A's Might Move Once Again

The Oakland Athletics Stadium Deal Falls Through

Apr 6, 2009 John F. O'Connor

The Oakland A's Might Consider Moving Out Of Norhern California Talks For New Stadium in Freemont collapse

There are few teams in Major League Baseball that has called three cities in franchise history as home.

The Oakland Athletics is one of those teams.

And now, the A’s are considering moving a record fourth time now that its stadium deal in nearby Freemont, Calif. fell through. The team will continued to play at the Oakland Alameda Coliseum and concentrate on the 2009 season.

But owner Lew Wolf will entertain offers from other cities in an attempt to get a stadium deal in place.The Coliseum is considered outdated and the A’s need a new venue to compete. The A's could entertain offers from Portland, Ore., and Las Vegas, Nev., but baseball commissioner Bud Selig is forming a committee to see if he can solve the A’s situtation.

Selig would like the team to stay in Northern California. San Jose and Sacramento are viable alternatives to Oakland, but the A’s share territorial rights with the National League’s San Francisco Giants. And the Giants supposedly hold the territorial rights to San Jose.

For now, the A’s will stay put. But it will be interesting to see what happens with this franchise,

Philadelphia Athletics move to Kansas City

The team originated as the Philadelphia Athletics as one of the original teams of the American League in 1900.

The A’s won five world series titles in Philadelphia, but had to compete for fans with the Philadelphia Phillies of the National League.

When the Phillies won the National League pennant in 1950, the A’s days in Philadelphia were numbered since the city could no longer support two teams.

Legendary owner and manager Connie Mack was forced to sell the team to out of town buyers when attendance dropped off.

Many times during his ownership, Mack was forced to sell off players to make ends meet.

Kansas City Athletics move to Oakland

The A’s moved to Kansas City after the 1954 season after Mack sold the team to businesss Arnold Johnson and a group of investors that included Charles O. Finley.

The Kansas City A’s were one of the first major league teams to play west of St. Louis. The team drew well in the early years despite being a second division team.

The A’s were laughingly called the New York Yankees farm team since the A’s always traded their best players to New York, a team has won 26 World Series titles.

In 1960, Finley purchased a controlling interest in the A’s after Johnson died earlier that year.

Finley promised Kansas City fans he would never move the team, but secretly was shopping the A’s around to different cities.

He even finalized a move to Louisville, Kentucky, and was going to rename the team the Kentucky Colonels before Major League Baseball voted it down in 1967.

Finley eventually moved the A’s to Oakland, Calif., and the brand new Oakland Coliseum in 1968 when Kansas City was awarded an expansion franchise, the Royals, in 1969.

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