Charlie Finley: Baseball's Barnum

Charles Oscar Finley, owner, president, general manager and remote-control field manager of the Oakland A's. was on a typical tear. "Get this crate rolling," he ordered. Chauffeur Howard Risner nosed the sleek black Cadillac into the moving traffic and headed toward Chicago's O'Hare Airport. "Shoot the works," said Finley. Risner hit a button, and downtown Chicago echoed to the Caddie's musical horn. "Now the siren," demanded Finley. A muted wail sent other cars skittering for the curb. Finley switched on a loudspeaker hidden beneath the hood and began broadcasting a stream of chatter to startled pedestrians. "Hey, Howard!" he exulted. "Now we're really going. Hit that horn again."

In fact, Charlie Finley was just starting to warm up. By the time his Braniff plane landed in Kansas City, where his A's were playing the Royals, Finley had invited half the first-class passengers to be his guests at the game. A stewardess, tickled by his flattery ("Hey, baby, you look great"), had bestowed a farewell kiss, and a leading Kansas City lawyer had offered to drive Finley to Royals Stadium. That saved a $20 cab tab, and Finley was quick to accept.

In the A's clubhouse, he was greeted by growls from his players: "Christ, Charlie's back again." If Finley heard, he gave no sign; he was too busy handing out samples of his latest innovation for the national pastime--Day-Glo orange baseballs. Pitcher Vida Blue, still seething with the memory of past salary battles, flicked his orange ball into his locker with contempt. Slugger Reggie Jackson asked Finley only half facetiously if his recent hitting streak (eight home runs, 21 RBIS and a .388 average in 17 games) was worth a raise. "You've got to hit consistently," shot back Finley, "not periodically."

When the A's took the field and began warming up with the new orange balls, the stadium buzzed with comment. Even Home Plate Umpire George Maloney was captivated. He dispatched the A's bat boy to ask Finley for a ball. When it was delivered, Maloney promptly sent it back--for an autograph.

The request was not surprising. Charlie Finley, 57, is the winningest and most notorious businessman in baseball. The national pastime has never been noted for imagination in the front office, and change of any sort has usually been equated with heresy, but Finley is an unabashed maverick. "I've never seen so many damned idiots as the owners in sport," he sputters. "Baseball's headed for extinction if we don't do something. Defense dominates everything. Pitching is 75% of the game, and that's why it's so dull. How many times have you seen a fan napping in the middle of a football or basketball game? Hell, in baseball people nap all the time. Only one word explains why baseball hasn't changed: stupidity! The owners don't want to rock the boat."

Finley rocks it with calculated abandon. "You can't miss Charlie," says Minnesota Owner Calvin Griffith. "He's the P.T. Barnum of baseball." A showman and a showoff, Finley breezily charges through the owners' gray-suited world in a dazzling green jacket and matching ten-gallon hat. Stubborn and often churlish, he is not afraid to battle with players he thinks are performing poorly or making unreasonable salary demands. By now, big-league legend is rich with stories of his confrontations: the bitter salary wars with Reggie Jackson and Vida Blue, the controversial banishment of Second Baseman Mike Andrews during the 1973 World Series, the loss of Star Pitcher Catfish Hunter last year after an angry contract row.

But Finley does far more than generate turbulence. Baseball can thank him for much of its continuing success in an era that panders to the TV camera and faster-paced, more violent games. Finley has brightened the ball park with colorful uniforms; he has helped to hype lucrative World Series TV ratings by advocating that play begin on a weekend and that all weekday games be played at night. If he gets his way, there will soon be a host of other changes as well, including the use of his orange ball. "Why the hell play with a white ball," he asks, "when we've got one you can see a lot better?"

Finley's most conspicuous achievement has been the building of the most colorful team since the St. Louis Cardinals' "Gas House Gang" of the 1930s and the most talented since Casey Stengel's New York Yankees of a quarter-century ago. The A's squabble incessantly with their owner and fight among themselves --but they win. Oakland took the last three world championships, and the team has a good shot at a fourth this October. Only the old Yankees won more World Series in a row (1936-39,1949-53).

For Charlie Finley, the realization of fame and success is the replay of a ball fan's midsummer dreams. "I always wanted to be a player," he says, "but I never had the talent to make the big leagues. So I did the next best thing: I bought a team." Finley grew up in Birmingham and in Gary, Ind., the grandson of an Irish immigrant steelworker. Baseball and salesmanship consumed his boyhood. By twelve he had already organized his own sand-lot team and was bat boy for the Birmingham Barons of the Southern Association (a minor league team he now owns and calls the A's). He also won prizes for selling thousands of magazines door-to-door.

After working in the Gary steel mills (starting at 47-c- an hour), selling insurance, finishing two years at Gary College and playing first base for the semi-pro La Porte Cubs, Finley was temporarily sidelined by tuberculosis. He spent two years at Parramore Hospital in Crown Point, Ind. During that period he honed the idea that eventually made him a millionaire: selling group disability insurance to doctors.

In 1948, when Finley recovered, he went right to work persuading insurance companies to underwrite his plan. Talking his way from doctor to doctor in Indiana, he made his first group sale to the Lake County Medical Society. His big break came in 1951 when he convinced Continental Casualty that it should handle his first national plan, for the American College of Surgeons. After borrowing $2,000 to pay for, among other things, two suits, his first manicure and a plane ticket to the ACS convention in San Francisco, Finley was on his way to deals that would earn him over $1 million in commissions the following year.

Peddling insurance demanded the same fierce energy and concentration that Finley later brought to baseball --endless hours on the job, limited delegation of authority and a careful accounting of even the most minor expenditures. Today the talk around Chicago is that the business of Charles O. Finley & Co. has been slipping. Finley insists that it is better than ever. His annual premium volume is $30 million a year. Finley himself is worth at least that amount.

For all the money that was rolling in by the 1950s, Finley was not satisfied. "I wanted a team in the worst way," he recalls. His first four bids--for the Philadelphia Athletics, Detroit Tigers, Chicago White Sox and California Angels--were either too little or too late. In 1960 he finally bought control of the Kansas City Athletics for $2 million. It was a large price for a last-place team.

Still, the new owner had several things going for him: the A's had a small but shrewd scouting crew, and Finley himself soon showed an uncanny instinct for spotting young talent. He was tireless in pursuit of prospects. In 1962 he struck one of baseball's alltime bargains by paying only $500 to sign Shortstop Bert Campaneris, then a catcher for a team in Cuba. Two years later Finley heard about a kid pitcher from Hertford, N.C., who had peppered his foot with shotgun pellets in a hunting accident. Finley descended upon Hertford, stalked the youngster, captured him with a $75,000 bonus and sent him to the Mayo Clinic for a foot operation. As a publicity stunt, Finley told the 18-year-old to call himself Catfish. Ten years later, Jim ("Catfish") Hunter won the Cy Young Award as the best pitcher in the American League. Catcher Gene Tenace, Outfielder Joe Rudi and Relief Pitcher Rollie Fingers, all now A's stars, were signed by Finley within a year after he caught Catfish. They were all fresh out of high school, and Charlie O. had to pay them a total of only $37,000 in bonuses.

With Kansas City still in last place when the baseball draft began in 1965, Finley took advantage of early-round selections to sign Outfielder Rick Monday and Third Baseman Sal Bando. The next year he grabbed Reggie Jackson for $85,000. In 1968, the year Finley transplanted the A's to Oakland, he flew to Mansfield, La., to corral a high school fastballer named Vida Blue for a more modest $35,000. Three years ago, Bargain Hunter Finley paid $3,000 for an obscure 17-year-old named Claudell Washington. This year Washington is the A's leading hitter, batting .321 last week (TIME, July 21).

Finley never stops looking for new players or trading for established veterans. "No team is ever set," he says, "even a winner." Of the 26 players on the winning team in the 1972 World Series, only nine are still in Oakland uniform: Jackson, Rudi, Tenace, Bando, Campaneris, Blue, Fingers, Southpaw Ken Holtzman and Reserve Outfielder Angel Mangual.

This year Finley has had to make up for the loss of Catfish Hunter, who won 25 games for him last season. After an arbitrator found Finley guilty of breach of contract, Hunter got his release and signed with the Yankees in a record $3 million deal. So far, his departure has not hurt. Finley has since traded for Veteran Hurlers Jim Perry, Sonny Siebert, Stan Bahnsen and Dick Bosnian, and the A's have won 23 of the 38 games these pitchers started.

The end result of Finley's wheeling and dealing is the best team in baseball. Today's A's have speed, brilliant defense, clutch hitting, good starting pitching and an excellent bullpen. Last week the team held a 6 1/2 game lead in the American League West. The players are the first to praise Finley's work. "He's a hell of a general manager," says Tenace. Adds Jackson: "Charlie will do anything to make his team better." That said, they still hate Finley with a passion. Mention his name in the clubhouse, and the quick response is a vehement "Screw that bastard!"

The roster of complaints ranges from the trivial to the relatively serious: hotels on the road are rarely good enough; instead of charter flights after night games, players often have to grouse their way onto morning flights on scheduled airlines; no stamps are supplied for answering fan mail; torn pants and two-year-old shirts are handed out in the clubhouse; and there is no free telephone in the clubhouse for local calls. "The problem is simple," says one player. "Charlie Finley is the cheapest son of a bitch in baseball."

Says Finley: "Those complaints are a lot of horse shit. The guys are a bunch of spoiled brats. There isn't a phone in the clubhouse because it's against major league rules to have a phone so handy --gamblers could call. We stay in the same hotels as other teams. I'm not paying $5,000 extra for a charter flight when the team is already going first class. If they want stamps, they can have as many as they need if they'll bring the mail up to the office. I know one thing. They're so selfish and lazy they won't answer any fan mail. Hell, there'll be so few letters, I'll lick 'em myself."

Squabbling over telephones and airplanes is, in fact, only preliminary skirmishing for Finley and his employees. Despite occasional outbursts of generosity--this year he impulsively gave Claudell Washington a midseason $10,000 raise for his hitting--thrifty is the word for Finley. The big annual battles center on money. Since baseball adopted arbitration for salary disputes two years ago, an astonishing one-third of the 46 players who have tried that tactic have been A's. In 1974 three won major victories: Jackson's salary soared from $75,000 to $135,000, Bando's from $60,000 to $100,000, Holtzman's from $66,500 to $93,0000. This year Bando and Holtzman took a beating. Bando, who thought he had earned a raise by knocking in 103 runs and producing 24 game-winning hits in 1974, got no increase. Holtzman won 19 games and pitched one World Series victory, and also got nothing.

Finley, whose $1.4 million player payroll is among baseball's highest, could not care less. "Sure, Bando had some clutch hits," he says. "Don't I deserve something for $100,000? As for Holtzman --hell, he won 21 games in 1973. What am I supposed to do, give him a raise for having a worse year? These guys are just bad losers."

Perhaps. But even the losers agree that arbitration is better than the long, bitter salary disputes of other years. Reggie Jackson held out for higher pay in 1970, Vida Blue in '72, and both say Finley humiliated them by publicly ridiculing their ability and their salary demands. Says Jackson, who was only 23 at the time: "Charlie wanted to make me bend. He wanted to show me who was boss." Finley showed him. Late that season, his rancor still running strong, Jackson hit a grand-slam home run. While crossing home plate he looked up and raised a fist of defiance to the watching Finley. The next day, in front of then Manager John McNamara, four coaches and Team Captain Sal Bando, Finley ordered Jackson to sign a written apology. Jackson finally did--in tears.

What Finley did to Mike Andrews is something the A's will not soon forget. After Andrews made two costly errors in the second game of the 1973 World Series against the New York Mets, Finley announced that the team physician had found the second baseman unfit to play because of a sore arm. Bent on making room for another player to strengthen his roster, Finley dropped Andrews from the team. In protest, the A's wore his No. 17 on their sleeves at a workout before the third game. To a man, they insist that Finley ordered the doctor to fabricate a reason for dumping Andrews. Finley says otherwise. "Mike was injured," he insists. "If he had played again and become disabled, he could have sued me for the franchise--and won." Finley, who had given the players $3,000 diamond rings after the 1972 Series, left the expensive jewels off the 1973 and 1974 rings because of the Andrews row.

If Finley's handling of players is controversial, the rate at which he eats up managers is positively incredible--12 in 15 years. "I'm not one of these guys who's afraid to admit a mistake," Finley says. "I've gotten rid of so many because they weren't worth a damn."

Big-league managing is a notoriously uncertain job,* but Finley's dealings with his managers are far from routine. "He calls you in the dugout, in the clubhouse and at home," says a former manager. "He makes you explain every move. And he's never satisfied with your explanation. He tells you who to play, where to play him, when you play him."

Finley claims he is acting like any other general manager consulting with his field manager. "The one difference," he says, "is that this general manager also happens to be the owner. It's my club, my money, and I'm gonna roll my dice as long as my money's on the table." Two other differences are that Finley is Finley, and he lives in Chicago, attending many games in Midwest cities, but getting to Oakland for only a dozen or so a year. Instead of huddling daily with Manager Alvin Dark, Finley calls him long-distance.

To stay in touch with play, during every game Finley either dials the press box and gets Traveling Secretary Jim Bank to feed him the details, or he calls a special number at KEEN radio in San Jose to plug in on the play-by-play broadcast. When he hears something he does not like, he is not shy about demanding an explanation.

Even Dark, who accepts Finley's interference like a stoic, admits that managing for the man can take its toll. "What's it like working for Charlie? It's tough. Charlie's tough and rough, and at times you think he's cruel. But he is a winner. His whole life in baseball is winning, and I enjoy winning."

For all the bad blood, so do the rest of the A's--though it sometimes seems improbable that the team can concentrate on playing long enough to win a game, let alone three world championships. There is often anarchy in the clubhouse, with players in an uproar about Finley or, in a spillover of antagonism, battling each other. That they still win is a tribute to sheer skill and unshakable self-confidence. "We win because we have guys who love the challenge," says Bando. "We have a nucleus of gutsy players who don't know how to lose."

The one group in Finley's operation that does end up losing is his front-office staff--the smallest in baseball, and probably the most overworked. In 15 years, Finley's autocratic rule has used up five scouting directors, six farm directors (last week the seventh, John Claiborne, quit in disgust), ten publicity managers and 16 broadcasters. He sends the staff scurrying with round-the-clock calls--there is even a telephone in the men's room (located a safe distance from the clubhouse)--and supervises everything from bat orders for the players to food in the press room. Frank Ciensczyk, the A's equipment manager, sometimes gets five or six calls a day. When Gene Tenace asked for a new pair of pants recently, Ciensczyk replied, "I'll have to check it with Charlie." Says Frank: "Whether it's 5-c- or $5,000, you better be sure you know what you spent it on and that it was the right thing to buy."

One reason Finley keeps a tight grip on the cash is that the A's do not produce much profit. Attendance at modern Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum (capacity: 50,000), a few minutes' drive from downtown Oakland, averages only 13,000 per game. Among the reasons: cold, foggy evenings, competition from the San Francisco Giants across the Bay, and Finley's own money-saving cutbacks on promotion. The result last year was a modest profit of $350,000. Much of that came from TV revenue plus play-off and World Series income.

Whatever the state of the team's finances, nothing has ever stopped the lively flow of Finley innovations. No sooner had he bought control of the A's than Finley started agitating for change. At first he turned to gimmicks to pull in crowds and feed his starveling team: greased pig chases before the start of a game; a mechanical rabbit popping up behind the umpire, holding a supply of new balls; half-price tickets for bald men; a mule mascot named Charlie O.

In 1963 Finley persuaded the league to allow the A's to don multicolored uniforms and white shoes--an unprecedented move in a game that had been played in white and gray. Finley designed the gold, green and white outfits himself. Today baseball is awash with bright reds, blues and yellows. After extended lobbying by Finley, night World Series games were finally adopted in 1972. The designated-hitter innovation, allowing top batters to hit in place of the pitcher, is another change the A's owner helped push through.

The hot orange baseball is Finley's latest offering, and it is more than a matter of show. "Batters can see an orange ball better, particularly at night," he argues. "If we start using this ball, batting averages will increase. That means more action, and that's what the fans want to see." His own brand, labeled "The Charles O. Finley Baseball," is already being manufactured.

To increase hitting, which would liven the game, attract more fans and produce more profit, Finley also wants to see batters walked on three balls instead of four. "Just think about the disadvantage the batter has," he says. "In football, there are eleven guys playing eleven guys, in basketball five against five. Not in baseball. We've got nine fielders out there against one batter. We've got to give the batter help."

The three-ball rule would also speed things up and thereby satisfy another Finley urge. "Every other game's got a clock. Why not baseball?" he asks. "There's a rule on the books that pitchers must pitch every 20 seconds. But we've got guys out there who throw every half-hour. Let's put up a 20-second clock in every ballpark. If it runs out before the pitcher throws, charge him with a ball. That'll speed things up."

As if Finley's ideas are not brash enough, he peddles them with a pitchman's flair. When he wanted to press for adoption of the orange ball at one league meeting, he showed up wearing a traffic cop's phosphorescent orange glove. Every time he wanted to talk, he waved the glowing glove over his head.

That was nothing compared with the show he put on at last month's All-Star game. Finley sent four Playboy Bunnies to an NBC-Sports reception in A's-emblazoned shirts and caps to exhibit the orange balls. During the game, he even managed to give one to Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, who was on hand as Baseball Commissioner Bowie Kuhn's guest of honor. It was not an easy maneuver. Secret Service agents tapped the ball, shook it and held it to their ears to check if it was ticking. When Kissinger finally got it, he rose to his feet and tipped his hat to Finley.

When he is not feuding with players or chewing up his staff, Finley can be one of baseball's most entertaining characters. Even such a jaundiced observer as Reggie Jackson concedes that "Charlie can be a lot of fun. He knows how to raise a little hell and have a good time. He would be a great guy to have as a buddy--if you didn't work for him."

With his 34-year marriage dissolving into divorce (Finley is the father of five boys and two girls ranging in age from 17 to 33), he has abandoned the family's 1,200-acre farm in La Porte, Ind., for bachelor's digs in Chicago. There he lives in a comfortably messy two-bedroom, $630-a-month apartment overlooking Lake Michigan. Trophies and pennants clutter the living room; an ironing board with a wrinkled shirt draped over it stands amid a spill of papers in one unfurnished bedroom. When at home, Finley can usually be found sprawled on a couch talking into one telephone while another jangles.

Eating is one of the few times during the day when Finley relaxes. His telephone work done, he heads for a light meal--a few double Jack Danielses, avocado stuffed with crabmeat and a 2-lb. steak. An accomplished cook, he likes to march into a restaurant kitchen to select the meat or fish and tell the cook exactly how he wants it prepared. (A favorite Finley dish is prime sirloin ground with onions, green peppers and fresh tomatoes, chilled, and then broiled as 2-lb. patties for 25 minutes.)

Getting around town is never a problem. If there are no cabs available --most of the city's hacks seem to know Finley, who hands out $2 tips for $1 rides --he flags a police car. "Oh, excuse me, officer," he will say. "I thought you were a taxi." By that time, the cops usually recognize him and give him a lift.

Finley is a magnet for fun. Neighbors come and go in his apartment, sipping Finley's favorite Liebfraumilch. Occasionally he will entertain them with a borrowed guitar. Three Playboy Bunnies in the building sometimes stop by for a drink when they get home from work at 3 a.m., and find their host still on the telephone to California. Recently Oakland Tribune Columnist Marcy Bachmann selected Finley as one of her "20 Sexiest Men in the Eastbay." The Oakland clubhouse rattled with laughter the day that story came out--and so did Finley when he heard about it.

Two years ago he suffered a heart attack, and his doctors advised him to cut down on work. He obeyed them by selling the Memphis Tams of the A.B.A. and the California Golden Seals of the N.H.L., two teams he cared about only marginally. But he could not bring himself to part with the A's. His resolve to keep them is stronger now because of a possible deal to move the team to Chicago next season. The American League is trying to work out a swap that would involve selling the White Sox to a Seattle syndicate, bringing the A's to Chicago and rechristening them the White Sox. Finley would like nothing better than wheeling and dealing for a hometown club. "Hell, we'd have 2 million fans come see us here," he says.

Whatever the outcome of the franchise switch, Finley will probably stay in baseball just to see the game five years from now--orange balls streaking through the air, batters getting on base after three balls, pitchers nervously eyeing the clock. "Action!" shouts Finley. "Action--that's what the game needs! Let's get some goddam action in this sport!"

*The New York Mets' firing of Yogi Berra last week brought the total of dismissed managers since late July to four. The three others: Kansas City's Jack McKeon, Texas' Billy Martin and the Yankees' Bill Virdon (since replaced by Martin).

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