Charlie Finley: The Outrageous Story of Baseball's Super Showman
Equal parts carnival barker, professional bully, world-class tightwad, and uncanny builder of championship baseball teams, Oakland A's owner Finley left a stamp on baseball that can still be seen more than 30 years after his departure from the game. Sabermetricians (baseball stats junkies) Green and Launius are thorough and balanced in telling Finley's story, from his start in the steelworks of Gary, Indiana, to his grand success selling disability insurance to physicians, to his purchase of the Kansas City Athletics in 1960 and their bitterly fought move to Oakland in 1968, and, finally, to his sale of the team in 1978. The authors capture not only the enmity Finley engendered everywhere he traveled in the baseball world—including his own clubhouse—but also Finley's valiant efforts to keep his team alive in the face of a tough Oakland market and exploding free agency. A good complement to the just-published Reggie Jackson. --Alan Moores