The Oakland Athletics

Why are they called the Athletics?

The Athletics’ name originated from the term “Athletic Club” for local gentlemen’s clubs—this dates back to 1860 when an amateur team, the Athletic (Club) of Philadelphia, was formed the basis of the Oakland name.

Why am I excited to see their city?

I feel like Oakland gets a pretty bad rap given they are across the Bay from San Francisco and have cheaper housing. Whilst I have been through Oakland, I haven’t spent a lot of time there.

One thing that would be cool is checking out Cal Berkely’s college campus – one of the top universities in California.

What is a tradition at their ballpark?

Most baseball teams play a lot better at home, but Oakland has something that other teams cannot claim (well maybe Detroit but I haven’t been there yet), and that is RAW SEWAGE!

You see, Oakland’s stadium is so old (a key reason why the NFL Raiders are leaving town), that raw sewage sometimes leaks into the clubhouse and stinks the joint up!

Who is a famous fan?

The second of the California teams, Oakland might be the least glamorous in the state. Still, that doesn’t stop our boy and legendary actor Tom Hanks from being a fan (well he grew up in the area….).

Apart from Tom, anyone who has seen the movie Moneyball is probably a fan (if you haven’t go see it), as it shows a team on a shoestring budget take it to the big guys!

A fun/weird fact about the Athletics

Keeping on from the famous fans, the movie Moneyball showed how the Athletics revolutionised modern baseball scouting!

The Athletics did not have the budgets to match the bigger teams in the league, so using sabermetrics (statistics that measure in-game activity) the Athletics were able to build a team on the cheap with players who were undervalued by other teams.

The key sabermetric the team used was their “On Base Percentage”, or how likely that player was to get on base – i.e. the best way to win baseball games!

Without too many spoilers, whilst the A’s never won the World Series with this method, the Boston Red Sox took the same approach in 2004 and finally won their first Championship since the Curse of the Bambino (their last World Series win before 2004 was 1916!!)