The Philadelphia Athletics were a Major League Baseball team that played in Philadelphia from 1901 to 1954, when they moved to Kansas City, Missouri, and became the Kansas City Athletics. After another move to Oakland, California, in 1967, they became the Oakland Athletics. In 2025, the team moved to West Sacramento, California, as the Athletics, and plans ultimately to move to the Las Vegas metropolitan area.
The Philadelphia Athletics had an overall win–loss record of during their 54 years in Philadelphia. Eight former Philadelphia Athletics players were elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame.
History Beginning
The Western League was renamed the American League in 1900 by league president Bancroft (Ban) Johnson and declared itself the second major league in 1901. Johnson created new franchises in the east and eliminated some franchises in the west. Philadelphia was given a new franchise to compete with the National League's Philadelphia Phillies.
Former catcher Connie Mack was recruited to manage the club. Mack in turn persuaded Phillies minority owner Ben Shibe as well as others to invest in the team, which would be called the Philadelphia Athletics, a name taken from the Athletic Base Ball Club of Philadelphia, which had been a founding member of the NL in 1876 but had folded after only one season. Mack himself bought a 25% interest, while the remaining 25% was sold to Philadelphia sportswriters Sam Jones and Frank Hough.
The new league recruited many of its players from the existing National League, persuading them to "jump" to the American League in defiance of their contracts. One of the players who jumped to the new league was second baseman Nap Lajoie, formerly of the crosstown Phillies. He won the A.L.'s first batting title with a .426 batting average, still a league record. The Athletics and the American League received a setback when, on April 21, 1902, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court invalidated Lajoie's contract with the Athletics, and ordered him back to the Phillies. This order, though, was only enforceable in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. Lajoie was sold to Cleveland, but was kept out of road games in Philadelphia until the National Agreement was signed between the two leagues in 1903.
Columbia Park was the Athletics first home. They played there from their founding in 1901 through the 1908 season, and it was the venue of their two home games in the 1905 World Series.
First dynasty and aftermath In the early years, the Athletics established themselves as one of the dominant teams in the new league, winning the A.L. pennant six times (1902, 1905, 1910, 1911, 1913, and 1914), and winning the World Series in 1910, 1911, and 1913. They won over 100 games in 1910 and 1911, and 99 games in 1914. The team was known for its "$100,000 infield," consisting of Stuffy McInnis (first base), Eddie Collins (second base), Jack Barry (shortstop), and Frank "Home Run" Baker (third base) as well as pitchers Eddie Plank and Chief Bender. Rube Waddell was also a major pitching star for the Athletics in the early 1900s. According to Lamont Buchanan in The World Series and Highlights of Baseball, the Athletics fans were fond of chanting, "If Eddie Plank doesn't make you lose / We have Waddell and Bender all ready to use!" Plank holds the franchise record for career victories, with 284.
In 1909, the Athletics moved into the major leagues' first concrete-and-steel ballpark, Shibe Park. This remains the second and last time in franchise history where a new ballpark was built specifically for the Athletics. In 1912, Mack bought the 25% of the team's stock owned by Jones and Hough to become a full partner with Shibe. Shibe ceded Mack full control over the baseball side while retaining control over the business side. However, Mack had already enjoyed a nearly free hand in baseball matters since the franchise's inception.
In 1914, the Athletics lost the 1914 World Series to the "Miracle Braves" in a four-game sweep. Mack traded, sold or released most of the team's star players soon after. In his book To Every Thing a Season, Bruce Kuklick points out that there were suspicions that the Athletics had thrown the Series, or at least "laid down," perhaps in protest of Mack's frugal ways. Mack himself alluded to that rumor years later, but debunked it. He claimed that the team was torn by numerous internal factions, and was also distracted by the allure of a third major league, the Federal League.
The Federal League had been formed to begin play in 1914. As the AL had done 13 years before, the new league raided existing AL and NL teams for players. Several of his best players, including Bender, had already decided to jump before the World Series. Mack refused to match the upstart league's offers, preferring to rebuild with younger (and less expensive) players. The result was a swift and near-total collapse. The Athletics went from a 99–53 (.651) record and a pennant in 1914 to a record of 43–109 (.283) and last place in 1915, and then to 36–117 (.235, still a modern major-league low) in 1916. The team would finish in last place every year through 1922 and would not contend again until 1925. Shibe died in 1922, and his sons Tom and John took over the business side, leaving the baseball side to Mack. Although Mack only held the titles of vice president and secretary-treasurer, for all intents and purposes he was now the head of the franchise and would remain so for the next three decades.
By this time, Mack had established his image of the tall, gaunt and well-dressed man waving his players into position with a scorecard. Unlike most managers, he chose to wear a high-collar shirt, tie, ascot scarf, and a straw boater hat instead of a uniform, a look that he never changed for the rest of his life, even decades after it went out of fashion. This came at the price of Mack not being allowed on-field during games per league regulations.
Second dynasty (1927–1933) By the latter half of the 1920s, Mack had assembled one of the most feared batting orders in the history of baseball, featuring three future Baseball Hall of Fame members. At its heart were Al Simmons, who batted .334 and hit 307 home runs over his major league career, Jimmie Foxx, who hit 30 or more home runs in 12 consecutive seasons and drove in more than 100 runs in 13 consecutive years, and Mickey Cochrane, one of the best-hitting catchers in baseball history. A fourth future Hall of Fame member was pitcher Lefty Grove, who led the American League in strikeouts seven years in a row, and had the league's lowest earned run average a record nine times.
In 1927 and 1928, the Athletics finished second to the New York Yankees, then won pennants in 1929, 1930 and 1931, winning the World Series in and . In each of the three years, the Athletics won over 100 games. While the 1927 New York Yankees, whose batting order was known as the Murderers' Row, are remembered as one of the best teams in baseball history, the Athletics teams of the late 1920s and early 1930s are largely forgotten. Opponents who faced both teams considered them to be generally equal. Both teams won three consecutive pennants and two of three World Series.
Statistically the New York and Philadelphia dynasties were remarkably even: The Athletics had a record of 313–143 (.686) between 1929 and 1931; the Yankees, 302–160 (.654) between 1926 and 1928. And while the Athletics scored six fewer runs than the Yankees (2,710–2,716), the Athletics had five fewer runs scored against them (1,992–1,997), a combined difference of only one run. The Yankees had the best single season at the plate, hitting for a combined .307 batting average and scoring 975 runs in 1927. The Athletics' strongest offensive performance came in 1929, when they batted .296. On defense the Athletics were clearly superior; over their three-year American League reign they committed only 432 errors, 167 fewer than the Yankees. Cochrane was also especially adept at telling his pitchers how to pitch to opposing batters. Many veteran baseball observers believe that the Yankees' far more exalted status in history is due largely to the fact that they played in New York, where most of the national media is located.
As it turned out, this would be the Athletics' last hurrah in Philadelphia. The Great Depression was well under way, and declining attendance drastically reduced the team's revenues. Mack again sold or traded his best players in order to reduce expenses. In September 1932, he sold Simmons, Jimmy Dykes and Mule Haas to the Chicago White Sox for $100,000. In December 1933, Mack sent Grove, Rube Walberg and Max Bishop to the Boston Red Sox for Bob Kline, Rabbit Warstler and $125,000. Also in 1933, he sold Cochrane to the Detroit Tigers for $100,000. The construction of a spite fence at Shibe Park, blocking the view from nearby buildings, only served to irritate potential paying fans. However, the consequences did not become apparent for a few more years, as the team finished second in 1932 and third in 1933.
Lean years Mack was already 68 years old when the Athletics won the pennant in 1931, and many felt that the game had long since passed him by. Although he had every intention of building another winner, he did not have the extra money to get big stars. He also did not (or could not) invest in a farm system. Unlike most other owners, Mack had no source of income apart from the Athletics, so the dwindling attendance figures of the early 1930s hit him especially hard.
As a result, the Athletics went into a decline that lasted for over 30 years, through three cities. The Athletics finished fifth in 1934, then last in 1935. Except for a fifth-place finish in 1944, they finished in last or next-to-last place every year through 1946. Tom Shibe died in 1936 and John succeeded him as club president. However, John resigned due to illness a few months later, leaving the presidency to Mack. When John died on July 11, 1937, Mack bought enough shares from the Shibe estate to become majority owner. However, Mack had been the franchise's number-one man since Ben Shibe's death. Even as bad as the Athletics got during this time, Mack retained full authority over business and baseball matters. Long after most teams hired a general manager, Mack continued making all personnel decisions and leading the team on the field. One of the few times that he even considered ceding some of his duties came in the 1934–35 offseason, when the Athletics were not far removed from what would be their last great era. He seriously entertained hiring Babe Ruth to succeed him as manager, but backed off from this idea, saying that the Babe's wife, Claire, would be running the team within a month. Even when the Phillies moved to Shibe Park as tenants of the Athletics midway through the 1938 season, not enough revenue came in for Mack to build another winner.