Charlie Finley

For other people named Charles Finley, see Charles Finley (disambiguation).

Charles Oscar Finley (February 22, 1918 – February 19, 1996), nicknamed Charlie O or Charley O, was an American businessman who is best remembered for his tenure as the owner of Major League Baseball's Oakland Athletics. Finley purchased the franchise while it was located in Kansas City, moving it to Oakland in 1968.

Early life

Finley was born in Ensley, Alabama, but was raised in Gary, Indiana, and later lived in La Porte, a small town 60 miles east of Chicago. In 1946 he had a bout of tuberculosis that nearly killed him. Finley made his fortune in the insurance business, being among the first to write group medical insurance policies for those in the medical profession.

Finley showed a penchant for flair and inventive business practices. Sometimes, when wooing prospective customers, Finley would drive the client through the richest section of Gary. Pointing out a large mansion, Finley would declare "That's my place there, but I'm having it remodeled right now." Finley's fortunes grew and he ended up owning a 40 story insurance building in downtown Chicago. When Finley bought his personal property in Laporte, he hired John Mihelic as his ranch caretaker. The property was a working cattle ranch which consisted of an 18th century, eleven-room colonial manor house and nine barns and various outbuildings. Finley had a large mansion built on the property, which featured rounded porticoes and columns which resembled the White House. Mihelic and his family then moved into the original house and lived there as manager and caretakers.

Finley had a large "Home of the Oakland A's" sign installed on the roof of another large barn where it could be viewed by vehicles passing on the Indiana toll road. It was to this place that Finley often brought the whole team and held picnics and pool parties attended by friends, business associates and locals, who mingled with members of the team and took numerous photographs.

Owner of the A's

In Kansas City

Finley first attempted to buy the Philadelphia Athletics in 1954, but American League owners instead approved the sale of the team to Arnold Johnson, who moved the A's to Kansas City for the 1955 season.

On December 19, 1960, Finley purchased a controlling interest in the Kansas City Athletics from Johnson's estate (Johnson having died in March of that year); he then bought out the minority owners a year later. Finley quickly started to turn the franchise around, refusing to make deals with the New York Yankees (for which the Athletics had been criticized) and searching for unheralded talent. He also made significant investments in the minor league (farm) system for the first time in the franchise's history.

From 1961 onward, Finley was effectively his own general manager, though the A's had someone with that title until 1966.

Charlie-O becomes the Athletics' mascot

Finley replaced the Athletics' traditional elephant mascot with a live mule. "Charlie-O" was paraded about the outfield, into cocktail parties and hotel lobbies, and into the press room after a large feeding to annoy reporters. (The mule died in 1976, at age 20.)

The "K.C. Pennant Porch"

After supposedly being told by manager Ed Lopat about the Yankees' success being attributable to the dimensions of Yankee Stadium, Finley built the "K.C. Pennant Porch" in right field, which brought the right field fence in Kansas City Municipal Stadium to match Yankee Stadium's dimensions exactly, just 296 feet from home plate. However, a rule passed in 1958 held that no (new or renovated) major-league fence could be closer than 325 feet, so league officials forced Finley to move the fences back after two exhibition games. The A's owner then ordered a white line to be painted on the field at the original "Pennant Porch" distance, and told the public address announcer to announce "That would have been a home run in Yankee Stadium" whenever a fly ball was hit past that line but short of the fence. The practice was quickly abandoned after the announcer was calling more "would-be" home runs for the opposition than the A's.

Uniform changes

In 1963, Finley changed the team's colors to Kelly Green, Gold and White. In 1967, he replaced the team's traditional black cleats with white ones. Finley also started phasing out the team name "Athletics" in favor of "A's." (When Mickey Mantle saw the A's' green-and-gold uniforms, he jeered, "They should have come out of the dugout on tippy-toes, holding hands and singing," according to Baseball Digest.)

World Series success

The A's (as they were officially known from 1970) moved to California in January 1968, just as the new talent amassed over the years in the minors (such as Reggie Jackson, Sal Bando, Joe Rudi, Bert Campaneris, Catfish Hunter, Rollie Fingers, and Vida Blue) was starting to gel. During the early 1970s, the once-moribund A's became a powerhouse, winning three straight World Series from 1972 to 1974 and five straight division titles from 1971 to 1975, in the existing Oakland Coliseum. Though he no longer owned the team when the A's won the World Series again in 1989, Tony Larussa, who managed that team and outfielder Rickey Henderson were originally scouted by Finley.

The beginning of Free Agency

In 1976, after losing Hunter to free agency, Finley started dismantling his club, attempting to sell Rudi and Fingers to the Red Sox and Blue to the Yankees. Kuhn decided to invoke the rarely-used "best interests of baseball" clause in order to void Finley's sales. Finley, in turn, hired famed sports attorney Neil Papiano and proceeded to file a $10 million dollar restraint-of-trade lawsuit against Kuhn and Major League Baseball. Papiano and Finley lost the case (see Finley v. Kuhn). The court ruled that the commissioner had the authority to determine what is in the best interest of baseball. This lawsuit is widely recognized as one of the most famous, influential and precedent-setting sports-related cases in the history of American jurisprudence.

At the end of that season, many of the A's stars left the team due to free agency. The next year – only two years after winning a division title and three years after winning a World Series—the A's finished with the worst record in baseball. After that season, he tried to trade Blue again, this time to the Reds. Kuhn vetoed this trade as well, saying that it amounted to a fire sale.

Selling the A's

Charlie O. & Carl A. Finley started scouting for new talent in 1977. However, it wasn't until 1980 that the A's showed signs of improvement under manager Billy Martin. However, after that season, Fin The Finleys had been thinking of selling the team in any event due to the start of free agency. Finley finally agreed to sell the A's to Walter A. Haas, Jr., president of Levi Strauss & Co. before the 1981 season. And then in 1981, the A's made it to the play-offs, which was a result of rebuilding the team.ley's wife divorced him. Carl was asked to remain with the new owners as Vice President/mentor.

Marketing

The Finley management was great at marketing. They changed the team uniforms to green and gold with white shoes and they gave some players fun nicknames. The Finley organization introduced ball girls (one of whom, the future Debbi Fields, went on to found Mrs. Fields' Original Cookies, Inc.), and advocated night games for the World Series to increase the ability for fans to attend. Finley also was an outspoken advocate of the designated hitter rule, which he advocated until it was adopted by the American League. They were always full of new ideas, including:

• Orange baseballs - Tried in a few exhibition games, but hitters found it too hard to pick up the spin. The week of August 18, 1975, Charlie Finley was on the cover of Time Magazine and his orange baseballs were featured in the article.
• A mechanical rabbit that would pop up behind home plate and deliver new balls to the umpire and was named "Harvey," at the A's home ballparks in Kansas City and Oakland.
• Hired Stanley Burrell (who would later gain worldwide fame as MC Hammer) as Executive Vice President when he was just a teenager to be his "eyes and ears."
• Offering players $300 bonuses to grow moustaches during the championships. For star relief pitcher Rollie Fingers, the handlebar moustache he grew for Finley became a trademark.

Despite his reputation as a master promoter, Finley had less success marketing his team. According to baseball writer Rob Neyer, a Kansas City native, Finley thought he could sell a baseball team like he sold insurance. Soon after buying the A's, he sent out 600,000 brochures to area residents and only netted $20,000 in sales.. While in Oakland, the A's rarely had radio and television contracts, and were practically invisible even in the Bay Area. For the first month of the 1978 season, the A's radio flagship was KALX, the 10-watt college radio station of the University of California, Berkeley. A year later, the A's didn't sign a radio contract until the day before Opening Day. Largely as a result, the A's never drew well even in their championship years, and were even sued by the city of Oakland and Alameda County in 1979.

Other sports ventures

Finley purchased the Oakland Seals of the National Hockey League in 1970, renaming the team California Golden Seals. Mimicking the A's, he changed the team colors to green and gold and had the Seals wear white skates instead of the traditional black skates, a move deeply unpopular with both players and fans.

In 1970, Finley also purchased the Memphis Pros of the American Basketball Association, changing the team's name to the Memphis Tams, the name being an acronym for Tennessee, Arkansas and Mississippi. As was the case with the A's, he changed the Tams' colors to green and gold. He hired recently retired Kentucky Wildcats basketball coach Adolph Rupp as team president. Finley ran it on a shoestring budget. After the first season, he sold the teams and returned to baseball.

In March 1987, Finley proposed a new football league. The league would merge with the Canadian Football League, and be renamed the North American Football League. The American cities would be made up of those that lost out on the United States Football League folding.

Indiana legend

Charlie O. Finley resided primarily in Chicago and LaPorte, even as he owned the Oakland A's, making frequent trips to Oakland, he was in constant contact with his cousin Carl A. Finley who was overseeing the management of the team locally. Charlie O. was popular in his hometown of LaPorte, where he remained involved in the community late into his life.

While the Finley organization was building a championship team in Oakland, the LaPorte High School baseball team was becoming a powerhouse under coach Ken Schreiber. Charlie O. sent the team equipment once, including the white shoes the Oakland A's made famous and that the LaPorte High School team would use until the late 1990s.

He died on February 19, 1996 three days short of what would have been his 78th birthday.

The Kansas City Beatles concert

When Finley owned the Kansas City Athletics, he promised the people of Kansas City that he would bring The Beatles to play in Kansas City's Municipal Stadium during the group's first tour of North America in the summer of 1964. Finley visited the group's manager, Brian Epstein, in San Francisco on August 19, 1964, where the Beatles were playing the first date of the tour. He told Epstein that he was disappointed that Kansas City was not among the group's itinerary, and offered first $50,000 and then $100,000 if the Beatles would schedule a concert in the Missouri city. Epstein refused, pointing out that on the only free date available, September 17, the band was scheduled for a day of rest in New Orleans. Finley encountered Epstein again in Los Angeles a week later and they agreed on $150,000. The Beatles earned what at the time was the highest fee ever for a musical concert, a staggering $4,838 per minute. Finley had a photo of himself in a Beatles wig printed on the back of all concert tickets.

Source: Mark Lewisohn, The Beatles Live!: The Ultimate Reference Book (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1986), 168–69.

Further reading

• Green, G. Michael and Roger Launius Charlie Finley: The Outrageous Story of Baseball's Super Showman, Walker & Co, 2010.
• Oakland Athletics History

External links

• Baseball Hall of Fame candidate profile
• BaseballLibrary - profile and career highlights
• Charlie Finley at Find a Grave