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Kansas City vs. Oakland: The Bitter Sports Rivalry That Defined an Era
A driving ambition linked Oakland and Kansas City in the 1960s. Each city sought the national attention and civic glory that came with being home to professional sports teams. Their successful campaigns to lure pro franchises ignited mutual rivalries in football and baseball that thrilled hometown fans. But even Super Bowl victories and World Series triumphs proved to be no defense against urban problems in the tumultuous 1960s and 1970s. Matthew C. Ehrlich tells the fascinating history of these iconic sports towns. From early American Football League battles to Oakland's deft poaching of baseball's Kansas City Athletics, the cities emerged as fierce opponents from Day One. Ehrlich weaves a saga of athletic stars and folk heroes like Len Dawson, Al Davis, George Brett, and Reggie Jackson with a chronicle of two cities forced to confront the wrenching racial turmoil, labor conflict, and economic crises that arise when soaring aspirations collide with harsh realities.Colorful and thought-provoking, Kansas City vs. Oakland breaks down who won and who lost when big-time sports came to town.
256 pages, Paperback
Published August 8, 2019
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
May 12, 2019
One of the best professional football rivalries from the 1960’s through the 1970’s was the Kansas City Chiefs and the Oakland Raiders. While their rivalry was the most notorious and visible, that was certainly not the only rivalry or sports connection the two cities had. There was a bitter history between the two cities in baseball as well and how these two sports connect with the local politics of both cities is told in this excellent book by Matthew C. Ehrlic.
While the book is geared more toward readers who prefer scholarly works, the narrative is not like that format at all - indeed, it is a quick and easy read that all readers will easily digest. Ehrlic explains what each chapter will encompass in the introduction and there are plenty of endnotes to illustrate the extensive research he performed about not only the sports teams but the civic atmosphere in both Kansas City and in Oakland.
The coverage of the rise of the rivalry and also the fortunes of both football teams is very good, with most of the detailed passages describing games between the two teams. Both the Chiefs and Raiders were considered to be the model franchises for the upstart American Football League and both represented the league in the first two Super Bowls, losing to the Green Bay Packers in both. What really stood out in the chapters about these football teams was the fact that both of them had shaky beginnings in the AFL and nearly didn’t exist. Oakland was awarded a team only after Minneapolis broke its promise to the league and instead accepted an NFL expansion team (who became the Vikings) and Kansas City got the Chiefs only because Lamar Hunt had experienced poor attendance and financial difficulties in Dallas after that city was awarded an NFL expansion team, the Cowboys. After such inauspicious debuts, it was interesting to read about how both franchises rose to success.
As for the baseball, the early connection between the two cities is more familiar as Kansas City was home to the Athletics in the American League. In 1968, after a very acrimonious relationship between the city and A’s owner Charley Finley, the team moved to Oakland, where after the very brief honeymoon between that city and the team was over, the same type of attendance and financial problems still were present. This was the state of the franchise even though the team won three consecutive World Series from 1972 to 1974, with players who were signed by Finley while still in Kansas City. That city was awarded an expansion franchise in 1969 to offset the loss of the A’s and while that team, the Royals, experienced the usual growing pains associated with expansion teams, they too became a good ball club and soon were battling Oakland for the Western Division title in the American League every year.
However, what really makes the book a fantastic read is how all four teams are connected to the civic and political issues of those times for both of the cities. Both cities had to construct new stadiums for the teams. In Kansas City’s case, Municipal Stadium that housed the A’s was deemed too decrepit for the new Royals franchise, while Oakland had to build a stadium for both the Raiders and A’s from scratch. Both cities constructed new sports complexes, despite protests from city residents about using tax money that could be better spent on things such as schools. Because these were not built in the respective cities, these were also seen as catering to the suburbs instead of the inner cities, where the population was mostly African American. Both cities had the same types of problems addressing these issues. The connections between them were numerous, and Ehrlich covers them all, right down to the fact that both teams were awarded NHL franchises that failed as well. These sections were so well researched and written that this is the rare book that while the emphasis is on sports, the passages on other topics are even better reads.
One doesn’t have to be a fan of Kansas City or Oakland teams to enjoy this book. History and sports buffs who enjoy reading about those topics from the 1960’s and 1970’s will love this book. Highly recommended for those readers with those interests, as well as fans of those four teams.
I wish to thank University of Illinois Press for providing a copy of the book via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
While the book is geared more toward readers who prefer scholarly works, the narrative is not like that format at all - indeed, it is a quick and easy read that all readers will easily digest. Ehrlic explains what each chapter will encompass in the introduction and there are plenty of endnotes to illustrate the extensive research he performed about not only the sports teams but the civic atmosphere in both Kansas City and in Oakland.
The coverage of the rise of the rivalry and also the fortunes of both football teams is very good, with most of the detailed passages describing games between the two teams. Both the Chiefs and Raiders were considered to be the model franchises for the upstart American Football League and both represented the league in the first two Super Bowls, losing to the Green Bay Packers in both. What really stood out in the chapters about these football teams was the fact that both of them had shaky beginnings in the AFL and nearly didn’t exist. Oakland was awarded a team only after Minneapolis broke its promise to the league and instead accepted an NFL expansion team (who became the Vikings) and Kansas City got the Chiefs only because Lamar Hunt had experienced poor attendance and financial difficulties in Dallas after that city was awarded an NFL expansion team, the Cowboys. After such inauspicious debuts, it was interesting to read about how both franchises rose to success.
As for the baseball, the early connection between the two cities is more familiar as Kansas City was home to the Athletics in the American League. In 1968, after a very acrimonious relationship between the city and A’s owner Charley Finley, the team moved to Oakland, where after the very brief honeymoon between that city and the team was over, the same type of attendance and financial problems still were present. This was the state of the franchise even though the team won three consecutive World Series from 1972 to 1974, with players who were signed by Finley while still in Kansas City. That city was awarded an expansion franchise in 1969 to offset the loss of the A’s and while that team, the Royals, experienced the usual growing pains associated with expansion teams, they too became a good ball club and soon were battling Oakland for the Western Division title in the American League every year.
However, what really makes the book a fantastic read is how all four teams are connected to the civic and political issues of those times for both of the cities. Both cities had to construct new stadiums for the teams. In Kansas City’s case, Municipal Stadium that housed the A’s was deemed too decrepit for the new Royals franchise, while Oakland had to build a stadium for both the Raiders and A’s from scratch. Both cities constructed new sports complexes, despite protests from city residents about using tax money that could be better spent on things such as schools. Because these were not built in the respective cities, these were also seen as catering to the suburbs instead of the inner cities, where the population was mostly African American. Both cities had the same types of problems addressing these issues. The connections between them were numerous, and Ehrlich covers them all, right down to the fact that both teams were awarded NHL franchises that failed as well. These sections were so well researched and written that this is the rare book that while the emphasis is on sports, the passages on other topics are even better reads.
One doesn’t have to be a fan of Kansas City or Oakland teams to enjoy this book. History and sports buffs who enjoy reading about those topics from the 1960’s and 1970’s will love this book. Highly recommended for those readers with those interests, as well as fans of those four teams.
I wish to thank University of Illinois Press for providing a copy of the book via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
May 24, 2020
Some sports rivalries make obvious sense – they’re based in proximity (our most intense rivalries often being with our neighbours – hence the significance of the derby) or channel other ‘non-sport’ factors through sport as a cultural practice. Others require extensive explanation. About the only thing Kansas City & Oakland share is latitude and a formerly powerful working class. One is an early 19th Century town close to the geographic centre of the USA, straddling the border of Missouri & Kansas, the leaping off point for settlers moving west, a ‘cow town’ populated by settlers from the east who travelled no further and the formerly enslaved; the other is a west coast port town, struggling in the shadow of its cross-bay neighbour San Francisco and northern neighbour Berkeley as part of an urban ribbon that rings San Francisco Bay drawing its population from settlers who came west in the 19th Century, a pre-existing Spanish speaking colonial presence and subsequent migrants, an African American population drawn by industry and settlers who came across the seas from the west. They are around 2900kms apart by road and have, it seems, little reason to develop a sense of rivalry – and yet, during the 1960s and ‘70s they did, and a potent one it was.
As Ehrlich makes clear in this engagingly readable scholarly book, much of this rivalry lies in the contemporary adoption of a strategy for urban promotion that lay in acquisition of men’s professional sport franchises – in baseball and in football. They tried other sports as well – hockey, basketball – but these came to little and were not marked by specific rivalries (although there is no info here, I suspect they seldom played each other if at all in those sports). Yet I am left at the end wondering why this specific rivalry. The contemporaneousness seems to have been exacerbated by the shift of the baseball team west to become the Oakland ‘A’s (the franchise had been the Athletics in Philadelphia before Kansas City poached it) where it turned from a team habitually in the lower half of the league to a team that was a winning team. In both cases – the ‘A’s vs Royals, the Chiefs vs Raiders – the cities’ teams were in the same leagues and conferences, so they met often during regular season play; also no doubt exacerbating the rivalry. Yet these are themselves are not enough to explain why this specific rivalry, at least to me: the consequence of concurrent boosterism seems inadequate (and I have to confess that generally I shy away from such mono-causal explanations).
Yet Ehrlich is very good at the >what of the rivalry. He writes compelling accounts of the teams’ on-field encounters, not as conventional match reports, but by locating them in their contemporary competitive contexts – placing in the league, time of the season, trends in performance and so forth. The details of conflict – the relationships between coaches and team owners (within and between franchises), their media commentaries, the relations between teams including on-field brawling, and so forth – are major elements of the text, as are the relationships of the teams to their local social and cultural environments. Links to local sports media, mainly newspapers themselves linked to local power elites, and local political issues such as stadium building and venue arrangements are well-developed, as in the case of Oakland is the problem of market size and major professional teams across the bay. A key part of this is the balance he gives to both sports – baseball and football are equally treated.
Equally importantly, Ehrlich is good at the context of rivalry. He unpacks where these teams fit into local political issues including Oakland’s African American population, unemployment rates and related economic developments and social well-being, the Black Panthers (founded in Oakland in the late 1960s) as a local activist, advocacy and intervention group (this is not of course a major focus but in a few key moments vital), the shifting status of Oakland’s port and desire for urban development. This developmentalist outlook is strong also in his discussions of Kansas City, in the rapid suburbanisation of the area, the difficulties of straddling a state line so multiple political relations contend with. Stadia, not surprisingly, feature extensively in both cases given the debates over stadium design through the 1960s and ‘70s, and the drive in both cities to suburbanisation. These issues could have felt like add-ons but I suspect Ehrlich’s former life as a journalism teacher (and I presume therefore a journalist) means he has a style that weaves together these strands into a richly dialogic text.
To do all of this, of course, he needs to make good use of evidence. He does so, drawing on scholarly and popular texts and sources. The way some of the case is made I wondered if there had been interviews for this project but I can find nothing identifying any so it may just be his drawing on popular media; if there are none, that seems an omission given some of the issues.
So, this is an engaging exploration of a sports rivalry, richly informative and well-built as well as highly accessible to me as a reader who knows little of the rivalry and not much of Kansas City or Oakland. Despite that, I am left wondering why this specific rivalry – which seems to me to be the fundamental question after all.
As Ehrlich makes clear in this engagingly readable scholarly book, much of this rivalry lies in the contemporary adoption of a strategy for urban promotion that lay in acquisition of men’s professional sport franchises – in baseball and in football. They tried other sports as well – hockey, basketball – but these came to little and were not marked by specific rivalries (although there is no info here, I suspect they seldom played each other if at all in those sports). Yet I am left at the end wondering why this specific rivalry. The contemporaneousness seems to have been exacerbated by the shift of the baseball team west to become the Oakland ‘A’s (the franchise had been the Athletics in Philadelphia before Kansas City poached it) where it turned from a team habitually in the lower half of the league to a team that was a winning team. In both cases – the ‘A’s vs Royals, the Chiefs vs Raiders – the cities’ teams were in the same leagues and conferences, so they met often during regular season play; also no doubt exacerbating the rivalry. Yet these are themselves are not enough to explain why this specific rivalry, at least to me: the consequence of concurrent boosterism seems inadequate (and I have to confess that generally I shy away from such mono-causal explanations).
Yet Ehrlich is very good at the >what of the rivalry. He writes compelling accounts of the teams’ on-field encounters, not as conventional match reports, but by locating them in their contemporary competitive contexts – placing in the league, time of the season, trends in performance and so forth. The details of conflict – the relationships between coaches and team owners (within and between franchises), their media commentaries, the relations between teams including on-field brawling, and so forth – are major elements of the text, as are the relationships of the teams to their local social and cultural environments. Links to local sports media, mainly newspapers themselves linked to local power elites, and local political issues such as stadium building and venue arrangements are well-developed, as in the case of Oakland is the problem of market size and major professional teams across the bay. A key part of this is the balance he gives to both sports – baseball and football are equally treated.
Equally importantly, Ehrlich is good at the context of rivalry. He unpacks where these teams fit into local political issues including Oakland’s African American population, unemployment rates and related economic developments and social well-being, the Black Panthers (founded in Oakland in the late 1960s) as a local activist, advocacy and intervention group (this is not of course a major focus but in a few key moments vital), the shifting status of Oakland’s port and desire for urban development. This developmentalist outlook is strong also in his discussions of Kansas City, in the rapid suburbanisation of the area, the difficulties of straddling a state line so multiple political relations contend with. Stadia, not surprisingly, feature extensively in both cases given the debates over stadium design through the 1960s and ‘70s, and the drive in both cities to suburbanisation. These issues could have felt like add-ons but I suspect Ehrlich’s former life as a journalism teacher (and I presume therefore a journalist) means he has a style that weaves together these strands into a richly dialogic text.
To do all of this, of course, he needs to make good use of evidence. He does so, drawing on scholarly and popular texts and sources. The way some of the case is made I wondered if there had been interviews for this project but I can find nothing identifying any so it may just be his drawing on popular media; if there are none, that seems an omission given some of the issues.
So, this is an engaging exploration of a sports rivalry, richly informative and well-built as well as highly accessible to me as a reader who knows little of the rivalry and not much of Kansas City or Oakland. Despite that, I am left wondering why this specific rivalry – which seems to me to be the fundamental question after all.
November 14, 2019
Author Matthew C. Ehrlich takes an interesting look at sporting and civic rivals in his book Kansas City vs. Oakland.
Ehrlich traces the development of the rivalry between the two cities primarily through the 1960s and '70s, as each city struggled to capture and hold on to the indefinable quality that makes a city big time. The two cities respective entries in professional football and baseball are the proxies for this rivalry, with the added bonus that Oakland's baseball team arrived in town after leaving Kansas City behind in 1968 after only 13 seasons in KC.
The football rivalry between the Kansas City Chiefs and Oakland Raiders perfectly aligned with the time period covered, as each team had legitimate hopes of reaching pro football's mountaintop. The division rivals played tough, hard-fought games, with each side claiming its share of victories.
The same cannot be said for the on-field battles of the Kansas City Royals and Oakland Athletics. The A's were in the midst of a dynastic run in the early '70s, winning three straight World Series while the Royals were just getting their feet under them as a new expansion team in 1969. Like the child racing his father, as they grew the Royals got closer and closer to knocking off the A's, finally succeeding by winning the division over the A's for the first time in 1976.
Oakland and Kansas City themselves had their own difficulties in this time period, but it's hard to think of the two cities as rivals in the traditional sense. While each city sought to establish itself as a prominent American city, I'm not sure that they really competed with each other, and certainly not for a crown that only one could claim.
The story was interesting, but seemed to lack a unifying thread, though I'm sure the cities themselves were intended to be that thread. The teams and cities shared a geographic location, but the narrative reads more like three distinct stories- Chiefs/Raiders, Royals/A's, Kansas City/Oakland- than three tightly woven threads of the same whole.
Kansas City vs. Oakland was interesting as a study of the rivalries between the teams in those cities in the 1960s and '70s, but doesn't make a compelling case that the cities themselves were engaged in a full-on rivalry in that same time period.
Thanks to NetGalley for providing a digital copy in exchange for an honest review.
Ehrlich traces the development of the rivalry between the two cities primarily through the 1960s and '70s, as each city struggled to capture and hold on to the indefinable quality that makes a city big time. The two cities respective entries in professional football and baseball are the proxies for this rivalry, with the added bonus that Oakland's baseball team arrived in town after leaving Kansas City behind in 1968 after only 13 seasons in KC.
The football rivalry between the Kansas City Chiefs and Oakland Raiders perfectly aligned with the time period covered, as each team had legitimate hopes of reaching pro football's mountaintop. The division rivals played tough, hard-fought games, with each side claiming its share of victories.
The same cannot be said for the on-field battles of the Kansas City Royals and Oakland Athletics. The A's were in the midst of a dynastic run in the early '70s, winning three straight World Series while the Royals were just getting their feet under them as a new expansion team in 1969. Like the child racing his father, as they grew the Royals got closer and closer to knocking off the A's, finally succeeding by winning the division over the A's for the first time in 1976.
Oakland and Kansas City themselves had their own difficulties in this time period, but it's hard to think of the two cities as rivals in the traditional sense. While each city sought to establish itself as a prominent American city, I'm not sure that they really competed with each other, and certainly not for a crown that only one could claim.
The story was interesting, but seemed to lack a unifying thread, though I'm sure the cities themselves were intended to be that thread. The teams and cities shared a geographic location, but the narrative reads more like three distinct stories- Chiefs/Raiders, Royals/A's, Kansas City/Oakland- than three tightly woven threads of the same whole.
Kansas City vs. Oakland was interesting as a study of the rivalries between the teams in those cities in the 1960s and '70s, but doesn't make a compelling case that the cities themselves were engaged in a full-on rivalry in that same time period.
Thanks to NetGalley for providing a digital copy in exchange for an honest review.
September 4, 2019
Kansas City vs. Oakland: The Bitter Sports Rivalry That Defined an Era by Matthew C Ehrlich is a wonderful look at a unique time in both US history and professional sports history in the US. The use of this particular rivalry between two cities and their teams is a microcosm of what was happening to some degree in many cities.
Let me get some basic stuff out of the way. I am amazed that people either buy or request books without actually taking the time to read the paragraph or two that describes the book, then act like it is somehow the author or the publisher's fault they failed to do so. So.......this is about the sports rivalry between the cities, not the football rivalry and not the baseball rivalry, and how that rivalry was a result of so much more than just what took place on the field. In other words, this a a much broader topic than just rehashing a great sports rivalry, it is truly a rivalry between the cities themselves. There, enough of that nonsense.
I remember those sports rivalries very well and the team movement also, but never fully realized the broader social, cultural, and political landscape within which it all played out. While these rivalries haven't lasted as long as the NY/Boston(NE) ones, the animosity, for at least a short time, ran every bit as deep.
If you sometimes wonder how much a part of the bigger picture our love of professional sports is, this book will give you a lot of information to digest. How sports teams have come to represent how big and/or marketable a city is and even to what extent it can call itself a "major" city really developed during these years. Looking at this particular dynamic gives us insight into what other cities have done, or have resisted doing, since then.
Highly recommended for fans who like their fandom grounded in the bigger cultural picture as well as for those interested in urban history and planning, race relations during the civil rights era, and history buffs who like a larger view than many histories offer. Not sure whether this is a sports book with some history or a history book with some sports. Either way, it is well worth the read.
Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via NetGalley.
Let me get some basic stuff out of the way. I am amazed that people either buy or request books without actually taking the time to read the paragraph or two that describes the book, then act like it is somehow the author or the publisher's fault they failed to do so. So.......this is about the sports rivalry between the cities, not the football rivalry and not the baseball rivalry, and how that rivalry was a result of so much more than just what took place on the field. In other words, this a a much broader topic than just rehashing a great sports rivalry, it is truly a rivalry between the cities themselves. There, enough of that nonsense.
I remember those sports rivalries very well and the team movement also, but never fully realized the broader social, cultural, and political landscape within which it all played out. While these rivalries haven't lasted as long as the NY/Boston(NE) ones, the animosity, for at least a short time, ran every bit as deep.
If you sometimes wonder how much a part of the bigger picture our love of professional sports is, this book will give you a lot of information to digest. How sports teams have come to represent how big and/or marketable a city is and even to what extent it can call itself a "major" city really developed during these years. Looking at this particular dynamic gives us insight into what other cities have done, or have resisted doing, since then.
Highly recommended for fans who like their fandom grounded in the bigger cultural picture as well as for those interested in urban history and planning, race relations during the civil rights era, and history buffs who like a larger view than many histories offer. Not sure whether this is a sports book with some history or a history book with some sports. Either way, it is well worth the read.
Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via NetGalley.
April 4, 2020
This book is for the sports fan. It covers not only the two cities but the team’s football and baseball as well. First opens with the Kanas city A’S moving to Oakland when Charlie Finley got permission to move and the city of Kanas City did not want to help build a new stadium. He then goes into the rise of the Oakland A’s which most of the players who were drafted were selected when they were in Kanas City. After a few trades by the early 70’s they would be in the playoffs and winning three World Championships. Finely would still have problems with the stadium and with low turn out even when they were winning.
The author goes into the different social problems of the times of the 60’ and 70’ and even touches on the SLA and of course the Black Panthers. Both of these were prevalent at the time of the era. He also speaks of a lack of jobs and how it would always be difficult to support the Oakland team. He also takes you to Kanas City and explains their problems with race for the same period.
He moves on to the football side with the Raiders and the Chiefs. Taking you through the early days of the AFL when they were starting out and how the rivalry really began and became heated. To when the Chiefs won Super Bowl IV, then how they would fall off until the ’80s. through the time of the Raiders winning two super Bowls one when they were in L.A.
He also goes into the injuries of the players from that generation and how Kanas City got a new stadium but Oakland has not. Now the Raiders are moving. He takes you through the different lawsuits and a look at how each city and team have faired since. A good book all around for sports. It did bring back memories of watching both football and baseball games from that time, and also some social issues as well when he spoke of the SLA that was a name organization I have not heard about in decades but remembered from the whole Patty Hearst ordeal. The author looks at the entire time frame which is good. Very much worth the read. I received this book from Netgalley.com I gave it 4 stars. Follow us at www.1rad-readerreviews.com
The author goes into the different social problems of the times of the 60’ and 70’ and even touches on the SLA and of course the Black Panthers. Both of these were prevalent at the time of the era. He also speaks of a lack of jobs and how it would always be difficult to support the Oakland team. He also takes you to Kanas City and explains their problems with race for the same period.
He moves on to the football side with the Raiders and the Chiefs. Taking you through the early days of the AFL when they were starting out and how the rivalry really began and became heated. To when the Chiefs won Super Bowl IV, then how they would fall off until the ’80s. through the time of the Raiders winning two super Bowls one when they were in L.A.
He also goes into the injuries of the players from that generation and how Kanas City got a new stadium but Oakland has not. Now the Raiders are moving. He takes you through the different lawsuits and a look at how each city and team have faired since. A good book all around for sports. It did bring back memories of watching both football and baseball games from that time, and also some social issues as well when he spoke of the SLA that was a name organization I have not heard about in decades but remembered from the whole Patty Hearst ordeal. The author looks at the entire time frame which is good. Very much worth the read. I received this book from Netgalley.com I gave it 4 stars. Follow us at www.1rad-readerreviews.com
February 11, 2022
Subtitle: The Bitter Sports Rivalry That Defined an Era
In the 1960s and early 1970s, there was probably no more competitive and violent rivalry than the one between the Kansas City Chiefs and the Oakland Raiders. Starting in the old AFL and then carrying over to the NFL, the bitterness of that storied rivalry is still brought back to life every season on the broadcasts of the two games each season where the two teams meet.
While not as legendary as the football rivalry, the Kansas City Royals and the Oakland Athletics (A’s) were also fierce rivals – including beanball wars and full-out brawls – during the years when both teams competed in the American League’s Western Division. A’s owner Charlie Finley moved the team from Kansas City to Oakland after the 1967 season and political pressure resulted in Kansas City receiving the Royals as an expansion team that began play in the 1969 season. The A’s dominated the Royals in the early years, including their three straight World Series championships from 1972 to 1974, but the Royals responded by winning three straight division titles from 1976 to 1978 with another division title and World Series appearance in 1980.
At various times, I’ve been a fan of the teams on both sides of these rivalries, choosing to root for Oakland as my ‘other league’ team during my teen years when the St. Louis Cardinals were my primary baseball and football teams. After moving to Kansas City in my late 20s, the Chiefs (quickly) and Royals (gradually) became my new favorite teams.
I gave Kansas City vs. Oakland four stars on Goodreads. Though it was published in 2019, it didn’t go into much on-the-field detail after 1976 or so. If it would have provided more coverage of recent seasons, I probably would have given it five stars.
In the 1960s and early 1970s, there was probably no more competitive and violent rivalry than the one between the Kansas City Chiefs and the Oakland Raiders. Starting in the old AFL and then carrying over to the NFL, the bitterness of that storied rivalry is still brought back to life every season on the broadcasts of the two games each season where the two teams meet.
While not as legendary as the football rivalry, the Kansas City Royals and the Oakland Athletics (A’s) were also fierce rivals – including beanball wars and full-out brawls – during the years when both teams competed in the American League’s Western Division. A’s owner Charlie Finley moved the team from Kansas City to Oakland after the 1967 season and political pressure resulted in Kansas City receiving the Royals as an expansion team that began play in the 1969 season. The A’s dominated the Royals in the early years, including their three straight World Series championships from 1972 to 1974, but the Royals responded by winning three straight division titles from 1976 to 1978 with another division title and World Series appearance in 1980.
At various times, I’ve been a fan of the teams on both sides of these rivalries, choosing to root for Oakland as my ‘other league’ team during my teen years when the St. Louis Cardinals were my primary baseball and football teams. After moving to Kansas City in my late 20s, the Chiefs (quickly) and Royals (gradually) became my new favorite teams.
I gave Kansas City vs. Oakland four stars on Goodreads. Though it was published in 2019, it didn’t go into much on-the-field detail after 1976 or so. If it would have provided more coverage of recent seasons, I probably would have given it five stars.
August 27, 2019
Obviously this book has a very niche audience, but it was perfect for me. I grew up a Chiefs and Royals fan in Missouri, and spent 12 years in the Bay Area as an adult. A good friend is a diehard Raiders fan. Born in the 60s, I am just not quite old enough to know the full history of these franchises and the long-time rivalry.
There is some back and forth between football and baseball which can be disconcerting, especially if you’re more a fan of one sport than the other. It really is about the cities and not just the sports teams. I thought it was well-researched and taught me a lot I didn’t know already.
If you’re a Kansas City or Oakland sports buff who enjoys learning about sports history, I think you’ll enjoy this. You would probably never seek it out otherwise, so you should be able to enjoy what it represents.
Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for providing an advance copy in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.
There is some back and forth between football and baseball which can be disconcerting, especially if you’re more a fan of one sport than the other. It really is about the cities and not just the sports teams. I thought it was well-researched and taught me a lot I didn’t know already.
If you’re a Kansas City or Oakland sports buff who enjoys learning about sports history, I think you’ll enjoy this. You would probably never seek it out otherwise, so you should be able to enjoy what it represents.
Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for providing an advance copy in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews