1972 A's

[9RoyHobbsRF]

I have fond memories of seeing the first Bay Area World Champion, although I was a bigger Giants fan by far. I thought they were a scrappy bunch that over achieved, but did took another look at them the other day and was surprised by a few things. First a quick recap:

The 1971 A's had a great year with Vida Blue sweeping the AL MVP and Cy Young Awards but were swept by the Baltimore Orioles who then were beaten by The Pirates in the World Series.

Vida Blue held out in the spring of 1972 and never really regained his form that year, going from 24-8 to 6-10. The A's had traded one of their better players, Rick Monday, to the Cubs and got a very reliable starter in Ken Holtzman. Reggie Jackson had an ok year, but Bando had a poor year, as did the catching combo of Duncan and Tenace (compared to previous years). Campaneris had a average year at best and they were weak at 2B as well. Not much of a CF either but Joe Rudi had an excellent year in LF and Mike Epstein delivered some power at 1B. The pitching was very very good.

Overall, I would rate them a not very good offensive team but was surprised to see them #1 in the league in HR and second in runs scored, not bad for a team playing in a pitchers park. They also were second in the league in runs alowed and ERA in a pitching dominated year for the AL. I checked WAR and found 4 of the top 10 position players were A's including Bando who hit .236 with 15 HR? They did not have a P among the top 10 in WAR for pitchers except for Hunter at #5. I would have thought their pitching was the better strength than their hitting that year?

They beat the older veteran Tigers (under Billy Martin) in a tense playoff and were forced to play the series without their best player, Reggie Jackson. Somehow, with the help of Tenace and a propensity to win close games, they downed the favored Reds to win the series.

Were they lucky? Just able to win close games? Better than we thought at the time? Managed above expectations by Dick Williams?

Of course, they won the next two series as well and were in the midst of a 5 year run of division titles.

Thoughts?

[Dude Paskert]

1972 was a little Ice Age for hitting in the AL...Dick Allen towered over the league with numbers that just don't look special without comparing them to the rest of the hitters that year.
The A's park also caused some distortion, making their pitchers look better than they were and the hitters worse.
The A's had starters with 149, 150, and 163 OPS+...they were performing very well for their park and league.
Plus, their defense was quite good, above average at almost all positions.

I think the '72 A's had an excellent offense and very good pitching and defense...when you consider they context in which they played. Very well balanced.

[tag0519]

I like this thread. This was the first world series I ever watched. I was 8 and me and my brothers watched it. Miss those afternoon games!!.

[abolishthedh]

In hindsight, I would echo your thoughts 9RH. The team's defense was celebrated, but possibly underappreciated anyway and probably underappreciated since. The pitching was solid, and balanced across the starting rotation and bullpen. The team's stars were peaking together, with a couple of players emerging at the right time (Tenace and Blue). The team's chemistry was spectacular, even if they didn't get along with each other. The element that teammates shared was dislike and distrust of Charlie Finley. BTW, I have always been a big fan of team chemistry as a predictor of championship play, and probably because of the early '70s A's.

The one thing I must restate at length.... Dick Williams was underappreciated throughout his career as a manager. He brought the 1967 Red Sox to the W.S. as a surprise, and then the brought the 1984 Padres to the Series. In between, he did well with the Montreal Expos. It would be no surprise at all if sabremetrics would reveal that Williams consistently managed his team to overachieve. I know of no such analyses, but I am sure that he would deserve such study.

[gocamels]

I was just getting old enough to watch baseball - or anything else - towards the end of the A's run in the 70's, and living in North Carolina, was fed a steady diet of Braves games. That didn't keep the A's from capturing my imagination, however. Catfish Hunter was from NC, after all, and was a hero to almost every boy I knew. So, even though I loved the Braves, by the time Rickey Henderson came along, I was also hooked on the A's.

None of that really has much to do with the current conversation, so I will toss out my agreement that excellent defense, good pitching and an offense that was a good bit stronger than it looks on paper were the groundwork for the A's success. I also think that Dick Williams did a masterful job of managing

[PVNICK]

That was the first WS I ever saw. I remember coming home from school and my mom had it on while she was ironing. I assume it came on after whatever she was watching before in those pre-remote control days. I thought/wanted the A's to win because I had 7 A's baseball cards and only 6 Reds cards or something along those lines.

[Dude Paskert]

In hindsight, I would echo your thoughts 9RH. The team's defense was celebrated, but possibly underappreciated anyway and probably underappreciated since. The pitching was solid, and balanced across the starting rotation and bullpen. The team's stars were peaking together, with a couple of players emerging at the right time (Tenace and Blue). The team's chemistry was spectacular, even if they didn't get along with each other. The element that teammates shared was dislike and distrust of Charlie Finley. BTW, I have always been a big fan of team chemistry as a predictor of championship play, and probably because of the early '70s A's.

The one thing I must restate at length.... Dick Williams was underappreciated throughout his career as a manager. He brought the 1967 Red Sox to the W.S. as a surprise, and then the brought the 1984 Padres to the Series. In between, he did well with the Montreal Expos. It would be no surprise at all if sabremetrics would reveal that Williams consistently managed his team to overachieve. I know of no such analyses, but I am sure that he would deserve such study.

FWIW, the A's Pythagorean W-L (based on runs scored and allowed) was 97-58, while their actual record was 93-62. Not very meaningful for a single season, the thing that really stood out for me was that the A's only gave up 457 runs...that sounds like a TINY number.
Why 155 games? I had almost forgotten about the first players' strike, which led to an uneven schedule and the Tigers playing one more game than the Bosox and taking the division by 1/2 game over them...yet another instance of terrible luck for the Bosox that stretched for decades.

[9RoyHobbsRF]

^ The Red Sox played the Tigers the the last series of the season in Boston

There were to be three gams played
The Red Sox were leading by 0.5 games but dropped the first two games dropping them 1.5 games behind with one game to play
the bad luck is they did not win with the division on the line against the team they were ahead of

so yes the one extra game cost them but so did losing a key series

[Dude Paskert]

Good point...bad luck combined with a failure to execute.
Even Ted Williams getting hurt before the '46 WS can ultimately be blamed on the Bosox...Yawkey forcing the team to play a meaningless exhibition game in which Splinter took a HBP right in the elbow that kept him from extending his arm properly for the whole series. Maybe he would have stunk anyway...Musial had a poor series and apparently was healthy...but that's just the kind of thing that was part of the Bosox tradition.

[9RoyHobbsRF]

There is an excellent book on the 46 season called When The Boys Came back and of course the NL resulted in a tie so there was a need for the first ever playoff

The Red Sox thought "staying sharp" would be a benefit but Newhouser hit Williams. Williams also developed a cold , possibly from being in the whirlppol to help with the arm injury and had to weather the unfortunate timing of the release of a story saying he was almost traded heads up for DiMaggio in the early stages of the 46 season

[tag0519]

That was the first WS I ever saw. I remember coming home from school and my mom had it on while she was ironing. I assume it came on after whatever she was watching before in those pre-remote control days. I thought/wanted the A's to win because I had 7 A's baseball cards and only 6 Reds cards or something along those lines.

Funny the way kids thought back then. I remember the A's cards the most. They really stuck out. The green uniforms looked even greener on the card. I had, Bando, Blue, Jackson and Tennace.

[EdTarbusz]

1972 was the first World Series that I watched. I vividly remember seeing Joe Rudi's great catch in that Series.

[yanks0714]

I was 19 at the time. Working my first real job in the D.C area, away from home for the first time in my life, on my own. The thing I remember about that series is the tactical moves. It seems like both teams had many meetings on the field between hitters to make sure they were all on the same page. It was good series between evenly matched teams.

My perception was the A's pitching was fantastic even without Vida Blue getting alate start and not regaining his form. Good SP'ers, a strong bullpen, playing half their games in a pitcher friendly ballpark, and with outstanding defense. Makes it tough for the other team to score.

I agree with the earlier comment by gocamels and abolishthedh, Dick Williams did a great job managing and was a very underappreciated Manager. He was strict, a bit of a disciplinarian (he had to be on that team), but still allowed his players the freedom to play their game.

[KHenry14]

One of the tightest WS ever, with 6 of the 7 games being decided by one run. And a series chock full of great moments. Tenace coming out of nowhere to hit 4 homers, Rudi saving game 1 with a great catch in LF off of Menke, Billiingham's masterful Game 3 outing, the fake pitch-out/strike out of Bench in game 3, the three pinch hits in the bottom of the 9th of game 4 to give the A's the victory. Morgan throwing out Odom at home in the bottom of the 9th in game 5, Blue capping his terrible season by getting hammered in game 6, Hegan making a great play at 1B as a defensive substitute in game 7. Add into the mix the A's winning without their best player when Reggie got hurt in the ALCS and you have one for the ages.

Having been in the bleachers for games 3 and 4 ($4 a seat!) , I can tell you, they were major nailbiters. I can also tell you that those games were not sold out if you can believe it. I also may be the only person on BBF to have an unusual artifact from the series...a record album of the years' best plays taken from Monte Moore's radio calls.

[EdTarbusz]

The 1972 A's must have had more player transactions than any other pennant winner in history. Their starting line-up wasn't really affected by this, except for second base after Dick Green's injury, but their bench strength was almost completely changed during the season.