by Max Silberman

The movement of baseball franchises, including those of the Boston Braves, St. Louis Browns, Philadelphia Athletics, Brooklyn Dodgers, New York Giants, and Washington Senators, left millions of baseball fans without a rooting interest in a baseball team. With the exception of the Dodgers, whose fans continued to cheer for them in Los Angeles, a move generally meant a divorce from the team’s former fans.

Dodger fans were extremely loyal, the team remained intact and was successful winning the pennant and World Series in 1959, only their second year in Los Angeles. For the Philadelphia Athletics, the story was quite different with few A’s fans giving a hoot about the Kansas City and Oakland versions of the team.

One outstanding factor was the concerted effort in Kansas City to rid the club of it’s Philadelphia players. The 1955 Athletics included many former Philadelphians. Vic Power, Gus Zernial, Joe Astroth, Joe DeMaestri, and Bill Wilson started with Elmer Valo, Bill Renna, Billy Shantz, Jack Littrell, Pete Suder, Al Robertson, Hal Bevan, Don Bollweg, Spook Jacobs, Jim Finigan, occupying reserve position spots. Pitchers included: Art Ditmar, Alex Kellner, Arnie Portocarrero, Bobby Shantz, Bill Harrington, Moe Burtschy, Charlie Bishop, John Gray, Marion Fricano, Bob Trice, Sonny Dixon, Lee Wheat, Ozzie VanBrabant. Nearly most of the 1954 Philadelphians made the move west.

One year later, in 1956, only, Power, Finigan, De Maestri, Zernial, Renna, Jacobs, Astroth, Ditmar, Kellner, Burtschy,Bobby Shantz, and Portocarrero were left. By 1957, the list had shrunk to Power, De Maestri, Zernial, Kellner, and Hal Raether. 1958 saw holdovers Power, De Maestri and Kellner . By 1959, only Joe DeMaestri was left and that was his final season with the Kansas City team. The cleansing was complete. All the Philadelphia Athletics were gone. For all intents and purposes, the team had been wiped out in two years.

During the Charlie Finley years and the move to Oakland, the team’s blue and white, (red added in 1954) gave way to green,gold and white. Even the venerable elephant was replaced by Finley’s donkey, “Charlie O”. In recent times, the Oakland Athletics have restored the elephant to its proper place, even naming him “Stomper”.

Following the exodus after the 1954 season, some of us lost interest in baseball entirely while others did the unthinkable, becoming Phillies fans. I plead guilty to the latter charge. Few fans had continued interest in the Kansas City or Oakland A’s and the quick dumping of the players, colors and mascot did not help.