The Minnesota Twins had been on the literal chopping block-they were specifically named for contraction-but they made the playoffs six times between 20. They were not the only small-market team to punch above their weight. While other low-payroll teams like Tampa Bay and Minnesota and San Diego and Kansas City were awful, Billy Beane’s A’s kept finding inefficiencies in the market and kept winning. In 2002, for example, they won 103 games. And the subtitle of that book is “The Art of Winning an Unfair Game.” It was clear 20 years ago, 25 years ago, that by all logic, the Oakland A’s should not be able to compete with the richest teams.īut, as we know, the A’s DID compete-we saw the movie. Think about this for a minute: Michael Lewis wrote Moneyball 20 years ago-the 20-year anniversary is officially coming up in June. And everybody now seems to be coming to the inevitable conclusion that the days of the Oakland A’s, one of the most colorful and interesting teams of my lifetime, are coming to an end. Oakland mayor Sheng Thao said she’s sick of her city being used as a pawn to get a shinier deal from Sin City and she’s moving on. The A’s entered an agreement to buy land for a stadium in Las Vegas. Well, it looks like the heartbreaking and infuriating saga of baseball in Oakland will be slowly and painfully coming to an end.
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