The Kansas City A’s lifespan was brief (1955—67) and inglorious. In 13 seasons, the team never managed a winning year. Part of the problem may have been the dizzying rate of turnover of the club’s players. I can not imagine any other team has had such an itchy trigger finger when it came to swapping players in and out. One result of all the losing and the constant turnover is that there are not really any legendary KC A’s players. Some great ones played for the A’s briefly, but no player really made a name for themselves with just the A’s.

In spite of that, I wanted to take a look at what players were able to contribute the most to the A’s. I’ve compiled a completely objective list of the top 15 players by Wins Above Replacement (WAR) accrued while with the KC A’s (using Sean Smith’s implementation of WAR as found on Baseball-Reference.com). Few players were able to hang with the A’s long enough to compile much in the way of counting stats like WAR. Some players who manged even a couple of decent seasons for the A’s make the list.

Here are numbers 15 through eight on the list, to be followed by the top seven next week:

15. Roger Maris ∙ RF ∙ 1958—59 ∙ 221 GP ∙ 5.0 WAR

Maris makes this list in spite of playing basically one and a third seasons with the Athletics, which is a testament to Maris’s superb talent as well as the lack of talent that stuck in KC. Had the A’s held on to Maris, he could have been that one legendary player associated primarily with the KC A’s. That Maris was traded to the Yankees is especially galling because he wanted to stay with the sad sack A’s and loathed being dealt to the powerful Yankees. According to the recent Maris biography from Tom Clavin & Danny Peary, Maris had this to say about the trade: “It doesn’t thrill me, and it sure fouls things up. I just built a home and expected to spend a lot of time with my family. Now they’ve traded me about as far away as they could. Kansas City is my home now. I’ve got nothing against the Yankees, but I’m sorry to leave.” Game-for-game, Maris was probably the greatest KC Athletic.

14. Tom Gorman ∙ P ∙ 1955—59 ∙ 214 GP ∙ 5.1 WAR

Gorman spent most of 1946-54 in the Yankees farm system, which included stints with the Kansas City Blues from 1951—54. He was used sparingly by the Yanks from ’52-’54 before the A’s purchased his contract prior to their inaugural season in KC. Gorman was a fixture in the A’s bullpen for the next five years, and provided an occasional start. The side-armer was steady and effective: his ERA stayed between 3.51—3.83 in his first four seasons.

13. Orlando Pena ∙ P ∙ 1962—65 ∙ 100 GP ∙ 5.2 WAR

The Cuban Pena had a long and winding career that took him to eight major league teams in 14 seasons. His four years as an A was his longest stay with one team. He was pretty good in ’62 and ’63, but ineffective in ’64 and ’65 before the A’s released him mid-season. Pena became a member of the Royals organization in 1968, and pitched for the Omaha Royals in ’69, but never did get the call to pitch for the big league Royals. He spent some time on the other side of the state with the Cardinals in ’73 and ’74. A 1963 Sports Illustrated article on the prevalence of the spitball mentioned Pena: “Orlando Pena of the Kansas City Athletics, that team’s best pitcher, supposedly loads his pitches. Does Pena throw a spitter? ‘No sir,’ says Hank Bauer, who managed Pena last season…’What Pena throws is a Cuban fork ball.’”

12. Bert Campaneris ∙ SS ∙ 1964—67 ∙ 500 GP ∙ 5.3 WAR

“Campy” had a long, distinguished career, and it all started with the Kansas City A’s, and a home run on the first big league pitch he faced. (He homered a second time in his debut game, then hit just two more homers the rest of the season.) The speedy shortstop led the AL in stolen bases every year from ’65—’68, and again in ’70 and ’72. On September 8, 1965 Campaneris became the first player to play all nine positions in a game (resulting in one of the most bizarre box scores you’ll ever see) thanks to one of A’s owner Charlie Finley’s publicity stunts. Campaneris moved to Oakland with the team in ’68 and remained with them through ’76. He holds the distinction of having played the most games with the 110 year-old franchise.

From Bill James’s Historical Baseball Abstract (which ranks Campy as the 25th best shortstop of all-time): “There was a game in 1966 that symbolized what he meant to the organization. Nobody else in the lineup got a hit; nobody else, as I recall, even reached base, but Campy went 4-for-4, stole several bases, and scored 4 runs. The A’s won the game, I think 4-2 or 4-3.”

11. Bill Tuttle ∙ CF ∙ 1958—61 ∙ 450 GP ∙ 5.4 WAR

Tuttle was acquired in a 13-player swap with the Tigers. Much of his value for the A’s came in his career year of 1959: His hitting was good though not great that year (113 OPS+), and his defensive numbers were especially strong, including 17 assists from center field. Tuttle was a heavy user of chewing tobacco, which led to oral cancer later in his life. He spent much of the last five years of his life speaking to big league players about the risks of tobacco use before his passing in 1998.

10. Bud Daley ∙ P ∙ 1958—61 ∙ 118 GP ∙ 6.4 WAR

Daley represented the A’s for the All-Star games in 1959 and ’60, and was especially good for the A’s in 1959 when he posted a 3.16 ERA and 4.4 WAR. It was the only outstanding season of his career. The lefty relied on breaking balls, particularly the knuckleball and curveball.

9. Vic Power ∙ 1B ∙ 1955—58 ∙ 582 GP ∙ 6.6 WAR

Power was familiar with Kansas City and Municipal Stadium after spending ’52 and ’53 with the Kansas City Blues. He broke into the bigs with the Philadelphia Athletics in ’54 and starred at first base for the KC A’s for their first four years of existence until being dealt to Cleveland in exchange for Roger Maris. According to Bill James, “Power was a spectacular defensive first baseman, an acrobat who would dive for ground balls half way to second base” (Historical Baseball Abstract).

8. Ned Garver ∙ P ∙ 1957—60 ∙ 115 GP ∙ 6.7 WAR

Garver’s biggest claim to fame is being the only modern pitcher to win 20 games on a team that lost 100 games or more (the 1951 St. Louis Browns). The 14 year vet spent the latter portion of his career with the A’s, and pitched long and well enough in his time in KC to have the second most WAR among KC A’s pitchers. According to Garver, he was “a sinker-slider pitcher” (The Neyer/James Guide To Pitchers).

I started blogging because I like talking baseball. One of the unexpected benefits of that love is the occasional opportunity to review books on baseball. Recently I was asked if I was interested in receiving a copy of Roger Maris: Baseball’s Reluctant Hero, by Tom Clavin and Danny Peary. Of course I was.

One could sum up what I knew about Roger Maris (before reading this book) in about three sentences. He broke Babe Ruth’s single-season HR record in 1961. He was a Yankee in his prime and won 2 MVP awards. He spent the last 2 seasons of his career with the St Louis Cardinals. During the summer of 1998, his family was center-stage while Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa chased, and eventually broke, his record.

I read the 393-page book during a recent business trip. It was a surprisingly easy read. The main part of the book covers Maris’ 1961 season – for which he is most famous today – but the authors try to explain why Maris treated the media the way he did during that season by providing some insight into his childhood and family dynamics. Roger Maris was always a closely guarded man, not sharing personal details with just anyone, and certainly not with the media; his experiences as a youth, as well as a strong family tradition of being secretive, shaped that part of his personality.

Clavin and Peary make a reasonable case that Maris’ reticence, coupled with a new, younger breed of sports reporter who felt largely unencumbered by their predecessor’s code of keeping baseball player’s dirty laundry out of the press, were the causes of virtually all Maris’ trouble in New York. Roger did stick his foot in his mouth (and flash a prominent digit) on a couple of occasions, which didn’t help him, and the press was all too ready to publish those quotes/actions far and wide. No wonder Maris was so ready to get out of New York by 1966.

The book reminds the reader Roger Maris was much more than a home run hitter during his career. It talks about his defense (including his famous play in Game 7 of the 1962 World Series), his baserunning, and his all-around game instincts.

It also reminds us of what the game used to be like. Two separate leagues, with two separate styles of play, where players rarely jumped leagues and most major leaguers learned about the other league’s players by reading about them in the press. It’s interesting most of the 1967 Cardinals thought they knew what kind of a guy Roger Maris was based on the descriptions of him in the newspaper. They were surprised when Maris the man turned out to be nothing like the Maris they had read about.

Once Maris hangs them up following the 1968 season, Clavin and Peary take us rather quickly thorugh the remaining years of his life, touching on his Old-Timers Day appearances, his charitable work, and his business venture as a beer distributor for Anhieser-Busch in the Gainesville Florida area. The authors also talk about the effort George Steinbrenner made to repair the burnt bridges between Maris and the Yankee organization. Maris vowed never to go back to Yankee Stadium after he left the team in 1966. Steinbrenner believed a grave injustice had been done to Maris because of how he had been treated while a Yankee and really worked overtime to fix it. The description of Maris’ first appearance in the House that Ruth Built after he retired (April 1978) may bring a tear to your eye.

I try to keep it simple with book reviews. Was it well-written, did I learn something, and do I recommend it.

Was it well-written? Yes. As mentioned, it was an easy and informative read. I did get a little lost in the beginning when all the relatives were introduced and described. A flow chart would have been a nice touch. Then again, I have trouble following all the ‘begats’ in the book of Genesis, so that’s more a knock on me than anything.

Did I learn something? Yes. I learned a ton. Some examples:

• Frank Lane, GM of the Cardinals in the late 1950s, tried to trade Stan Musial. Owner Gussie Busch had to step in and stop it (page 92). Can you imagine the outcry if Lane had succeeded?
• Bob Turley tipped pitches for Mickey Mantle when Mantle was at the plate (page 132).
• Maris was the first player in the modern era to hit 50 HR in a season before 1 September (page 189).
• In 1961, Maris hit 60 HR in 684 plate appearances. In 1927, Babe Ruth did it in 687 PA. Puts the whole asterisk discussion in a different light, doesn’t it? (page 217)
• Mike Shannon had to move to 3B from RF after Maris was acquired (page 311). I suspect some of you already knew that, but I didn’t.

Do I recommend it? Yes. I found it well written and well researched. I was entertained, and the book made two cross-country flights much more enjoyable, not to mention pass much faster than they typically do.

Disclaimer: The author received a complimentary copy of this book from Simon and Schuster, Inc., and received no compensation for this review.