Oakland and Kansas City are separated by around 1,800 miles, and there may be a greater cultural gap between them. However, there is one thing that baseball fans in both areas had in common: they were A’s supporters, and they lost.
The A’s began play in Philadelphia in 1901, and they will be moving to Sacramento for the next season, which is anticipated to be a stopover before they eventually relocate to Las Vegas. However, the Oakland-Kansas City relationship will always be special, regardless of where the A’s move.
The team Kansas City acquired after the A’s fled Missouri in 1968 is known as the Royals.their last visit to Oakland, where they’ll play three games starting on Tuesday.
The A’s have already paid their yearly visit to Kauffman Stadium, which was forced into approval by local authorities in the middle of the 1960s in an unsuccessful attempt to prevent the team from moving to Oakland.
Kansas City’s supporters are the closest to comprehending what Oakland A’s ardent supporters are going through.
According to Jeff Logan, president of the Kansas City Baseball Historical Society, “the older ones are dying off, but there are still folks here that are unhappy that the A’s departed Kansas City and wish they were still here.”
Only 13 seasons were spent by the A’s in Kansas City, compared to 57 in Oakland, but that’s the beginnings of the key players that helped the Oakland clubs win three consecutive World Series wins in the 1970s: Catfish Hunter, Reggie Jackson, Rollie Fingers, Sal Bando, Joe Rudi, and Campy Campaneris. As Kansas City A’s, even Charlie-O the mule and Harvey the Rabbit had their major league debuts.
For alumnae of the Kansas City A’s like Logan, the events in Oakland are a case of history being repeated. The ownership group hasn’t altered at all.
Logan stated, “It’s practically similar.” “And greed is the main factor.”
Kansas City was home to the A’s from 1955 to 1967. If a new ownership group hadn’t arrived and openly sought to alienate the fan base, the relationship probably would have lasted much longer.
