Title/Author:
“Finley Ball: How Two
Outsiders Turned the Oakland A’s Into a Dynasty and Changed the Game Forever”
by Nancy Finley
Tags:
Baseball, Athletics,
history, memoir
Publish date:
March 28, 2016
Length:
253 pages
Rating:
5 of 5 stars (outstanding)
Review:
Charley O. Finley was
one of the most colorful, innovative and controversial owners in baseball
history. From the moment he outbid a Kansas City sportswriter to purchase the
Kansas City Athletics to the day he sold the franchise to Walter Haas, he was
continually working on improving the team despite rubbing some people in
baseball and the media the wrong way.
One person who played
a very important role in the operations of the franchise was Finley’s brother
Carl. Often Charlie would call Carl in the wee hours of the morning, waking
Carl and his daughter Nancy. Nancy would often listen to her father’s side of
the conversation. Stories about these conversations and other tidbits that only
an insider would know make up this book written by Nancy Finley about the time
that her family owned the Kansas City/Oakland team.
Nancy Finley was
allowed access to the team’s offices and clubhouse from the time she was a
young girl until her uncle sold the team.This allowed her to witness some of
the inside work done by her family to improve the team and everything
associated with it. These items included the
improvements made to Municipal Stadium in Kansas City, the wild celebrations
when the Oakland A’s won three consecutive World Series titles from 1972 to
1974 and later, the “Billy Ball” years when her uncle hired Billy Martin as the
manager to groom the young talent signed to replace the starts from the
championship teams that mostly left for more money from other teams.
Throughout the book,
it is clear that Nancy wants to ensure that readers get a complete picture of
some of the more controversial aspects of the era in which her uncle owned the
team. This includes revealing documents about incident involving Mike Andrews
during the 1973 World Series, the inside story about the 1967 incident aboard a
team flight that resulted in the firing of manager Alvin Dark, the failed
negotiations with the City Council in Kansas City that ultimately paved the way
for the move to Oakland and even a few stories about the beloved mascot mule
Charlie O.
Through memories she
had of her and her dad working for her uncle at the Oakland Coliseum and meticulous
research, the reader will learn much about the team that was not written in the
media. She writes with a sense of pride
about what her father and uncle accomplished with the team, not only for the
championship teams in the 1970’s but also about what her family endured in
Kansas City from the writer who failed to purchase the team and from the city
of Oakland, who sued the Finleys in 1980 for putting a poor team on the
field. (While the team’s record in 1979
was only 54-108, they had a lot of good young players who two years later made
it to the postseason.)
This is a very
entertaining and fun book to read that any baseball fan, especially fans of the
Athletics, will want to include in his or her library. It is an excellent collection of stories from
one of the more colorful owners in baseball history.
I wish to thank Ms.
Finley for providing a copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.
Book Format Read:
Hardcover
Buying links:
The book is a much needed piece of revisionist history writing about the Finley era. One that doesn't swing the pendulum too far back by making Charley a hero in all things but one that provides some missing nuance and context to certain events, especially the Mike Andrews incident. The preservation of the court documents and what they reveal about how Andrews concealed the nature of his injuries before the A's acquired him and how Dick Williams was foolishly wasting a roster spot for someone who was no longer of much help to the team means we can't look at the story quite the same way again.
ReplyDeleteVery good
ReplyDelete