Between 54-year stints in Philadelphia (1901-1954) and Oakland (1968-2021 and who knows how much longer), the American League’s Athletics (“A’s” for short) played a largely forgettable 13 years (1955-1967) in Kansas City, Missouri’s Municipal Stadium. In 13 years, the Kansas City A’s had nothing but losing records. From 1955-1960, when there were only eight teams in the AL, the A’s finished dead last twice, 7th three times, and 6th the other time. From 1961-1967, after expansion to ten teams, the A’s finished in the cellar three times, 9th twice, and 7th and 8th once each.
Back in those days, before the two leagues were split into divisions in 1969, we used to talk of finishing in the top half of the standings as being in the “first division” (remember that term, old-time baseball fans?). Get this – in 13 years, the Kansas City A’s never finished in the “first division” of the AL – not once!
My parents and I moved to KC in July 1962; barely over a week after we arrived, Daddy took me to see the A’s play the Yankees (with Whitey Ford on the mound, Mantle in CF, Howard behind the plate, and that great infield of Skowron-Richardson-Boyer, but minus Tony Kubek, who was away on National Guard duty). From that day on, I was hooked on baseball! Though the A’s were perennially fighting to keep out of the cellar, they did have their moments AND an exciting player here and there.
Campy in KC A’s uniform & cap
The most exciting one to come along – in my opinion – was Dagoberto Campaneris, a Cuban immigrant (born in Pueblo Nuevo, Cuba, on March 9, 1942) whom the A’s called up from their AA team in Birmingham in July 1964. Wayne Causey, the A’s starting shortstop, had been injured Wednesday evening, July 22, in a collision at 2nd base with the Minnesota Twins’ Bob Allison. So the A’s put out the call for Campaneris, who boarded a bus and spent all night traveling from Birmingham to Bloomington, Minnesota, for Thursday afternoon’s final game of the A’s series with the Twins.
I remember being in our basement listening to the game on my transistor radio. The Twins’ starting pitcher was Jim Kaat, a future Hall-of-Famer (inducted just last year) who came into the game with a 10-4 record. Campy came up in the 1st inning, the second hitter of the game, and hit the first pitch thrown to him in the major leagues for a home run, putting the A’s ahead, 1-0. In the 7th, with the A’s trailing, 3-1, Campy came up with two out and a man on 2nd, and hit yet another homer off of Kaat to tie the score at 3-3. The A’s eventually won the game in extra innings, 4-3. Campy was only the second player in major league history to hit two home runs in his first game.
Below you see the account of the game from the next day’s edition of The Kansas City Times (the then-morning edition of The Kansas City Star). One thing the newspaper left out was a story I heard either on the broadcast that day or soon afterwards. When Campy was called up to the A’s, he was not too far removed from his days in his native Cuba and had not yet learned to speak English. A couple of his Spanish-speaking teammates on the A’s took him aside before the game and told him not to worry about Jim Kaat, that he was a terrible pitcher, and that Campy would have no trouble hitting him. A little confidence obviously goes a long way with Campy Campaneris!
Wayne Causey – who had been one of the A’s most consistent players and leaders – never got his starting shortstop job back, mainly relegated to life as a utility infielder after that. Campy was just too good. No, not as a power hitter. The two home runs in his first game were an anomaly. He went on to play for 19 years; in a total of 8,684 official at-bats, he hit a total of only 79 home runs, or one every 110 at-bats. In fact, after the two in his first game, he hit only two more the rest of the 1964 season.
However, he quickly established himself as a consistent hitter, and a constant threat on the basepaths, finishing his career with 649 stolen bases. In fact, beginning in his first full season, 1965, he led the American League in stolen bases six of the next eight years.
He was called up just a little late to become my favorite player (which, I’m sure, breaks his heart). Though I rooted for the A’s in the AL, my heart mostly belonged to the St. Louis Cardinals in the other league and on the other side of the state. On June 15, just a little over a month before the A’s called Campy up to the big leagues, the Cardinals had traded with the Cubs for outfielder Lou Brock and turned him loose on the bases. I quickly picked Lou as my favorite player, and he remains my favorite athlete of all time to this day – guys tend to do that with their boyhood heroes.
But my Daddy picked Campy as his favorite player, and Daddy and I had quite a competition for the next few years, Daddy bragging on Campy’s accomplishments and me bragging on Lou’s. Lou led the Cardinals to a World Series victory over the Yankees that fall and, from 1966-1974, led the NL in stolen bases eight times in nine years. For several years there, our favorite players were the two most feared base-stealers in the great game.
But back to Campy. In a game against the Angels on September 8, 1965, Campy Campaneris became the first major leaguer to play all nine positions in one game. (Unfortunately, while playing catcher in the 9th inning, Campy was injured in a home-plate collision and had to exit the game, which the A’s lost in extra innings.)
Of course, owner Charlie Finley moved the A’s to Oakland following the 1967 season, after which we could only follow Campy’s exploits from afar. Not before we got to meet Campy, however.
Daddy was on the Kansas City Baptist Association staff, which had its offices in a Baptist retirement home that was formerly a hotel. Over the years, several of the A’s had lived in apartments in that hotel and maintained their homes there even after the Baptists took it over. One Saturday – probably around 1965 or ’66 – Daddy came back from an out-of-town trip so decided to go the office on a Saturday to check his mail, and he took me with him. As we got out of the car, who should drive in but Campy Campaneris! So Daddy and I walked over and introduced ourselves. By that time, he had learned some English, and we were able to carry on a brief conversation with him. (It would be around 35 years later – in 2001 – before I would finally get to meet my boyhood hero, Lou Brock, in Dallas. Of course, I immediately called Daddy to tell him about it!)
One more interesting side note – Wayne Causey, whose injury resulted in Campy’s sudden call-up to the major leagues, played for several more years, then retired after the 1968 season. Though he had moved around from one team to another in his last years in baseball, he and his wife had kept their home in the KC area. Causey was a committed Baptist layperson. In the summer of 1970, I got to visit his home. Growing up at Bethany Baptist Church in KC, I had been a member of a boys quartet. By 1970, of course, all of us were in college, and it had been several years since we had sung together. However, one of our members, Robert Ingold, was leading the music at a student-led revival in a church in Leawood, Kansas, one weekend that summer and asked our quartet to reunite and sing in the Sunday evening service of his revival. So we did – and had a wonderful time singing together once again.
Well, it turns out that Wayne Causey was a member of this church and, after the service, invited all of the youth to an ice cream social in the backyard of his house. Yes, we were actually served homemade ice cream by Wayne Causey! During the evening, several of us ventured into the house to peer at Causey’s many trophies. What a thrill that was! (And I would have pictures to show you IF iPhones had been invented back then!)
But back to Campy. After the A’s left KC for the greener (???) pastures of Oakland, California, Campy wound up being one of the sparkplugs of the A’s dynasty that won three consecutive World Series from 1972-1974. He would also play for the Texas Rangers, California Angels, and even the New York Yankees before hanging up his cleats for good following the 1983 season. As it happens, Jim Kaat also made 1983 his last season.
Campy had a long and accomplished career. But I’ll always fondly remember, most of all, that young Cuban-American, fresh – or not-so-fresh – off of a long bus ride from Birmingham to Bloomington, who hit two home runs off that “no-good” pitcher Jim Kaat.
Happy 80th birthday, Campy!