The Showman

     On February 19, 1996 the Sporting World lost one of the more colorful characters ever to own a Major League sports franchise. Charles Oscar Finley passed away in Chicago just days before what would have been his 78th birthday. The Alabama born Finley packed alot into his almost 78 years of life. After hitting hit big in the insurance business after World War II he set his sights on making it big as a baseball owner. He tried in 1954 to buy the Philadelphia Athletics from the Mack family. Several attempts later just after losing out on a chance to buy the Los Angeles American League expansion franchise that went to Gene Autry, his chance finally came when the then Kansas City Athletics went up for sale again.

   Those began one of the stranger eras in sports history. Many of his innovations did not go over real well. They are too numberous to have any kind of discussion in this forum. His choice of uniform colors was not the first choice of many of the players, however many of them took him up on the offer of a $300 bonus to grow a moustache. Finley must of had some sort of an itch to move the club away from Kansas City as he courted as many as six other cities before settling on Oakland, California as the new home of the club, after he was denied a chance to move to Louisville, Kentucky.

   What many people do not realize was that the A's were not his only team. In 1970, he purchased the Oakland Seals of the National Hockey League and owned them for 4 years. Two years later the Seals were moved to Cleveland, Ohio. In 1972 he purchased the Memphis Club of the American  Basketball Association and renamed them the TAMs (Tennessee-Alabama-Mississippi). He would own the team for two years. He also tried to start his own football league in 1987.

   The stories about Finley during his 20 year tenure as owner of the A's would fill volumes. The battles he had micromanaging players and his own field managers were frequent. He was the owner they loved to hate.
He will probably never great elected to any hall of fame but, he did leave quite a legacy of stories behind.

   We move now to the answer of yesterdays trivia question. The question should have been an easy one for frequent readers of this blog as I took it from the one post of the blog that has been read the most the December 30, 2010 "A Forum First", the answer being the Kings Hockey team played before the Lakers. Todays trivia question is what is the name of the league where the Baltimore Ravens franchise originated. The answer will be in tomorrows post about the third baseball league ever formed. Have a great day!!