September 2024 - Adamsonmedia.com

So long, Oakland A’s

For a team I never really cheered for and haven’t followed in, oh, about 40 years, I’m gonna miss the Oakland A’s.

I wasn’t around for their playing days in Philadelphia (1901-1954) and was born six years after they began their 13-season run in Kansas City (1955-1967). For much of my lifetime they’ve been in California and in my mind, that’s where they’re supposed to be. Their last stand in their longtime home came on Thursday with a 3-2 victory against the Texas Rangers in front of 46,889 fans at the Oakland Coliseum.

**Scott Adamson writes stuff. Follow him on Bluesky @scottadamson1960, Threads @sladamson1960 and Adamsonmedia on Facebook.**

And once the final out is made in their road game against the Seattle Mariners today, the A’s era repping the East Bay will officially be done; it ends with a losing record and fourth place finish in the American League West.

They’ll hole up temporarily in Sacramento, starting with the 2025 season, before eventually moving to their new home in Las Vegas. That still seems so weird to me … a gambling hub in the desert is now a major league city that has claimed Oakland’s football and baseball teams.

Anyway, even though I’ve never been to Oakland, it still feels like I lost something with their slow walk to Sin City.

For one thing, I was one of those kids who goobed out over gimmicks, and the “Swingin’ A’s” caught my attention in the 1970s because of their unis. While the colors of Major League Baseball were primarily white and gray, the A’s were green and bright gold – and featured multiple combinations. I might’ve been young, but I was all about sartorial elegance.

And in 1973, A’s owner Charlie Finley introduced orange baseballs, which were used in a couple of spring training games.

The players didn’t seem to care for them, but I thought the concept was fantastic.

You deck out a team in green and gold and have them hitting orange baseballs and, well … be still my nerdy heart.

But my close (and only) encounter with the Oakland A’s came on May 15, 1975, when they were the first MLB team I was supposed to see play live.

They were at Birmingham’s Rickwood Field to take on their Southern League farm club, the Birmingham A’s, and it was to be the baseball event of the season for everyone in the Magic City.

A crowd upwards of 12,000 was predicted and Pop (my dad) had not only bought tickets early, but driven us to the park three hours before gametime to avoid any potential traffic issues.

Oakland won back-to-back-to-back World Series in 1972-73-74 and were the reigning giants of the professional game. While I gravitated more to the New York Yankees and Chicago Cubs (when I wasn’t obsessing over football), Pop explained that since most of Oakland’s players had once played in Birmingham, it made sense to follow the Alvin Dark-managed A’s even if I didn’t necessarily root for them.

I had never seen a pro baseball game of any kind, and I was about to see one of the best clubs in the history of the National Pastime.

Oakland’s announced starting lineup featured Vida Blue on the mound and Gene Tenace behind the plate.

The infield consisted of Joe Rudi (first base), Phil Garner (second), Bert Campaneris (shortstop) and Sal Bando (third).

Claudell Washington (left), Bill North (center) and Reggie Jackson (right) stood in the outfield, and Billy Williams was designated hitter.

Pretty impressive group, huh? Rollie Fingers was on the pitching staff, meaning I was in the presence of three future Hall of Famers (Fingers joins Jackson and Williams in Cooperstown).

I even got Garner’s autograph because kids were allowed on the field during warmups (and the crowd around him was less than that surrounding the bigger stars).

It was the perfect evening – right up until Rickwood Field became Rickwood Lake.

Heavy rains flooded the field before the scheduled 7:30 p.m. start and lightning knocked out a pair of light towers, sending fans scurrying for cover – and the big league A’s scurrying to the airport where they were headed to New York to take on the Yankees.

What was to be my first live baseball game was, unfortunately, a washout.

Still, Oakland had made its mark. The A’s jumpstarted my interest in Major League Baseball, and I watched them on TV every chance I got in 1975.
When they were swept three games to none by the Boston Red Sox in the ALCS, I was truly disappointed. I already despised the Sox, but felt I also had a connection with the A’s – waterlogged as it was.

Alas, my disappointment faded, as did my interest.

The Birmingham A’s weren’t much of a draw, and the franchise moved to Chattanooga in 1976 (and became the Chattanooga Lookouts).

With no more team in my town – and no more ties to Oakland – I became little more than a casual observer. I had moved on to other pursuits long before they officially changed their name to “Athletics,” launched the Rickey Henderson legend, signed Mark McGwire, won the 1989 World Series, and went through the “Moneyball” era.

And if I’m being honest (and I am), I don’t even know what happened to Garner’s autograph. After 49 years, I’m fairly sure it’s lost forever.

Today, though, I’ll pour one out for the green and gold wearing, orange baseball bashing, Swingin’ A’s of my youth.

I’m so glad I almost got to see them play.

Me and My Monster

Pearl Tanner leaned over, gently kissed Jerius on the head, and fluffed his pillow.

“You good … you need to go to the bathroom or anything?” she asked.

“No, mama,” he said, smiling. “I’m all set.”

Pearl got up, stretched, and eyed the child’s room, which was painted mint green. On the wall behind Jerius’s bed was a giant poster of the Gill-man from “The Creature of the Black Lagoon,” while the far wall with a small window had three different drawings of King Kong – the last showing him swatting at biplanes while atop the Empire State Building.

And instead of a lamp, the centerpiece of his nightstand was a large skull that doubled as a candleholder. Once the overhead light went out, Pearl lit the wick.

“OK,” she said. “Lemme check for monsters.”

She walked toward the closet door, opened it, glanced at hanging clothes and a scattering of toys, and closed it. She then knelt down and lifted up the blanket slightly so she could peer under his bed.

“No monsters in the closet and no monsters under the bed,” she said. “No monsters anywhere in the house. Same as it was last night and the night before. The only monsters here are the ones on your wall.”

“Mama, you know I’m not scared of monsters,” he said proudly. “Monsters ain’t gonna hurt me.”

Pearl laughed.

“Well, of course not. No such thing, anyway. It’s like that big ol’ fish-looking thing there on the wall – it’s scary looking in the movie, but it’s just a man in a fish suit. And the monkey who climbed that building? He looks mean, but he’s just a story … a fun story, but just a story. I kinda suspected you already knew that, but just for fun I started checking for monsters when you were a little thing and just never got out of the habit. You never were the type to get scared, though, I’ll give you that.”

Pearl blew Jerius a kiss, ignited the candle and switched off the light.

“Goodnight, sugar,” she said as she left his bedroom. “Sweet dreams.”

Jerius could hear his mom walk down the hallway, and the squeak of her bedroom door and the click of the lock signaled that the coast was clear.

“Pssst … Eddie. You can come out now.”

The door to Jerius’s closet cracked and a gnarled gray hand with curled claws gripped the side and pushed it open. Eddie looked like a three-foot tall garden gnome – if garden gnomes were covered in wiry, brown fur. He had small blue eyes, no apparent nose and a triangular mouth that displayed jagged, yellow teeth.

He walked slowly – and with a wobble – but once he reached the side of Jerius’s bed, he effortlessly jumped up and plopped on the mattress.

“Hello, J,” Eddie said in a soft, child-like voice. “What’s the plan tonight?”

Jerius let out a belly laugh and his nurse, Rhonda, cracked a smile as she handed him his medication. He had told the story to the staff at the Franklin Assisted Living Facility for years, and it never got old – at least not to him.

“That’s the absolutely, 100 percent true story I call ‘Me and My Monster,’” Jerius said right after swallowing his pills. “I wrote it along about when I was 10 or 11, and now I’ve told it so many times I got it memorized. Pretty good, huh?”

“It’s very good, Mr. Tanner,” she said. “So, when I go to tuck my kids in tonight, I should tell them that all those stories about having monsters in their closets and under their beds are true, except they aren’t really monsters at all?”

“That’s about the size of it, Miss Rhonda. Monsters were always my friends, ever since I was a young ‘un. Think about the Gill-man … what did he do? He’s just mindin’ his own business and people come up in a boat and start messin’ with his house. And Kong? He’s doing fine on his island and these rich folks chain him up and put him in a show. Shoot … I’d be mad, too. Nah, just because you don’t understand somethin’ doesn’t mean it’s bad. ‘Monster’ is just a word people made up ‘cause they were too lazy to learn about somethin’ new.”

Rhonda patted him on the shoulder and walked to the door.

“I always enjoy talking to you, Mr. Tanner. Good night and sleep tight … you want the light on or off?”

“Now you know Eddie ain’t gonna come out of the closet with the light on,” he said, laying his head back.

The nurse walked down the hallway, and Jerious could hear the sound of her footsteps fade away. He turned over and noticed the door to his closet was ajar.

“Pssst … Eddie. You can come out now.”

Free football in 1974

Fifty years ago, the NFL was ready for a makeover.

Despite a work stoppage that disrupted the preseason, the league entered the 1974 campaign hoping to fend off a challenge from the new World Football League by adding some excitement to the established professional game.

With fans complaining about too much defense and not enough explosive plays, league officials decided to open things up with some major rule changes.

The WFL had already thrown down the offensive gauntlet with radical innovations such as touchdowns being worth seven points, an “action point” to replace the PAT, one back allowed in motion toward the line of scrimmage, the elimination of fair catches on punts, kickoffs from the 30-yard line, and an overtime period divided into two, seven and a half minute segments.

The NFL wasn’t willing to go quite as far as the upstarts, but did make some significant tweaks:

Kickoffs from the 35-yard line
Goal posts situated at the back of the end zone
Prohibiting the offensive team from moving downfield until the ball was kicked on punts
The addition of a sudden death overtime period for regular season games. The first team to score in O.T. would win, and if the score was still tied after 15 minutes the game would end in a tie.

All 26 NFL teams got a taste of the new rules during the exhibition slate, and during one weekend the overtime procedure was used in three different games. But in the second week of the 1974 regular season, fans finally experienced an official bonus round of football, courtesy of the Pittsburgh Steelers and Denver Broncos.

In 1973 the league standings were littered with ties, with Cleveland, Kansas City, Denver, and Green Bay each having two draws on their worksheet and six other teams involved in stalemates. In fact, there had been 256 ties since the NFL was formed in 1920.

During contract negotiations in the summer of 1974 (which led to a brief strike) the NFL Players Association demanded that the overtime rule be scrapped.

“We reject this demand on the basis that it subjects the players to undue risk of injury and because the rule constitutes a unilateral change in working conditions,” wrote NFLPA executive director Ed Garvey.

However, once play began, the new rule was in place.

“I think it’s important for a team to control its own destiny,” Kansas City Chiefs coach Hank Stram said to United Press International. “As a result, I think it’s good we will have an opportunity to win a football game by the sudden-death rule.”

With an extra quarter to settle the issue, the chances of a game ending without a winner decreased dramatically. And after 60 minutes at Denver’s Mile High Stadium, the Broncos and Steelers had an even split of 70 points.

At 35-35, offense had already won the day, so it stood to reason the NFL’s new rule would result in its intended consequence.

Unfortunately, while there were plenty of points scattered across the first 60 minutes, there were none in the extra 15.

Jim Turner had a chance to win it for Denver late in overtime, but his 41-yard field goal attempt sailed wide right. And when the horn sounded after 75 minutes of football time (and three hours, forty-nine minutes of real time) the issue still hadn’t been settled.

“I don’t think either team deserved to lose, and neither team did,” Denver coach John Ralston said in a Greely Daily Tribune story. “We had our shot and they had theirs. I think it is very fitting to end in a tie.”

Even so, Ralston hinted that another rule change might’ve been better.

“If we had (the 2-point conversion) rule, that would’ve decided it, likely without overtime,” Ralston said. “But 15 minutes of extra playing is enough.”

Pittsburgh boss Chuck Noll was relieved his team didn’t lose, but would’ve preferred to have earned the tie the old-fashioned way.

“I don’t like the idea of overtime,” Noll told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. “I have a tired football team that has to get ready to play next week. If we’d have one of these every week, it’d kill our team.”

Obviously, the Steelers didn’t have to play five quarters every week, although overtimes have been quite common over the last half century. The only other O.T. contest in 1974 was between the New York Jets and New York Giants, with the Jets winning, 26-20, after scoring a touchdown at the 6:53 mark of the fifth quarter.

There have been 29 regular season ties since 1974, with the last coming on December 4, 2022, when the New York Giants and Washington Commanders finished at 20-20. Starting with the 2017 season, O.T. periods were shortened to 10 minutes.

College football has already figured out to way to make sure every game ends with a winner, and perhaps the NFL will, too – someday. Until then, there’s always a chance both teams will get a share of the spoils.