But the Finley years were far from successful or blissful. In October of 1967 the American League ceased their resistance to Finley's tries to leave Kansas City. This weekend I came across the article Ray wrote in October 1967 when it appeared the A's were on their way out the door.
Behind the turnstiles lie some tense moments that nothing can take from the Municipal Stadium. In the days since that joyous day, April 12, 1955 when Harry S Truman, former President, brought the 32,844 cheering fans to their feet by tossing out the first ball, the memories have been many.
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Not everything was sweetness and light in those first glorious days. Nellie Fox, then in his prime with the Chicago White Sox, went after a grounder only to have it take a wild bounce and drop him in his tracks when it struck him in the forehead.
Nursing a head bruise Fox was less than kind in his description of the stadium field as he held an ice pack to his aching head.
“Minor league, that’s what it is, that field,” Fox exploded. “They built that infield so fast it’s like a damned cinder pile out there. Somebody is going to get himself killed out there.”
They had to so rush the transformation of the old Muehlebach field into the double-decked stadium that some things were not finished as some would have liked.
A part of the facilities that were not all they might have been was the press box.
When major league first came to Kansas City, the only way to get into the press box was down an aisle from the second deck, through a gate in the roof and down some steps to the broadcasting and writing facilities. The whole thing was made of heavy gauge corrugated steel.
The New York Yankees were in town and in the middle of the game an old-fashioned thunderstorm struck. The writers in the press box, accustomed to Chicago, New York and other places where there were enclosed areas leading out, were in no hurry to leave.
Then it began to happen. The water began cascading down the aisle like a waterfall and through the opening into the pressbox. The steel floor and walls held the water like a sinking ship. Water started rising in the pressbox.
Mel Allen, who was broadcasting the Yankees games, had his engineer cut him off the air quickly because he was afraid he would be electrocuted with the water coming up around his shoes. Western Union teletypes had to be cut off and pieces of paper and copy floated on the water.
“Bush,” Joe Trimble, a New York baseball writer, muttered as he sat on his typewriter shelf with his feet on a soft drink case to keep his shoes dry. “Nothing but damned bush, that’s what it is.”
As a concession the net day after the water was baled out, the management drilled large holes in the floor so the water would run out.
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Who could ever forget the great Ted Williams sliding across the rain-sodden outfield on the seat of his pants in a double-header with the Boston Red Sox frequently interrupted by rain? There was Bob Cerv playing with a broken jaw, the venerable Enos Slaughter still giving his all for the A’s at 40 and a thousand and one other things.
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There was that hot summer night in one of those early years when one of the Kansas City fans climbed over the box seats ran out on the field and began pounding the home plate umpire before anybody could stop him. It finally took several policemen to quell him for an appearance in municipal court.
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The greatest of the memories is the fans themselves. The greatest supporters of baseball and its players anywhere in the world in the eyes of many, they continued to troop through the gates to see their A;s always hoping the drought would end and the team might wind up in the first division.
They have never given up hope. In dismal year after year, they kept coming back to show their support and their love for the game. Last year, when Alvin Dark pulled the players up by their boot straps to seventh place, it was almost as if the A’s were winning the pennant among fans.
