For the first half of the 1970s, the Oakland A’s were the pre-eminent franchise in Major League Baseball. Starting in 1971, the A’s had won five straight AL West titles. The middle three seasons of that run, from 1972 through 1974, saw Oakland win three consecutive World Series championships. But the embryonic age of free […]
The Oakland A’s won three straight World Series from 1972-74, and the 1975 ALCS marked their fifth straight appearance in postseason play. It also marked the end of the dynasty, as the Boston Red Sox ended the A’s great run with three-game sweep in what was then a best-of-five League Championship Series.
The “three-peat” of 1972-74 is one of just four times in MLB history that such has been done, and the only time it’s been done by a franchise not named the New York Yankees. It was an amazing run, and the 1975 Oakland A’s was the organization’s last run into October before coming apart.
The West Coast had been good to the A’s franchise. In 1968 they relocated from Kansas City where they were a losing team from 1955 forward. In fact, the A’s hadn’t done anything noteworthy since they were in Philadelphia in Connie Mack’s final year of 1949. But upon arrival in Oakland, they immediately finished on […]
Baseball in Oakland had been in a dry spell since the AL West title run in the strike-shortened season of 1981. The A’s promptly dipped under .500 the following year and stayed there. Midway through the 1986 season, the organization tapped Tony LaRussa, who had managed the 1983 Chicago White Sox into the ALCS, to […]
The Oakland A’s had been the gold standard of major league baseball in the late 1980s and early 1990s. They won four AL West titles, three American League pennants and the World Series in 1989 under the leadership of Tony LaRussa. But the costs of being a small market team forced a rebuild and LaRussa […]
The Toronto Blue Jays and Oakland A’s were old hands at postseason baseball by the time they met in the 1992 ALCS. The two teams faced each other in 1989, when Oakland rolled to a pennant and later a World Series title. The A’s had also been here in 1988 and 1990. The Blue Jays […]
The Oakland A’s were baseball’s dominant team from 1988-90. They finished with the best record in the majors and won the American League pennant all three years. They won the World Series in 1989. Upset losses in 1988 and 1990 dimmed their legacy, but there was no questioning their excellence. After a brief slip in […]
For a two-time defending World Series champion, the 1974 Oakland A’s entered the season in a bit of flux. They had a new manager. After Dick Williams resigned immediately following the championship in 1973, Alvin Dark was the new man in charge. But the players on the field were fundamentally the same and that added […]
1972 was a breakthrough year for the Oakland A’s, as they won their first World Series title on the West Coast. The 1973 Oakland A’s built on the success, winning a second straight championship. Reggie Jackson led the way, with one of the great seasons of his Hall of Fame career. Reggie hit 32 home […]
The Oakland A’s were a franchise that was coming. In 1968, they had relocated from Kansas City and posted the franchise’s first winning season since 1932—when they were in Philadelphia and managed by Connie Mack. In their new west coast home, the A’s continued to play winning baseball in 1969 and 1970. In 1971, they […]
The Oakland A’s were far and away the best team in the American League from 1988 through 1990. Each year they won the AL West with room to spare and they went a combined 12-1 in ALCS play, capturing three consecutive pennants. In 1989, they won the World Series. But all great runs come to […]