Oakland Athletics

Oakland A's (1970-1980)
Oakland Athletics (1968-1969)
Kansas City Athletics (1955-1967)
Philadelphia Athletics (1901-1954)

American League (since 1901) West Division (since 1969)

Oakland Coliseum ( since 1968 )
Municipal Stadium (Kansas City ) ( 1955-1967 )
Shibe Park ( Philadelphia ) ( 1909-1954 )
Columbia Park (Philadelphia ) ( 1901-1908 )

World Series (9): 1910, 1911, 1913, 1929, 1930, 1972, 1973, 1974, 1989
American League titles (15): 1902, 1905, 1910, 1911, 1913, 1914, 1929-1931, 1972-1974, 1988-1990
Division titles (16): 1971-1975, 1981, 1988-1990, 1992, 2000, 2002, 2003, 2006, 2012, 2013

The Oakland Athletics are a Major League Baseball team from the California Oakland. They play in the Western Division of the American League. The team is often referred to for short as The A's.

2.1 The Old English "A" as a jersey badge
2.2 mascots
2.3 Stadium

History

Origins

The Oakland Athletics were founded in 1893 in Indianapolis and played in the Western League, a minor league, for the American League in 1900. 1901 attracted the A's to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where they played until 1954 when Philadelphia Athletics. 1955-1967 played the Athletics in Kansas City, Missouri, and eventually moved to Oakland in 1968.

The name Athletics goes back to an amateur team called the Athletics of Philadelphia, which was founded in 1860. After this team became a professional baseball team, she joined in 1871 at the National Association of Professional Baseball and brought in the first year their first Pennant title in the Major Leagues. The Athletics of Philadelphia played until 1875 in the National Association and in 1876 was one of the founding members of the National League, but were excluded after just one season out of the league. A later team the Athletics played from 1882 to 1891 in the American Association.

Oakland (1968 -present)

Three World Series in a row

After a sports drought of 40 years, the A's had during the first half of the 1970s again with great success. They won three consecutive World Series ( 1972-1974 ). Star of the team was outfielder Reggie Jackson, who is ranked 11th all-time best list of his home runs. The three strongest pitcher Catfish Hunter were, Rollie Fingers and Vida Blue, all of which were awarded in the course of her career, the Cy Young Award. Other pillars of the team were Sal Bando ( third base ), Joe Rudi ( outfield ) and Bert Campaneris ( shortstop ). During this time played with Herb Washington, a pure pinch runner, also one of the more curious players MLB history at the Athletics. Most of these players left the Athletics until 1977, after which some weak seasons followed.

The Bay Series

Only in the early 1980s, a new winning team could be built. Finally, this again reached the finals three times in the playoffs (1988, 1989 and 1990 ), where they won the 1989 World Series. Since the playoffs against the neighboring San Francisco Giants were held, they went as Bay Series in history. Among the most successful players of this era were part of a Rickey Henderson ( outfield ), the player with the most Stolen Bases of MLB history, and the two slugger Jose Canseco ( outfield ) and Mark McGwire ( First Base ), the number 32 and 8 the list with the most homers are. Other important players of this team were the pitcher Dennis Eckersley and Dave Stewart, Carney Lansford ( third base ) and Walt Weiss ( shortstop ). After 1992, the team fell apart.

Moneyball Years

Since 1997, Billy Beane is the general manager of the A's. This formed a new team that was much cheaper than the champion teams of the 1970s and 1980s. Beane chose players who seemed to be mediocre by conventional statistics, but according to so-called Sabermetrics were above average. This phase was called Moneyball Years. Despite financial inferiority over the competition succeeded in Athletics from 2000 to 2003 to move into the play-offs, where they were beaten every time in the first round failed (de facto in the quarterfinals ). This period was dominated by the designated as the Big Three pitchers Tim Hudson, Mark Mulder and Barry Zito. For this, the infielder Jason Giambi came ( First Base ), Miguel Tejada ( shortstop ) and Eric Chavez ( third base, and six -time winner of the Gold Glove ), each of which was good batter. After the 2004 season until Chávez all top players were issued in exchange for young talent. The events of the year in 2011 in the feature film to win The Art - processed Moneyball.

Since 2006

2006 succeeded the A's their last success: They not only reached the play-offs, but made it to the finals of the American League, where they but the Detroit Tigers subject. After this season, one more time the better-known players were exchanged against talent from other teams. This was followed by three years with more defeats than victories for the team.

Logo and Stadium

The Old English "A" as a jersey badge

Over the years, the Athletics have their jerseys honored with their ancestors amateur times. Until 1954, when on the fronts of the jerseys for the first time " Athletics" was the name of the team appeared neither home nor on away kits. Furthermore, never "Philadelphia" or the letter "P " was written on the caps or the jerseys. Had the standard jersey of the Athletics only on the left front side a stylized "A", which was also seen on the caps. While the team played in Kansas City, stood on the away kit "Kansas City" and an interlocking " KC " on the caps. When moving to Oakland "A" was introduced on cap and jersey again in 1970 and supplemented by the " apostrophe -S" to its present form.

At present, the Athletics wear at home games jerseys with the word " Athletics" and away with the word " Oakland ". The caps and team logo is still the traditional stylized " A's "

Mascot

After John McGraw, manager of the New York Giants reporters on alleged, the principal owner of the new team, Benjamin Shibe, possessed a " white elephant " ( in English, the term " white elephant " for something that causes more work or costs, as worth it ), took over manager Connie Mack the allegations despite the white elephant as the mascot of the team. Over the years, changed only several times the color currently is forest green elephant. The Athletics are sometimes, though irregular, referred to as Elephants or White Elephants.

The elephant was in 1963 by the then owner, Charles O. Finley, replaced by a mule, the heraldic animal of the State of Missouri. 1986, the elephant was introduced as a symbol of Athletics again and currently adorns the left sleeve of home and away kits.

Stadium

The owners of the team stood for many years in relation to the problematic issue of venue for the home games. The Oakland Coliseum was considered by many as one of the best ballparks Major League, although it was originally designed as a multi functional device and was also used by the football team, the Oakland Raiders as a venue. After the Raiders moved to Los Angeles in 1982, many improvements were made to the stadium, which now has a pure baseball stadium.

In 1994, a treaty was concluded, which the Los Angeles Raiders would move back to Oakland for the 95er season. The agreement required the expansion of the Coliseum to over 63,000 places. The rural views of the foothills, the fans could enjoy when visiting the stadium, was replaced by a huge grandstand, which is called by the baseball fans contemptuously " Mount Davis ", so named after the owner of the Raiders Al Davis. From the perspective of baseball fans, however, was the highlight of the insults that the expansion was not yet completed at the beginning of the '96 baseball season, leading the Athletics compelled to settle their first home games at another ground. Finally, was the 9,300 -seat Cashman Field in Las Vegas, Nevada selected. There were six "home games" played.

Since that time has been expressed by the owners that a new ballpark is necessary to ensure the economic survival of Athletics. 2005, the new owner Lewis Wolff published his plans to build a new venue with 35,000 seats. The New Oakland ballpark should not occur far from the current venue as part of a larger commercial and residential area.

Rivalries

The Athletics have major rivalries from the dimensions of the rivalry between the New York Yankees and the Boston Red Sox, Los Angeles Dodgers and the San Francisco Giants or between the Chicago Cubs and the St. Louis Cardinals. This comes partly from the fact that the team was to be found in their last two decades in Philadelphia and throughout their time in Kansas City on the rear seats of the division. Another reason was the two parades over the years, of which local rivalries not emerged. Although the Athletics play in the American League since 1901, their competitors come into the Division from later vintages. The Los Angeles Angels were founded in 1961, as the Texas Rangers ( but only been playing in 1972 in Dallas ). The Seattle Mariners were formed only in 1977. However, the closest rival of Athletics in the American League in recent years were more likely to teams that they faced too Philadelphia - times, such as the New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox, if only because of the hard-fought encounter in the play-offs.

In the 1970s, established a strong rivalry with the Kansas City Royals, which was triggered by the Kansas City fans who were dissatisfied with the relocation of the A's in 1968 from Kansas City to Oakland. Moreover, there is a rivalry between the football teams of the two cities, the Oakland Raiders and the Kansas City Chiefs.

In the last few decades has also developed a strong rivalry with the San Francisco Giants because of geographical proximity. The encounter between the two teams is commonly referred to as the " Bay Bridge Series ". The name of the series comes from the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge, which connects the two cities. The teams faced each other in 1989 in the World Series against the Athletics won 4-0, called a sweep. Since both teams have a long history and rich pasts, they met before their relocation to the West Coast ( the Giants are originally from New York ) three times in the World Series each other, of which the Athletics two, the Giants wore them a title.

Members of the Baseball Hall of Fame

Frank Baker Chief Bender Ty Cobb Mickey Cochrane

Eddie Collins Jimmy Collins Stan Coveleski Elmer Flick

Nellie Fox Jimmie Foxx Lefty Grove Waite Hoyt George Kell

Nap Lajoie Connie Mack Herb Pennock Eddie Plank

Luke Appling1

Lou Boudreau1

Whitey Herzog2 Tommy Lasorda2

Satchel Paige

Enos Slaughter

Orlando Cepeda Dennis Eckersley

Rollie Fingers Goose Gossage Rickey Henderson

Catfish Hunter * Reggie Jackson

Willie McCovey Joe Morgan Don Sutton

Billy Williams Dick Williams2

Current squad

Pitcher

Starting rotation

49 Brett Anderson
40 Bartolo Colon
54 Sonny Gray
11 Jarrod Parker
67 Dan Straily

Bullpen

Closer

50 Grant Balfour

Catcher

36 Derek Norris
22 Kurt Suzuki
21 Stephen Vogt

Infielder

Outfielder

Yoenis Cespedes 52
4 Coco Crisp
16 Josh Reddick
15 Seth Smith
25 Chris Young

Pitcher

65 Pedro Figueroa
64 A. J. Griffin
68 Arnold Leon
57 Tommy Milone
47 Pat Neshek
58 Evan Scribner
31 Andrew Werner
66 Michael Ynoa

Catcher

5 John Jaso

Infielder

7 Nate Freiman
12 Andy Parrino
19 Jemile Weeks

Outfielder

35 Michael Choice
32 Shane Peterson
23 Michael Taylor

Manager

6 Bob Melvin

Coach

51 Darren Bush ( Bullpen )
30 Chili Davis ( Hitting )
2 Mike Gallego ( Third Base )
14 Chip Hale (Bench)
59 Ariel Prieto (Coach )
46 Tye Waller ( first base )
41 Curt Young ( pitching )

Injured List (60 days)

33 Fernando Rodriguez
29 Scott Sizemore

Injured List (15 days) * Locked Roster updated on October 4, 2013 Transfers • Establishment

No longer assigned numbers

9 Reggie Jackson
27 Catfish Hunter
34 Rollie Fingers
42 Jackie Robinson (for all baseball team )
43 Dennis Eckersley

Notable Events and Records

20 games winning streak: The Oakland Athletics won between August 13 and September 4, 2002 20 games in a row and thus set a new record in the American League on. The last three wins were very dramatic, every triumph was achieved only at the end of the last innings. The series was finally interrupted in Minnesota. The record of the entire Major League keep the New York Giants, who were unbeaten in 1916 in 26 consecutive games, which also means to National League record. Within these 26 games, however, is a draw, which ( before the introduction of floodlights) nothing was unusual at that time. The record for most games won in a row is 21, set in 1935 by the Chicago Cubs on their way to the National League Pennant. Since 2011 there is also a film about the winning streak: the art of winning - Moneyball.

City Series: The Athletics played in June 2003 for the first time in a championship season against their former city rivals and co-users of Shibe Park, the Philadelphia Phillies. Before they met only at the annual Friendship Games, which were awarded the title of " The City Series ". But since the two teams play in different leagues and never faced in the World Series, the two teams never met each other in an important game. The Inter League games, which debuted in 1997, made it possible, however, that both teams clashed during the season. Before the first stage of the game celebrations were held in Philadelphia, Veterans, where former Philadelphia A's players were excellent. The Phillies won the first series then 2-1 at home games. The second series in June 2005 in Oakland were won by the Athletics 2-1.

Minor league teams of the Oakland Athletics

AAA: Sacramento River Cats, Sacramento, California
AA: Midland RockHounds, Midland, Texas
Advanced A: Stockton Ports, Stockton. California
A Kane County Cougars, Geneva, Illinois
Short A: Vancouver Canadians, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
Rookie: Arizona League Athletics, Phoenix, Arizona

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