Charlie Finley Tough Hall Sell

During his heyday, when his Oakland A’s were dominating baseball, owner Charlie Finley was viewed as somewhat of a crazy man. He thought differently than his fellow club owners, spoke his mind more vociferously, blurted out offbeat ideas and always seemed poised to make deals that might wreck his team. Yet he won championships.

Now Finley is on the ballot for consideration by the Golden Era Veterans Committee at its Dec. 5 meeting and the group will decide if Finley is worthy of being inducted into the Hall of Fame. Finley has a number of things on his side in favor of his case, but I think his image, plus the competition from the other nine baseball figures on the ballot, will prevent him from being voted in this year.

Finley was born in Alabama in 1918, but spent much of his life in Northwestern Indiana, near Chicago. He became rich selling insurance and invested his money in the Kansas City Athletics in 1960. He had made an attempt to purchase that team in 1954, but struck out. Although later in his ownership he was accused of being cheap, Finley initially spent heavily to built the A’s farm system. In a peculiar move, however, he replaced the elephant that had long been identified with the team with a mule. The new mascot–not just on paper, either, but in the flesh–was named Charlie O. after the owner and made public appearances. These were not routine dates on the field, but in hotel lobbies and at parties, too.

The Athletics were born in Philadelphia and moved to Kansas City, where under abysmal management they had been one of the worst teams in the American League. Finley immediately promised fans he would not move the team anywhere else, but betrayed that promise by exploring other cities to transfer to before ultimately shifting the team to Oakland in 1968. He had previously made a pact to move the A’s to Louisville, but American League owners voted down the proposal.

Finley’s farm system faith paid off and the A’s produced a raft of great ballplayers, from Reggie Jackson to Bert Campaneris, from Jim Hunter to Vida Blue. Finley’s A’s won five straight division titles between 1971 and 1975 and three straight World Series. Not since the days of Connie Mack in his prime had the A’s enjoyed so much success.  Actually, Finley invented Hunter’s nickname of “Catfish” and a background exaggerating Hunter’s allegiance to outdoor sports.

However, players grew resentful of Finley when he would not reward them with the type of salary gains they felt they deserved. Also, in an infamous incident Finley got caught making Mike Andrews, a player he was displeased with, sign a fake affadavit saying he was injured. Andrews angered Finley by committing two errors in a 1973 World Series game and Finley wanted to replace him on the roster. The situation escalated and drove away future Hall of Fame manager Dick Williams.

Finley was a lightning rod for the wrong type of attention. He proposed ideas that the baseball establishment considered weird at best. He wanted the sport to adopt orange baseballs so they could be seen better. No go. He sought a rule permitting designated runners on the bases and when turned down Finley signed star track sprinter Herb Washington just to steal bases and pinch-run. Washington was fast enough, but too often was caught stealing because he didn’t run at the right time. Finley wanted to reduce at-bats to three-ball, two-strike counts. No rule change followed.

The biggest crisis for Finley, even bigger than the Andrews fiasco, occurred when he wanted to sell off his stars and use the money to start over rebuilding the A’s. Nowadays that is commonplace in certain markets. But no one had done that in recent decades and when he tried it in the 1970s Commissioner Bowie Kuhn stepped in and ruled “in the best interests of baseball,” Finley couldn’t blow up his roster. That meant he was trapped with half the roster he wanted.

Always an idea man, though, Finley was a key proponent of the designated hitter rule. Points for him on that one. He was suggesting night World Series games long before they were adopted. So he counts as a bit of a visionary there, too.

Alas, by the time Finley’s 20 years of ownership of the A’s ended when he had to sell the team because of a divorce settlement, Finley was mostly viewed as a penny-pinching owner who was too short-sighted to hang onto his best players. He did not foresee the impact of free agency, nor did he adapt to it when it arrived.

When he died in 1996, Charles O. Finley had been out of the limelight for some time.