/O.co and RingCentral Coliseum—was built as a multi-purpose facility. Louisiana Superdome officials pursued negotiations with Oakland Athletics officials during the 1978–79 baseball offseason about moving the Oakland Athletics to their facility in New Orleans. The Oakland Athletics were unable to break their lease at the Coliseum, and remained in Oakland.

After the Oakland Raiders moved to Los Angeles in 1982, many improvements were made to what was suddenly a baseball-only facility. The 1994 movie Angels in the Outfield was filmed in part at the Coliseum, filling in for Anaheim Stadium following the damage from the 1994 Northridge earthquake.

In 1995, the Raiders moved back to Oakland. The Coliseum was expanded to 63,026 seats. The bucolic view of the Oakland foothills that baseball spectators enjoyed was replaced with a jarring view of an outfield grandstand contemptuously referred to as "Mount Davis" after Raiders' owner Al Davis. Because construction was not finished by the start of the 1996 season, the Athletics were forced to play their first six-game homestand at 9,300-seat Cashman Field in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Although official capacity was listed as 43,662 for baseball, seats were sometimes sold in Mount Davis, pushing actual capacity to nearly 60,000. The ready availability of tickets on game day made season tickets a tough sell, while crowds as high as 30,000 often seemed sparse in such a venue. On December 21, 2005, the Athletics announced that seats in the Coliseum's third deck would not be sold for the 2006 season, but would instead be covered with a tarp, and that tickets would no longer be sold in Mount Davis under any circumstances. That effectively reduced capacity to 34,077, making the Coliseum the lowest-capacity stadium in Major League Baseball. Beginning in 2008, sections 316–318 immediately behind home plate were the only third-deck sections open for A's games, which brought the total capacity to 35,067 until 2017, when new team president Dave Kaval took the tarps off of the upper deck, increasing capacity to 47,170. The Athletics were the last MLB team to share a stadium full-time with an NFL team, a situation that ended when the Raiders moved to Las Vegas in 2020.

The Oakland Athletics' spring training facility is Hohokam Stadium, in Mesa, Arizona. From 1982 to 2014, their spring training facility was Phoenix Municipal Stadium, in Phoenix, Arizona; they also spent time playing in Scottsdale, Arizona.

Improvements to the Coliseum

New areas

In 2017, the team created an outdoor plaza in the space between the Coliseum and Oracle Arena. The grassy area is open to all ticketed fans, and it features food trucks, seating and games like corn hole for every Athletics home game. The following year, the team introduced The Treehouse, a 10,000-square-foot (930 m) area open to all fans with two full-service bars, standing-room and lounge seating, numerous televisions with pre-game and postgame entertainment. The A's Stomping Ground transformed part of the Eastside Club and the area near the right-field flag poles into a fun and interactive space for kids and families. The inside section features a stage and video wall for interactive events, a digital experience that lets youngsters race their favorite Athletics players, replica team dugouts, a simulated hitting and pitching machine, foosball, and a photo booth. The outside area includes play areas, a grassy seating area, drink rails for parents, and picnic tables, a miniature baseball field and spiderweb play area.

Premium spaces

The team added three new premium spaces, including The Terrace, Lounge Seats, and the Coppola Theater Boxes, to the Coliseum for the 2019 season. The new premium seating options offer fans a high-end game-day experience with luxury amenities. The team also added two new group spaces – the Budweiser Hero Deck and Golden Road Landing – to the Coliseum.

Other additions

In addition, the tarps on the upper deck were removed; a modern version of the beloved mechanical Harvey the Rabbit to deliver the first pitch ball was re-introduced, while the playing surface at the Coliseum was renamed "Rickey Henderson Field". The team held the first free game in MLB history for 46,028 fans on April 17, 2018, to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Athletics first game in Oakland. The team tried a new concept in season ticketing in the A's Access plan that involved "general admission access to every home game with a set number of reserved-seat upgrades allotted", which was meant to replace previous attempts at subscription-based services that they tried with Ballpark Pass and Treehouse Pass. On July 21, 2018, the Athletics set a Coliseum record for the largest attendance with a crowd of 56,310 when the team hosted to the San Francisco Giants.

Prior stadium proposals

Oakland

Since the early 2000s, the Oakland A's had been in talks with Oakland and other Northern California cities about building a new baseball-only stadium. The team had said it wanted to remain in Oakland. A 2017 plan would have placed a new 35,000 seat A's stadium near Laney College and the Eastlake neighborhood on the site of the Peralta Community College District's administration buildings. The plan was announced by team president Dave Kaval in September 2017. However, three months later, negotiations abruptly ended. On November 28, 2018, the Oakland Athletics announced that the team had chosen to build its new 34,000-seat ballpark at the Howard Terminal site at the Port of Oakland. The team also announced its intent to purchase the Coliseum site and renovate it into a tech and housing hub, preserving Oakland Arena and reducing the Coliseum to a low-rise sports park as San Francisco did with Kezar Stadium. In April 2023, the City of Oakland ended discussions with the Oakland Athletics organization after the announcement of a new ballpark in Las Vegas, amid widespread claims that the team was not negotiating in good faith and was using the proposed site in Oakland to leverage a better deal in Las Vegas instead of any real intention to stay within the city.

Fremont

On November 7, 2006, the news media announced the Athletics would be leaving Oakland as early as 2010 for a new stadium in Fremont, confirmed the next day by the Fremont City Council. The plan was strongly supported by Fremont Mayor Bob Wasserman. The team would have played in Cisco Field, a 32,000-seat, baseball-only facility. The proposed ballpark would have been part of a larger "ballpark village" which would have included retail and residential development. On February 24, 2009, however, Lew Wolff released an open letter announcing the end of his efforts to relocate the A's to Fremont, citing "real and threatened" delays to the project. The project faced opposition from some in the community who thought the relocation of the A's to Fremont would increase traffic problems in the city and decrease property values near the ballpark site.

San Jose

In 2009, the City of San Jose attempted to open negotiations with the team regarding a move to the city. Although land south of Diridon Station would be acquired by the city as a stadium site, the San Francisco Giants' claim on Santa Clara County as part of their home territory would have to be settled before any agreement could be made.

By 2010, San Jose was "aggressively wooing" Oakland A's owner Lew Wolff, the city as the team's "best option", but Major League Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig said he would await a report on whether the team could move to the area, because of the Giants conflict. In September 2010, 75 Silicon Valley CEOs drafted and signed a letter to Bud Selig urging a timely approval of the move to San Jose. In May 2011, San Jose Mayor Chuck Reed sent a letter to Bud Selig asking the commissioner for a timetable of when he might decide whether the A's can pursue this new ballpark, but Selig did not respond.

Selig addressed the San Jose issue via an online town hall forum held in July 2011, saying, "Well, the latest is, I have a small committee who has really assessed that whole situation, Oakland, San Francisco, and it is complex. You talk about complex situations; they have done a terrific job. I know there are some people who think it's taken too long and I understand that. I'm willing to accept that. But you make decisions like this; I've always said, you'd better be careful. Better to get it done right than to get it done fast. But we'll make a decision that's based on logic and reason at the proper time."

On June 18, 2013, the City of San Jose filed suit against Selig, seeking the court's ruling that Major League Baseball may not prevent the Oakland A's from moving to San Jose. Wolff criticized the lawsuit, stating he did not believe business disputes should be settled through legal action.

Most of the city's claims were dismissed in October 2013, but a U.S. District Judge ruled that San Jose could move forward with its claim that MLB illegally interfered with a land agreement between the city and the A's. On January 15, 2015, a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled unanimously that the claims were barred by baseball's antitrust exemption, established by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1922 and upheld in 1953 and 1972. San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo commented that the city would seek a ruling from the U.S. Supreme Court. On October 5, 2015, the United States Supreme Court rejected San Jose's case.

Rivalries

San Francisco Giants

The Bay Bridge Series was the name of a series of games played between (and the rivalry of) the Oakland A's and San Francisco Giants of the National League. The series took its name from the San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge which links the cities of Oakland and San Francisco. Although competitive, the regional rivalry between the A's and Giants was considered a friendly one with mostly mutual companionship between the fans, as opposed to White Sox–Cubs, or Yankees–Mets games where animosity ran high. Hats displaying both teams on the cap were sold from vendors at the games, and once in a while the teams both dressed in original team uniforms from the early era of baseball. The series was also occasionally referred to as the "BART Series" for the Bay Area Rapid Transit system that links Oakland to San Francisco. However, the name "BART Series" had never been popular beyond a small selection of history books and national broadcasters and had fallen out of favor. Bay Area locals almost exclusively referred to the rivalry as the "Battle of the Bay".

Originally, the term described a series of exhibition games played between the two clubs after the conclusion of spring training, immediately prior to the start of the regular season. It was first used to refer to the 1989 World Series in which the Athletics won their most recent championship and the first time the teams had met since they moved to the San Francisco Bay Area (and the first time they had met since the A's also defeated the Giants in the 1913 World Series). Since the commencement of interleague play, it also referred to games played between the teams during the regular season since 1997. In its existence, the Athletics had won 76 regular season games, and the Giants had won 72 contests.

The A's also had edges on the Giants in terms of overall postseason appearances (21–13), division titles (17–10) and World Series titles (4–3) since both teams moved to the Bay Area, even though the Giants franchise moved there a decade earlier than the A's did.

On March 24, 2018, the Oakland A's announced that for the Sunday, March 25, 2018, exhibition game against the San Francisco Giants, A's fans would be charged $30 for parking and Giants fans would be charged $50. However, the A's stated that Giants fans could receive $20 off if they shout "Go A's" at the parking gates.

In 2018, the Athletics and Giants started battling for a "Bay Bridge" Trophy made from steel taken from the old east span of the Bay Bridge, which was taken down after the new span was opened in 2013. The A's won the inaugural season with the trophy, allowing them to place their logo atop its Bay Bridge stand. When the A's left Oakland, the Giants had won the trophy 4 times, to the A's 3.

Los Angeles Angels

The A's had held a rivalry with the Los Angeles Angels since their relocation to California in 1968, and the charter membership of both teams in the AL West in 1969. The A's and Angels had often competed for the division title. The peak of the rivalry was during the early part of the millennium as both teams were perennial contenders. During the 2002 season, the A's famous "Moneyball" tactics led them to a league record 20-game winning streak, knocking the Angels out of the first seed in the division. The A's finished 4 games ahead while the Angels secured the Wild Card berth. Despite the 103-win season for Oakland, they lost to the underdog Minnesota Twins in the ALDS. The Angels beat the heavily favored New York Yankees, then beat the Twins, and then won the 2002 World Series. During the 2004 season, the teams were tied for wins headed into the final week of September with the last three games being played in Oakland against the Angels. Both teams were battling to secure the division championship. Oakland lost two of the three games to the Angels, and they were eliminated from the playoff hunt. The Angels were swept in the playoffs by the eventual champion Boston Red Sox. While in Oakland, the Athletics lead the series 492–414. The two teams never met in the postseason.

Achievements

Awards

• The Oakland Athletics give out an award named the Catfish Hunter Award since 2004 for the most inspirational Oakland Athletic.

Hall of Famers

Ford C. Frick Award recipients

Retired numbers

The Oakland Athletics had retired six numbers; additionally, Walter A. Haas, Jr., owner of the team from 1980 until his death in 1995, was honored by the retirement of the letter "A". Of the six players with retired numbers, five were retired for their play with the Oakland Athletics and one, 42, was universally retired by Major League Baseball when they honored the 50th anniversary of Jackie Robinson's breaking the color barrier. No A's player from the Philadelphia era had his number retired by the organization. Though Jackson and Hunter played small portions of their careers in Kansas City, no player that played the majority of his years in the Kansas City era had his number retired either. The Oakland A's had retired only the numbers of Hall-of-Famers who played large portions of their careers in Oakland. The Oakland Athletics had all of the numbers of the Hall-of-Fame players from the Philadelphia Athletics displayed at their stadium, as well as all of the years that the Philadelphia Athletics won World Championships (1910, 1911, 1913, 1929, and 1930). Dave Stewart was about to have his #34 jersey retired by the Oakland Athletics in 2020, but the ceremony was postponed until further notice, due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Questions were raised if there would be a formal ceremony after no news about a reschedule happened in 2021 before it was announced in April 2022 that Stewart would have his jersey retired on September 11, 2022. Stewart broke the A's tradition in that his number was a re-retirement, as well as his not being in the Hall of Fame.

Reggie Jackson RF   Retired May 22, 2004 Rickey Henderson LF   Retired August 1, 2009 Catfish Hunter P   Retired June 9, 1991 Rollie Fingers P   Retired July 5, 1993 Dave Stewart P   Retired September 11, 2022 Dennis Eckersley P   Retired August 13, 2005 Walter A. Haas, Jr. Owner   Honored 1995 Jackie Robinson All MLB   Retired April 15, 1997

Oakland Athletics Hall of Fame

On August 14, 2018, the team publicly announced the creation of a team Hall of Fame, complete with the first seven names to be inducted. On September 5, the Oakland Athletics held a ceremony to induct seven members into the inaugural class. Each member was honored with an unveiling of a painting in their likeness and a bright green jacket. Hunter, who died in 1999, was represented by his widow, while Finley, who died in 1996, was represented by his son. Had the Oakland Athletics got a new stadium in Oakland, a physical site would have been designated for the Hall of Fame, as the Coliseum does not have enough space for a full-fledged exhibit. In August 2021, it was announced that players Sal Bando, Eric Chavez, Joe Rudi, director of player development Keith Lieppman, and clubhouse manager Steve "Vuc" Vucinich would be part of the class of 2022; in November 2021, Ray Fosse, who had died the previous month, was posthumously inducted into the Hall of Fame. The 2023 & 2024 classes were inducted in August of each respective year.

Bay Area Sports Hall of Fame

17 members of the Athletics organization have been honored with induction into the Bay Area Sports Hall of Fame.

Team captains

• 6 Sal Bando, 3B, 1969–1976

Radio and television

As of the 2020 season, the Oakland Athletics had 14 radio homes. The Oakland Athletics' flagship radio station was KNEW and the team had a free live 24/7 exclusive A's station branded as A's Cast to stream the radio broadcast within the Oakland Athletics market and other A's programming via iHeartRadio. Going into the 2020 season, the Oakland Athletics had a deal with TuneIn for A's Cast and no flagship radio station in the Bay Area but changed their plans due to the COVID-19 pandemic keeping fans from attending games. The announcing team featured Ken Korach and Vince Cotroneo.

Television coverage was exclusively on NBC Sports California. Some A's games aired on an alternate feed of NBCS, called NBCS Plus, if the main channel showed a Sacramento Kings or San Jose Sharks game at the same time. On TV, Jenny Cavnar covered play-by-play, and Dallas Braden provided color commentary. Some games would feature Chris Caray on play-by-play; Caray is a fourth-generation baseball announcer that included great-grandfather Harry Caray, grandfather Skip Caray, and father Chip Caray.

In popular culture

The 2003 Michael Lewis book Moneyball chronicles the 2002 Oakland Athletics season, with a focus on Billy Beane's economic approach to managing the organization under significant financial constraints. Beginning in June 2003, the book remained on The New York Times Best Seller list for 18 consecutive weeks, peaking at number 2. In 2011, Columbia Pictures released a film adaptation based on Lewis' book, which featured Brad Pitt playing the role of Beane. On September 19, 2011, the U.S. premiere of Moneyball was held at the Paramount Theatre in Oakland, which featured a green carpet for attendees to walk, rather than the traditional red carpet.

The blog that spawned the full-fledged popular sports blog site SBNation was dedicated to the Oakland Athletics.

Eric Shaun Lynch, a former member of The Howard Stern Show's Wack Pack who went by the name "Eric the Actor" (and previously, "Eric the Midget"), was a huge fan of the Oakland Athletics and would occasionally talk about them on Stern's show. Following his death in September 2014, the team broadcasters offered a tribute by using Lynch's signature sign off "bye for now" at the end of an Oakland Athletics game broadcast. During the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic, when American baseball teams were using cutouts of fans to show solidarity in their absence, the Oakland Athletics placed a cutout of Lynch among other cutouts of the team's fans.

See also

• List of Oakland Athletics Opening Day starting pitchers

Explanatory notes

1. The team's official colors are green and gold, according to the official website of the team's mascot, Stomper.
2. Attributed to multiple references:

References

1. Finley Signs Contract to Transfer Athletics to Louisville, The New York Times, 1964-01-06, retrieved 2008-04-29 {{citation}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
2. Neyer, Rob. Rob Neyer's Big Book of Baseball Blunders. ISBN 0743284917
3. ESPN - After quick ALCS exit, A's fire manager Macha - MLB
4. Head-to-Head Record - Baseball-Reference.com
5. Head-to-Head Record - Baseball-Reference.com
6. "About Stomper". Athletics.com. MLB Advanced Media. Retrieved August 21, 2018.
7. Clair, Michael (March 17, 2017). "Why do the A's wear green? You can thank Charlie Finley". MLB.com. MLB Advanced Media. Archived from the original on January 7, 2018. Retrieved January 6, 2018. Before Finley came on board, the then-Kansas City A's wore baseball's standard blue-and-red combination. In 1963, that all changed as Finley outfitted the team in glorious gold (Finley said it was the same shade the United States Naval Academy used) and kelly green for the very first time.
8. Clair, Michael (February 27, 2021). "The best baseball caps ever, by team". MLB.com. MLB Advanced Media. Retrieved June 6, 2023. How many big league teams do you know that wear green and yellow, the most fantastic color scheme in the world? Exactly: Only one.
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For a list of former A's players/prospects still active in Major League Baseball, see List of former A's players/prospects (active).

Baseball Hall of Famers

Philadelphia Athletics

Kansas City Athletics

Oakland Athletics

• Affiliation according to the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum

Names in Bold Inducted as Athletics

* Has no insignia on his cap due to either never wearing a cap, or playing at a time when caps bore no insignia.

** Catfish Hunter could not decide between the Yankees and Athletics, and so opted to wear no insignia on his cap upon his induction.

Retired numbers

The numbers honored are as follows:

Reggie Jackson Outfielder: 1967(KC) 1968-75,87(OAK) Retired 2004

Catfish Hunter Pitcher: 1965-67(KC) 1968-74(OAK) Retired 1990

Rollie Fingers Pitcher: 1968-76(OAK) Retired 1993

Dennis Eckersley Pitcher: 1987-95(OAK) Retired 2005

Walter A. Haas Owner: 1981-95(OAK) Honored 1995

Jackie Robinson Retired by all of MLB Retired 1997

No A's player from the Philadelphia era has his number retired by the organization. Though Jackson and Hunter played small portions of their careers in Kansas City, no player that played the majority of his years in the Kansas City era has his number retired either. As of 2007, the A's have retired only the numbers of members of the Hall of Fame that played large portions of their careers in Oakland.

Athletics in the Bay Area Sports Hall of Fame

•  4 Sam Chapman, CF, 1938–1941, 1945–1951 (Tiburon native)
•  1 Eddie Joost, SS, 1947–1954, Mgr, 1954 (San Francisco native)
• 43 Dennis Eckersley, P, 1987–1995 (born in Oakland, grew up in Fremont)
• 34 Rollie Fingers, P, 1968–1976
• 27 Catfish Hunter, P, 1968–1974
•  9 Reggie Jackson, OF, 1968–1975, 1987
•  1 Billy Martin, MGR, 1980–1982 (Berkeley native)
•  8 Joe Morgan, 2B, 1984 (grew up in Oakland)
• 34 Dave Stewart, P, 1986–1992, 1995 (Oakland native)

Athletics in the Philadelphia Baseball Wall of Fame

The Athletics have made no public notation at McAfee Coliseum honoring Philadelphia Athletics players. But from 1978–1982 and 1984–2003, the Philadelphia Phillies inducted one former Athletic (as well as one former Phillie) per year into the Philadelphia Baseball Wall of Fame at Veterans Stadium. (The Wall of Fame plaques that once graced the concourse of Veterans Stadium are now located at the Philadelphia Athletics Historical Society, located at 6 North York Road in Hatboro, Pennsylvania, about 16 miles north of Center City Philadelphia.)

•  -- Frank "Home Run" Baker, 3B, 1908–1914
•  -- Charles "Chief" Bender, P, 1903–1914
•  6 Sam Chapman, CF, 1938–1951
•  2 Mickey Cochrane, C, 1925–1933
•  -- Eddie Collins, 2B, 1906–1914, 1927–1930
•  -- Jack Coombs, P, 1906–1914
•  5 Jimmy Dykes, 3B/2B, 1918–1932; Coach, 1940–1950; MGR, 1951–1953 (Philadelphia native)
• 11 George Earnshaw, P, 1928–1933
• 5/8 Ferris Fain, 1B, 1947–1952
•  3 Jimmie Foxx, 1B, 1925–1935
• 10 Lefty Grove, P, 1925–1933
•  4 “Indian Bob” Johnson, LF, 1933–1942
•  1 Eddie Joost, SS, 1947–1954; MGR, 1954
•  -- Connie Mack, MGR, 1901–1950; Team Owner, 1901–1954
•  9 Bing Miller, RF, 1922–1926, 1928–1934
•  1 Wally Moses, RF, 1935–1941, 1949–1951
•  -- Rube Oldring, CF, 1906–1916, 1918
•  -- Eddie Plank, P, 1901–1914 (Gettysburg, Pennsylvania native)
• 14 Eddie Rommel, P, 1920–1932
• 30 Bobby Shantz, P, 1949–1954 (Pottstown, Pennsylvania native)
•  7 Al Simmons, LF, 1924–1932, 1940–1941, 1944; Coach 1940–1945
• 10 Elmer Valo, RF, 1940–1954
•  -- Rube Waddell, P, 1902–1907 (Bradford, Pennsylvania native)
• 12 Rube Walberg, P, 1923–1933
• 19 Gus Zernial, LF, 1951–1954

Mack, Foxy, Grove and Cochrane have also been inducted into the Philadelphia Sports Hall of Fame.

Minor league affiliations

• AAA: Sacramento River Cats, Pacific Coast League
• AA: Midland RockHounds, Texas League
• Advanced A: Stockton Ports, California League
• A: Kane County Cougars, Midwest League
• Short A: Vancouver Canadians, Northwest League
• Rookie: AZL Athletics, Arizona League

Radio and television

As of 2007, the Athletics' flagship radio station is KFRC-FM 106.9 FM, a San Francisco station owned by CBS Radio whose format is oldies-based. Games are simulcast by sister station KYCY 1550 AM, which is transitioning from a station based on listener-supplied content to a mainstream hot talk station. The current announcing team is Ken Korach and Vince Cotroneo.

Television coverage is split between KICU, a San Jose based independent station, and CSN Bay Area (formerly FSN Bay Area). Some A's games air on an alternate feed of CSN, called CSN Plus (formerly FSN Plus), if the main channel shows a San Francisco Giants, Golden State Warriors, or San Jose Sharks game at the same time. The selection is basis of the games' importance, in which playoff games are featured on the main channel. On TV, Glen Kuiper and Tim Roye take turns with play-by-play, and Ray Fosse provides color commentary. Fosse also does color commentary on the radio when the A's are not on TV, or the game is on Fox or ESPN. Fosse also does play by play on the radio during Spring training games.

Popularity from 1988-90

During their three American League Championship titles from 1988-1990, the A's were widely popular. A few rap artists wore A's apparel in their videos. Angels in the Outfield features the A's being humiliated by the Angels. An episode of the cartoon Beetlejuice features a baseball game between the Jokeland Laffletics and a team called the Prankees, a play on both the Athletics and the New York Yankees.

See also

• Athletics award winners and league leaders
• Athletics statistical records and milestone achievements
• List of Oakland Athletics broadcasters
• Managers and ownership of the Oakland Athletics
• Cisco Field
• Oakland Athletics all-time roster

References

• Bergman, Ron. Mustache Gang: The Swaggering Tale of Oakland's A's. Dell Publishing Co., New York, 1973.
• Dickey, Glenn. Champions: The Story of the First Two Oakland A's Dynasties—and the Building of the Third. Triumph Books, Chicago, 2002. ISBN 157243421X
• Jordan, David M. The Athletics of Philadelphia: Connie Mack's White Elephants, 1901-1954. McFarland & Co., Jefferson NC, 1999. ISBN 0-7864-0620-8.
• Katz, Jeff. "The Kansas City A's & The Wrong Half of the Yankees." Maple Street Press, Hingham, MA, 2006. ISBN 978-0-9777-436-5-0.
• Kuklich, Bruce. To Everything a Season: Shibe Park and Urban Philadelphia 1909-1976. Princeton University Press, Princeton NJ, 1991. ISBN 0-691-04788-X.
• Lewis, Michael. Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game. W. W. Norton & Co., Inc., New York, 2003. ISBN 0-393-05765-8.
• Markusen, Bruce. Baseball's Last Dynasty: Charlie Finley's Oakland A's. Master Press, Indianapolis, 1998.
• Peterson, John E. The Kansas City Athletics: A Baseball History 1954–1967. McFarland & Co., Jefferson NC, 1999. ISBN 0-7864-1610-6.
• 2005 Oakland Athletics Media Guide

External links

• Athletics (baseball) official website
• Philadelphia Athletics Historical Society
• Oakland Athletics stats and minor league statistics
• Sports E-Cyclopedia
• Eddie Plank
• Oakball Forums
• Oakland A's Minor League Information
• Athleticscast: The Voice of Die-hard A's Fans

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• Oakland Athletics
• Baseball teams established in 1968
• Baseball teams disestablished in 2024
• Baseball in Oakland, California
• History of Oakland, California
• Major League Baseball teams
• Baseball teams in California
• Sports in Oakland, California
• Sports clubs established in 1901
• Cactus League
• Companies based in Alameda County, California