A’s vs. Royals, Part I

This chapter relates the rise in the fortunes of baseball’s Oakland A’s, culminating in their 1972 World Series title. They won despite weak attendance and turmoil under owner Charles Finley. The Kansas City Royals established themselves as a model expansion franchise under owner Ewing Kauffman but still had far to go to match the A’s’ success. Labor unrest engulfed both baseball and the two cities during this period, with baseball players walking off the job not long after lengthy construction strikes in Kansas City and a dockworkers strike against the Port of Oakland. Even as the growing power of the Major League Baseball Players Association transformed baseball, organized labor elsewhere faced an increasingly harsh climate.