The A’s Unseen Hand: Carl A. Finley
Seldom mentioned when conversation gets around to the A’s great years is the name of another Finley … in this case Charlie’s cousin CARL A. FINLEY. Carl didn’t seek attention to himself, but he played a huge role in the success of the A’s, as General Manager and Vice-President of operations throughout the 70’s. And unlike the controversial team owner, Carl was liked and respected by all who came in contact with him in the baseball world.
Before Carl joined the organization, he was a school principal in Dallas, Texas. Charlie began calling him and urging him to drop everything and come to Kansas City to help him with the team.
At left, Carl A. Finley, Vice President of the Oakland Athletics from 1962 to 1985, meets with Charlie Finley. At this meeting Charlie persuaded Carl to quit his job as principal, pack up his family & move to Kansas City to work for the team. Read about that story & more in his daughter, Nancy’s book: FINLEYBALL.
KOHEI NIRENGI
Tochigi, Japan
Mr. Nirengi does wonderful sketches of major league baseball historical personalities.
Charlie grew to depend on Carl to keep the organization functioning smoothly during those turbulent times. It is said, “Carl did the work of six, eight, even 25 individuals.” Today many MLB leagues have at least 80 people handling front office functions. In the ’70’s, it was Carl plus three or four others handling the front office. Today, there is an entire organization to handle World Series tickets. Carl and his teenage-daughter handled it for the A’s by renting a vacant bank building in Oakland and storing the tickets in the vault. Early in the morning, just the two of them would slip into the vault and undertake the enormous task of opening envelopes from thousands of fans seeking to purchase tickets. During those years Carl was physically at the Oakland Coliseum on a daily basis.
Charlie used Carl as a “sounding board” in daily early-morning phone conferences with him, from his Kansas farm. During these conferences Charlie liked to brainstorm ideas and typically trusted only Carl to hear them.
In 1976 Charlie handed his voting proxy as a team owner to Carl, so Carl could vote in Charlie’s stead at the annual MLB owner’s meetings. Charlie stopped attending these meetings due to his conflict with then-commissioner Bowie Kuhn. From then on Carl took over even more day-to-day responsibilities. When the A’s were sold to the Haas family, the A’s manager, Billy Martin, requested that Carl would remain as a V.P. Carl assisted the Haas family with the transition, and preparing for their first full season in 1981.
Read more of the story in Carl’s daughter, Nancy’s book about coming of age with baseball history, her father, and the greatest team of the century: “FinleyBall”.
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