Finley Ball (19 page)

CHAPTER 38

THE LAST FINLEY TEAM

1981

A
lthough we no longer owned the franchise, we considered the 1981 Oakland A's our last team. That team had the greatest start to a season in the history of baseball and finished first in the American League West. It almost didn't matter that the season was interrupted by a players' strike.

It was the Haas family's first full season as the owners. More importantly, it was Billy Martin's second season as manager, and the fame of “Billy Ball” was about to peak. The A's were the talk of baseball.

Something was different off the field, too. Led by its marketing guru Andy Dolich, the front office was trying things that no other pro sports team had tried. Dolich promoted the “Billy Ball” brand that Martin embodied, mixing witty TV ads with relentless outreach to Bay Area households. As the team won and won, old A's fans—and plenty of new ones—came out in droves to the Coliseum.

As excited as everyone was to be back in the playoffs after a six-year drought, I can't say that I had fun. I was a kid during the World Series
glory years, but in 1981 I was twenty-three. I had expectations and had developed a competitive streak. As the A's trailed 4–0 in Game Three of the American League Championship Series at the Oakland Coliseum, I was overcome with a frustration that I had never felt before when watching baseball. After two consecutive seasons in which the A's reached the playoffs, I sat there during the game second-guessing nearly all of Martin's moves, seething in anger that none of them, for once, was paying off. You could say that I was watching the game like any other die-hard A's fan, but that doesn't really capture it. I know what it's like to have the whole world hang on every swing of a bat, foul ball, base hit, line drive. It's the best and the most stressful feeling ever. Every base hit by the other team made me want to throw up. But every hit by our side didn't really make that feeling go away. In fact, I was watching the game as Charlie did, reacting to each pitch with all the childlike emotion that he used to.

When New York closer Goose Gossage got the last out and the Yankees celebrated on the Coliseum turf, I joined forty-seven thousand other A's fans in sorrow that night. None of us knew it at the time, but a major chapter in the franchise's history had just come to a close.

The fact is, the 1981 team was largely Charlie's roster—talent he and Dad had scouted and signed up in previous years. He had been, in fact, rebuilding the team, using his unique and successful intuitive methods. In 1980 Charlie and Dad had left Oakland and the new owners the foundation of a great team. What they did with it was, for the first time in twenty years, out of our hands.

The 1982 season was not as impressive, with a fifth-place finish, perhaps because Billy was seen selecting the lineup for some games by pulling names from a hat. Was that a sign of burnout?

FRONT OFFICE FINISH-OUT

All the years that we were in the Coliseum we had depressing, cold, unfinished cinderblock walls in our front offices. The Coliseum board never got around to fulfilling the promise it first made back in 1968 to
finish out the offices. Charlie, as stubborn as his namesake mule, refused to put his own money into the stadium—he had learned his lesson in Kansas City—and the cinderblock walls remained unfinished. The new owners, however, had less tolerance for such Spartan surroundings. They reluctantly put up the money to finish the walls and floors and replace the overhead florescent lights. When they were done it was a lovely place.

CHAPTER 39

THE LAST PHONE CALL

1982

M
any fans have asked me over the years whatever happened to Harvey the mechanical rabbit. Harvey had been installed in Kansas City in a shaft just behind the home plate umpire and would pop up with a big grin and a fresh baseball after a foul ball or homer. The grinning rabbit with the glowing red eyes followed the team to Oakland, where he continued to entertain fans, but after a few years he malfunctioned. Harvey could get only halfway up his home plate rabbit hole, and Dad never got around to having it repaired.

When Charlie sold the franchise, he asked Dad to do away with Harvey so he wouldn't be subject to ridicule by the media. Dad told me he rolled up his sleeves and smashed Harvey to little pieces with a baseball bat. I think it was some kind of grief ritual, Dad's saying good-bye to the times, but I felt so sad to hear what had happened to Harvey.

For years, Charlie called Dad every morning to talk about the state of the A's or what a sportswriter had said about Charlie or just to gossip. Once Charlie had sold the team, the phone calls were fewer and farther
in between. Dad could tell that it bothered Charlie when the A's made the playoffs in '81 without him. He would remind Charlie that the team's success was tied to the talent they had drafted and signed in the mid-to-late 1970s, their coaches, their manager Billy Martin, and other key persons pulled up from their farm team or acquired in trades. Charlie may have been gone, but his and Dad's handiwork was still paying dividends for the Oakland A's.

MARTIN CRASHES

As the losses piled up in 1982, Billy Martin started to unravel. The manager had always been a wild card—a hard-drinking, insecure scrapper famous for coaxing unlikely wins from untalented rosters by day and a bar brawler by night. He was a local boy, having grown up on West Berkeley's mean streets in the 1940s. His hardscrabble origins led him to hate the wealthy kids from the Berkeley hills and those sophisticated college students at Cal. Unfortunately for Billy, the A's new owners—led by Walter Haas Jr., his son Wally Haas, and his son-in-law Roy Eisenhardt—were exactly like those UC Berkeley kids he grew up disliking.

“Why do they use all those big words?” Billy would complain to Dad over beers in his office. “Why do they want to talk all the time? Why don't they just leave me alone and let me do my job?” He had a hard time relating to people he thought talked down to him.

So while the season wound down, the lava in Billy's gut kept rising. At some point, something had to give. Among other things, Martin was heard yelling racial and other expletives from inside the offices.

One morning when Dad arrived at work, early as usual, he walked in to find the smashed remnants of Billy Martin's office—light fixtures torn from a wall, a wrecked desk and chairs, broken glass, and a TV with the screen kicked in. After pondering the scene for a moment, he picked up his hat and headed out. As he passed the receptionist's desk she mouthed the word “Billy.”

Dad turned around and went back to his office, closed the door, and tried to dial Martin's office, on the hope that at least one phone was left
working there. No luck. Then he dialed another number. “Charlie? That's right, you old sonuvabitch,” Dad said with a big belly laugh. “Now, tell me exactly what you know about all this.” He listened to Charlie's reply, then laughed again. The Finley rascals were talking once more about the inner workings of the Oakland A's. And for a moment, for both of them, all was right with the world again.

It was never clear why Martin destroyed his office. In any event, as with every other kind of mess in the front office, it was left to Dad to clean it all up. His classic understated smile briefly crossed his face, and he made some calls to get some help. A little later he returned with his camera and took half a dozen photos.

LONG AND MERITORIOUS SERVICE

Dad continued with the Athletics franchise for a few years after Charlie sold it. He was listed in the 1983 Club Directory as “Vice-President and General Counsel,” the fourth of the sixty-seven names listed. He mentored the man who would eventually replace him, Richard Alderson, known as Sandy, the assistant to the president for baseball operations. Sandy shadowed Dad each day, observing and learning how things were run, and they frequently traveled together on franchise business. Dad remarked to me that he and Sandy had stimulating conversations and called him “really bright.”

Although the A's would call on him for occasional help for several more years, Dad officially retired in 1984. At a dinner in New York, Major League Baseball presented him with a rare lifetime pass to all major league games. Lee MacPhail, president of the American League, and Chuck Feeney, president of the National League, signed it. The simple inscription on the gold-colored metal pass could not have been more fitting: “For Long and Meritorious Service.”

CHAPTER 40

LEGACY

H
ow did they do it?

An important part of Charlie's and Dad's legacy is the lessons they taught about building a winning team. Some of these lessons are obvious, but for a number of teams they're hidden in plain sight.

FARM TEAMS

Charlie and Dad understood from day one that the key to building a winning team was, quite simply, their
farm teams
in Birmingham, Vancouver, and Modesto. Yes, other owners gave their farm teams lip service. But Charlie and Dad understood, or quickly learned, that the farm team was not just one more thing to have to think about; it was the cornerstone of a successful franchise. Charlie said he planned ten years in advance. Today's teams, with all their frantic trading, seem to seek instant gratification. Not Charlie. Not Dad.

COACHES

Charlie and Dad discussed hiring our coaches in detail.

My husband has observed that some clubs trade players who haven't met the team's expectations, only to see those same players become stars on other teams. He speculates that it's because of the coaches. Some coaches cannot bring out the best in the players, and others can. I think a lot of the Finley success was due to our coaches. Our coaches sometimes worked in our front office during off-season.

TIME

Charlie would trade if a player's “chemistry” was not right, but he kept the core group of highly talented players together so long that anticipating what each other would do became a matter of instinct. The shortstop could throw to second base even if no one was there; he knew by habit exactly when the second baseman would get back to base. If players have good chemistry, leave it alone.

INSTINCT AND SCOUTING

Charlie had remarkable instinct. He could look a prospect in the eye and tell whether he was a winner or not, like a racehorse owner looking into a thoroughbred's eyes. He could see it in old players as well as young prospects. He could see potential in a player that others could not. You might say he had a “savant's” eye.

More than that, he could tell whether a player was a winner
in the moment
. His posture as he approached the batter's box. The look on his face while standing in the dugout observing the game. His gait as he ran out to center field. A quick call to the dugout from his office in Chicago.

Charlie did much of his own scouting and recruiting. Marvin Miller of the players' union marveled, “Finley is absolutely the best judge of baseball talent I've ever seen.”

It has become conventional in Major League Baseball not to mention instinct. Winning or losing, it is thought, is largely a question of money,
statistics, shrewd trading, and selling. For some it is only a business investment. We did not follow any of those paths. We took a different path to winning.

FANS

For us, the fans were always number one. We hosted special social events—which players were required to attend—for our season ticket holders. We sent out seventy-five thousand valentines to local high schools that served as free passes. We let fans go onto the field to pet Charlie O and have their photos taken with him. We gave discounts to seniors and students. We often sent Charlie O to visit children in the hospital. One of my occasional jobs was to circulate among the fans and tell them Charlie and Carl Finley say hello. As Rex Lardner wrote in
Life
in 1961, “It is doubtful if any owner or part owner has ever been as solicitous about the comfort of the fan or the peace of mind of his players, or has identified himself so closely with the success of his ball club.”

“HELICOPTER” OWNER

According to Charlie's critics, he victimized his players, pressured them with unfair expectations, and argued with them about compensation. You'd think he locked them up in a prison called the World Series.

No. They stayed, they became winners, and they were proud of it.

Charlie and Dad gave them that gift.

Even today you'll hear it said that Charlie Finley was a “micromanager.” If more owners did a little more Finley-style micro-managing, Major League Baseball might have been spared some of the steroid scandals that have tarnished so many reputations. Charlie wanted to know every drug, including prescription drugs, that every player was taking. There were no suspensions on a Charlie Finley team.

I became convinced that Charlie's sitting behind our dugout contributed to the team's success. The players could not avoid or ignore Charlie as he scrutinized them with his famously intense dark eyes. They could
feel his gaze on the backs of their necks. They knew that what they were doing on the field was important—Charlie was there.

Charlie was the original “helicopter” owner, hovering over the team while a game was on and keeping a phone line to the dugout close by. If this brings three consecutive World Series championships, what's wrong with it?

THE FINLEY ERA

From the day he beat out Ernie Mehl in buying the Kansas City Athletics, Charlie Finley had enemies in the press. And though he was the subject of journalistic animosity until he sold the team twenty years later, a lot of sportswriters recognized Charlie's visionary leadership and gave him credit.

In 1995, Dave Newhouse wrote in the
Oakland Tribune
that “Finley had an uncanny eye for talent.” He also said that Charlie deserves a place on the Coliseum wall, like a jersey tribute.

Garrett Smalley Jr., the editor of the
Daily Record
, recognized how far Charlie brought the team: “It wasn't only in the checkbook that the A's were deficient. They were bankrupt in players, managing, farm team system and even front-office personnel. [Arnold] Johnson had gutted the team sending their best to the Yankees and pocketing the money.

“Finley was no fool. Indeed, it turned out he was a baseball genius. He turned that pitiful rag-tag bunch of baseball castoffs into a respectable organization.”

The men who played and managed for Charlie agreed. Speaking at Charlie's funeral in 1996, Reggie Jackson looked back: “He was a tough guy and I learned a lot about demanding excellence and that helped mold my career. . . . [T]he difficulties improved us and we became better people.” After the funeral, Reggie added, “[W]hen times caught up with his thoughts, he became an innovator and creative.” Dick Williams, the former manager, also at the funeral, remarked, “He was a great man. The farther you go away from him, the more you realized it. The man was a genius.”

That same year, the lawyer and sportswriter Jay Darby added a striking tribute: “Finley almost single-handedly saved baseball in the early 1970s with his showmanship and charisma, and ultimately, his love and understanding of the game. And, he built perhaps the best baseball team ever assembled, and changed the game for the better.”

Reporting on a fortieth-anniversary reunion of the A's 1974 World Series–winning team, Daniel Brown of the
San Jose Mercury News
wondered why Oakland's “Moneyball” era gets all the attention:

With apologies to Brad Pitt, members of the Swingin' A's wondered Friday night if Hollywood made a movie about the wrong team. For a real blockbuster about Oakland baseball, forget “Moneyball” and get a load of the Technicolor bunch that won three consecutive World Series from 1972–74.

“It would have to be a seven-hour movie,” reliever Rollie Fingers said.

“It would have to be Rated-R for violence, language and all of the above,” former pitcher John “Blue Moon” Odom said.

“What would that title be? ‘The Misfits'?” pitcher Vida Blue asked.
¹

CHARLIE THE MAN

It's not easy to sum up a life like Charlie's. He paid a huge price, his divorce, to accomplish what he did. So did my dad, my mom, and me. Money, careers, marriages, home . . . all were tossed into a blender and churned into a bitter, fabulous, steaming stew of crossed destinies.

Charlie was always honest and straight up front; there was no mystery where he stood on issues. He revealed his soft spot for people who just needed an opportunity when he brought fifty-nine-year old Satchel Paige back to pitch three innings, when he hired young Betty Caywood as the first woman announcer, and when he gave the microphone to Stanley Burrell (M. C. Hammer) and let him announce a few innings at
the Coliseum. It was the same thing when he invited Marcy Bachman to be the first female reporter to cover the A's, when he signed Glenn Burke, the first openly-gay player in the big leagues, and when he opened his checkbook to make sure the kids on the staff of his groundskeeper George Toma were adequately paid and dressed.

Charlie was no one-dimensional baseball man. He, as they say, “had a life” outside of baseball. He was a thirty-second-degree Shriner and served as chairman of the National Tuberculosis Association's Christmas Seals campaign. In 1961 the White House honored him for his efforts on behalf of the National Tuberculosis Association. He donated substantial sums to local churches. In 1984 President Ronald Reagan honored him for his contributions to the Republican Presidential Task Force by dedicating an American flag in his name in a ceremony in the rotunda of the Capitol.

DAD

I know my father often wondered how life would have turned out if he had stayed in Dallas. He was just beginning the climb up the academic ladder when Charlie made that early Saturday morning phone call. He was thirty-seven and had never lived outside of Texas. He was the one who calmed things down, and the team and front office were often in need of calming down. He lived by the principle: Never let a small problem blossom into a huge problem.

LIFE LESSONS

What can we learn from Charlie Finley's baseball career? A number of things come to mind:

        
•
   
Being the best invites envy, and a lot of people will want to see you fail.

        
•
   
To be the best, you must be willing to pay the price—sometimes a very big price.

        
•
   
Don't take the “high road” and ignore an unfair attack. Defend yourself!

        
•
   
Don't dance on the dugout. You'll get hit with a foul ball.

        
•
   
The path to being the best is often a very lonely road.

        
•
   
Listen to your dad!

I remember a sign in Charlie's front yard at his home in La Porte: “Forget the Alarm. Beware of Owner.”

IT'S ABOUT THE BOY

The final question is: When Charlie looked in the mirror, what did he see? First, he saw a winner. If nothing else, he simply willed himself to be a winner.

He also saw a man who yearned for acceptance but didn't know how to achieve it. He saw a man who did not understand why he and his ideas were never admitted into the hallowed inner circle of Major League Baseball.

He saw a man who was, to the surprise of many, easily hurt by the unkind words of the sports media. He would try to brush it off with “At lease they spelled my name right.” And over time, he began to say “That will give them something to hate.” The more Charlie tried to impress baseball opinion-makers, the more vilification and criticism he got.

The A's Mike Epstein told an interviewer, “Charlie realized he might as well use the ‘common enemy' to give the team a better unity. This way, the players would want to show him ‘We'll win! You'll see!'”

But above all—as incongruous as it may seem—he saw a child. A child who felt that his mother didn't love him. Who loved running through the woods in Alabama. Who hated being poor. He saw a boy yearning to be a baseball player in the big leagues—hitting a long drive
into the left field corner, careering around second, and sliding into third. Safe! He heard the stadium roar with approval.

He saw himself.