Up on the blog today, thought it'd be fun to go a finally "fix" the 1976 Oakland A's team card, adding the manager inset photograph that Topps left off because of a managerial change during the off-season:
As the cards went to press,
Oakland got rid of manager Al Dark and didn't have a replacement yet, so
Topps decided to just leave out the manager photo on the lower right,
which has always irked me.
Why not just include an image
of Al Dark, who guided them through the 1975 season, a season which saw
the team go all the way to the American League Championship Series
before losing to the Boston Red Sox?
Oakland went 98-64 for
the year, though more significantly they missed out on a championship
for the first time in four years. Incredible.
The three-peat
champions between 1972 and 1974, the dynasty led by guys like Reggie
Jackson, Catfish Hunter and Vida Blue were poised to win another as they
cruised into the A.L. Championship Series, but were ousted by the Red
Sox, in what was to become a quick decline for the A's organization
mainly due to Free Agency.
Nevertheless, Al Dark led the team
for two years, won a championship in 1974 as he guided the team to a
record of 90-72, then the aforementioned 98-win season in 1975.
In
1976 the team hired Chuck Tanner to manage, and he fared well, leading
them to a record of 87-74, but not good enough for a first-place finish,
as the up-and-coming Kansas City Royals franchise began a spectacular
run that saw them take over the role as "powerhouse" of the A.L. West
that would last for about a decade or so.