Striving for the Big Leagues

This chapter looks at how Kansas City and Oakland obtained major league franchises by poaching them from elsewhere, part of a nationwide trend that began in the 1950s and accelerated in the 1960s. The Kansas City Star helped lure baseball’s Athletics from Philadelphia to Kansas City in 1954; the team would face significant trials under owners Arnold Johnson and Charles Finley. In 1963 Lamar Hunt moved the Dallas Texans football team to Kansas City. Oakland already had landed its own football franchise that foundered until Al Davis assumed leadership. The Oakland Tribune shepherded the drive to build the Oakland Coliseum, whereas in 1967 Kansas City passed a bond issue to build its own stadium complex, only to lose the A’s to Oakland.

Introduction

The introduction discusses how Kansas City and Oakland sought to elevate themselves through big-league sports franchises and urban renewal. It relates the story of a controversial 1970 Oakland-Kansas City football game to illustrate what was at stake in the sports rivalry between the two cities. The introduction suggests that within cities and professional sports, there are always resentments, grievances, and competing agendas at play, and there are always winners and losers off the field as well as on. That is particularly true during historically fraught times when sports is seen as a key indicator of urban status and when many people reject a vision of “big-league” success that they feel disadvantages and disempowers them.

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.

Conclusion

The conclusion summarizes what happened after the heyday of the Oakland-Kansas City sports rivalry to the cities and their sports teams: the Kansas City Chiefs, the Kansas City Royals, the Oakland A’s, and the Oakland Raiders. Kansas City worked to keep the Chiefs and Royals by renovating its sports complex; it also built a new downtown arena, the Sprint Center. Oakland would lose the Raiders twice (once to Los Angeles and once to Las Vegas), and it would struggle to find a site for a new stadium for the A’s. The conclusion considers the implications of yesterday’s Kansas City-Oakland sports rivalry for a new era of city-sports relations.

Chiefs vs. Raiders, Part I

This chapter examines the heyday of the Kansas City Chiefs-Oakland Raiders American Football League rivalry. Their face-offs during the 1968 and 1969 seasons took place amid racial revolt, including the rise of the Black Panthers and the riots following Martin Luther King’s death. It also was a time of increased activism among African American athletes, including those in the AFL. Media coverage of the social ferment ranged from reactionary in the Oakland Tribune to more progressive in Sports Illustrated’s landmark 1968 series on the black athlete. Paralleling the struggles of Oakland and Kansas City to improve their public images, the AFL battled perceptions that it was an inferior league. Those perceptions were countered by the Chiefs’ win in Super Bowl IV.

“Triumph and Tragedy”

This chapter examines the highs and lows that would be experienced by Kansas City and Oakland and the athletes who played there. The Kansas City Royals won their first division title in 1976, the same year that Kansas City hosted the Republican National Convention. The Oakland Raiders won their first Super Bowl in 1977, the same year that Oakland elected its first African American mayor. But the two cities were scarred by violence from organized crime and the Symbionese Liberation Army, as businesses were dynamited and a school superintendent was assassinated. Players on the cities’ sports teams were enmeshed in charges of thuggery and racism, and some football players sustained profound injuries that would not become fully apparent until years later.

A’s vs. Royals, Part II

This chapter discusses the baseball rivalry that developed between the Oakland A’s and the Kansas City Royals. The A’s won two more world championships but still fought with owner Charles Finley, who drew condemnation for his actions during the 1973 World Series. The Royals had developed a talented core through trades and their farm system but could not beat the A’s when it counted the most, and the team experienced turmoil of its own. Kansas City’s and Oakland’s decisions to build new sports facilities outside their central business districts contributed to the decline of the two cities’ downtowns, which the cities tried to counter through an array of urban renewal projects that in turn provoked controversy.

Chiefs vs. Raiders, Part II

This chapter tells of the decline of the Kansas City Chiefs after they moved to Arrowhead Stadium in 1972. The Chiefs still could beat the Oakland Raiders at home, but coach Hank Stram was finally fired. The Raiders dominated their division but routinely lost during the playoffs, and they were branded as not being able to win the big game. The two football teams’ frustrations coincided with confrontations over Kansas City’s and Oakland’s investments in professional sports. Citizen groups filed legal challenges over Kansas City’s new sports complex and plans for the city’s new Kemper Arena, whereas the Black Panthers used its newspaper to present a comprehensive critique of Oakland’s ruling elite, including the people who built and profited from the Oakland Coliseum.