Carl Finley was a high school principal working in Dallas in 1961. He was 37, and he had never lived outside of Texas, aside from serving in World War II.
Late that year, he met with his cousin, Charlie, who had bought the Kansas City Athletics the previous year.
“Dad said he looked really beat up, not physically, but mentally,” Nancy Finley, Carl’s daughter, told USA TODAY Sports. ‘And I remember Mom made a comment about that, too. His hair was disheveled. He just didn’t look like the Charlie they knew. That’s when Charlie asked Dad to join him.”
Charlie Finley, who was an insurance broker, had never been an athlete or worked in baseball administration. Neither had Carl, who didn’t expect the arrangement to last more than a couple of years.
“He was nervous about the whole thing,’ Nancy says of her father. ‘Dad had gone to SMU law school, and had a master’s in journalism. He liked to constantly be in it or learning something. And Charlie liked that about him.’
Together, they became partners who launched the team’s tenure in Oakland that started in 1968.
That run officially ends Monday, when the A’s host their first home game in Sacramento. The team intends to move permanently to Las Vegas in 2028.
Carl was the franchise’s on-site eyes and ears while his cousin ran the insurance business that funded the team from Chicago. He helped transform a perennial loser once known as a feeder team for the Yankees through trades into a World Series champion from 1972-74.
After her parents divorced, Nancy moved from Dallas to live with him during her school-aged years, an experience she captured in the book “Finley Ball” that helps preserve the memories of her late father and controversial cousin who loved outrageous promotions.
Nancy later became a model and paralegal and lived in the Bay Area until 2020. She shares memories of Oakland, from ‘Hot Pants Day’ to the Finleys’ unexpected sale of the team to building lasting friendships and ties to the era the A’s are leaving behind.
(Questions and responses are edited for length and clarity.)
What was it about your dad’s scouting strategy that worked so well?
When he started with the team the summer of 1962, he mainly observed how Charlie handled things. Then Dad was offered a percentage ownership, and would live where the team was based (in Kansas City).
He started visiting our farm team in Birmingham, Alabama, to observe the players. He was fortunate to have former MLB players like Eddie Robinson, Ed Lopat and Hank Bauer in the KC front office.
Dad’s goal with Charlie was to build a winning team “from scratch.” Dad preferred to view the high schoolers first. Charlie agreed. Anytime a report came in about a young man who played very well, Dad or Charlie (or both) would personally visit the location to check it out for themselves. Dad told me he was instrumental in signing Vida Blue. He was very proud of Vida.When the team learned it had to move from Kansas City because of increased rent, is it true only location with a ready-to-move-into stadium was Oakland?
Yes, Dad said he knew he would get a call from them at least once a month, maybe more. It would be like a telemarketer today, or one of those calls you get all the time, and they would call and say, “we just want you to remember we’re here.” And because they heard rumors in the paper that Charlie wanted to move, which wasn’t true, they started calling, and they were annoying to Dad. Oakland was not where we intended to go. I found a message from Charlie. It’s from September 1967 and it says he had been to Seattle, and it’s beautiful. And can we go there? And Dad answered, “No,” exclamation mark, because Dad had already started coordinating the move to Oakland.
But Oakland did appear to be the only place they claimed they were turnkey. “Oh, you won’t have to do anything here. You won’t have to wait.” Dad really wanted Dallas, of course.
What do you remember about the Coliseum?
When you go in, you always look at the green, the field, then nothing but gray. I mean cinder blocks. And I’m thinking, “Where’s the color?” The office had this really tacky looking linoleum floor with stains on it. We kept hearing it had just been built. And Dad said, “Yeah, they’re going to send someone in to take care of that.” That was the only thing left to do. And we kept waiting, which just really seems strange because they didn’t have to do that much – just make the floors look better, do something with the lighting that flickers.
But aside from that, the Coliseum makes a really good presentation when you’re driving from the from either way on the freeway.
So what is your feeling about the team leaving Oakland?
I’m sad. In a way, they haven’t gone because Sacramento isn’t really that far. People with season tickets lived in Sacramento. We had people coming in from Fresno.
The one time we wanted to get out of our lease was because of the offer from Denver in ’77. And that offer was good. It would have kept Dad and Charlie, and things looked pretty bleak for us and so Oakland would not allow it. They said no. And OK, so we had no choice. It seemed like Oakland just had they became aggressive. Their aggression came out. I don’t know where that went, because I said to my husband, where is their aggression when they need it?
What are your fondest memories of those days?
We had really intriguing promo items; it wasn’t just always bobbleheads. I guess the most interesting promo item was, I think, was when we gave away Hot Pants perfume to everyone wearing ‘hot pants’ of the first 5,000 people. And I liked that, because I was in charge of the boxes coming in, and I got to spray that stuff all over the place. Some of the men wanted it for their girlfriend, and if it fell, it didn’t break, because it had sort of had a bouncy effect, whatever they made it out of.
I heard you say somewhere about how the Yankees were the team he particularly wanted to beat.
I think it was because, in the beginning, at that time, I heard that Kansas City had been like a minor league team for the Yankees. What’s odd is a lot of Dad and Charlie’s good friends were former Yankees. Now Billy Martin (who managed the A’s from 1980-82) was an example. But he and Charlie seemed to sort of grate on each other. So when dad wanted negotiate for Billy and ’79, he told Charlie he that he had to do it; Charlie had to stay out of it. Dad told Charlie, please don’t call him late at night if you have anything on your mind or you just want to talk. I heard Dad lecturing him, like for this to work, you have to follow this. Dad was pretty strict about that, because he knew that Charlie could make one of those calls, say something just who knows what, and then Billy might get offended. And there was a big change with Charlie that year. Charlie was hands off with Billy, but no one’s even noticed that.
Tell me about the lawsuit that led to Charlie to sell the team.
That is what caused us to move. Nothing else. Other books talk about Charlie’s divorce. Charlie’s divorce happened in ’74 and there was nothing hanging over his head at that time, but out of the blue after ’79 started, we’re served a lawsuit by the City of Oakland, Alameda County, and the Coliseum board. And one cause of action was our players were not up to MLB standards. And we had brought Rickey Henderson in that year. I teased Rickey. I used to say, “You’re one of our not up to standard players.” Some of the things they say is there – we haven’t done anything with our boosters., we haven’t had any promo days … it’s odd that they did that after we had won three in a row. It hadn’t been too long.
Now we had that dismissed. Our attorneys went in that summer, it was thrown out, but still it was what the lawsuit said and accused us of that was hard to get over. Dad had some friends in, I guess, the Sheriff’s Department, FBI, who said that they were concerned about our safety, not Charlie, but the two of us, since we lived in that area, because the media stuff was so bad against us that an overzealous fan might hurt us and think it’s OK or feel like a hero, because it would be okay to hurt a Finley.c
I think one problem was we gave our players too much freedom because we let them talk to the press. We did not ask in advance, what are you going to talk about, like they do now. And I think that was too much. Dad and Charlie did not believe you should restrict anyone talking to anyone. They’re adults. And that sort of backfired. So that probably led to some things, because what would happen was some of some press people would call our players and ask, well, are you happy with Finley today, or something like that.
Deep inside, I don’t think he wanted to sell, but then he knew he would have to eventually, but we had more wins in us. I know we did.
What about a memory of a favorite player?
Catfish Hunter was one of them. And, yeah, I understand what happened with the Yankees. He saw fine print where Charlie was ever late with something that they could break it. And Charlie was always late with that payment. (Laughs.) But I was at the honor when it was out that Catfish had ALS. There was an honor for him at the stadium (in 1999). I remember Catfish couldn’t use his hands, but that was all he looked he looked perfect besides that. And I saw tears coming out of his eyes. Dad was there. Charlie was deceased, and the players were all sort of gathering around Dad and Catfish. I saw the family getting back together, and probably memories of everyone before, and why did we waste all this time?
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