Baseball Way Back: Could the Oakland A's have moved to Chicago?

You could make the case that the Oakland A's are truly America's team.

They have already planted stakes in three time zones, with stops in Philadelphia, Kansas City and, for the time being, Oakland.

Soon, this peripatetic team will land in Las Vegas, where, maybe, like the proverbial soap opera heroine of old, it will finally find true happiness.

There was a time, though, when the A's could have landed at 35th and Shields.

Rumors floated in 1975 that A's owner Charles O. Finley intended to move his team to Chicago as part of a deal involving owner John Allyn's financially struggling White Sox and the Pilotless city of Seattle.

Under this scenario, the Sox would be ticketed for Seattle, filling the baseball void created when the Pilots fled the Pacific Northwest for Milwaukee in 1970.

Ironically, the Pilots were stolen by Bud Selig, who tried to steal the Sox for Milwaukee in 1969.

To some fans frustrated by an underachieving White Sox team hobbled by untimely injuries (sound familiar?), the prospect must have been tantalizing.

The colorful A's, led by the flamboyant owner who experimented with orange baseballs and the designated runner and trotted out a mule as a team mascot, had won three straight World Series titles during the decade.

The White Sox had little to show beyond a magical but ultimately insufficient 1972 season dominated by a resurgent and seemingly superhuman Dick Allen that just fell short of a division title.

For Finley, the insurance tycoon who grew up a White Sox fan in Gary, Indiana, it would have fulfilled a Quixotic ownership dream.

In his autobiography, "Veeck As in Wreck," two-time White Sox owner Bill Veeck wrote that Finley tried to latch on with the syndicate led by Hank Greenberg and Veeck that bought the majority share of the Sox before the 1959 season. Veeck was agreeable to the arrangement until he discovered that Finley was trying behind Veeck's back to buy the club himself.

After the death of Kansas City A's owner Arnold Johnson in 1960, Finley finally managed to earn a seat at the table among the lords of baseball.

With Kansas City proving a money loser - the owner estimated his losses at $5 million during his tenure there - Finley convinced his fellow owners to approve the move to Oakland in 1968.

That move, by the way, hastened expansion because MLB promised to deliver a new team to Kansas City. As a result, the Royals and the Pilots opened for business in 1969.

Finley, however, even with a baseball team of his own in another city, did not cease attempting to gain a foothold on the South Side. With his business in Chicago and his home in LaPorte, Indiana, he thirsted after the Chicago market.

Kent Chetlain, writing in the Bradenton Herald in 1974, said Finley offered Allyn "a few years back" the chance to swap franchises.

By July 30, 1975, the Tribune's David Condon was reporting, "Plans are progressing speedily for a world championship baseball team to be wearing Chicago White Sox uniforms and playing in White Sox Park next season."

"This team would include Reggie Jackson, Ken Holtzman, and other stars operating as the Oakland Athletics and challenging for their fourth consecutive World Series crown," he continued.

Among the many intriguing possibilities of the A's turning into the White Sox would have been longtime Cub Billy Williams calling White Sox Park his home.

Condon wrote, "Allyn has been told that he can sell the White Sox franchise to Seattle interests or to interests that would move the team to Seattle, on one condition: There must be another team lined up to move into White Sox Park and assume the White Sox identity.

"It is guessed that Finley's Athletics are that team."

Finley denied the rumors, saying, "As far as I know I'll be playing in Oakland for many years to come. There may be rumors about town that the Sox will be sold to a Seattle group and the A's will be moved to Chicago, but they are news to me."

For his part, Allyn said, "I don't think there's a chance that the White Sox will leave Chicago," adding, "I have no intention of moving the club to Seattle."

In the end, Veeck and his group of investors took over the Sox in 1975.

But Finley did wind up getting a piece of the team - sort of - when he hired ex-Sox skipper Chuck Tanner, still under contract with the South Siders, to manage the A's in 1976. And Veeck wound up paying part of Tanner's salary.