2008-07-27 A's Game Dick Williams HOF

Richard Hirschfeld Williams (born May 7, 1929 in St. Louis, Missouri) is a former left fielder, third baseman, manager, coach and front office consultant in Major League Baseball. Known especially as a hard-driving, sharp-tongued manager from 1967-69 and 1971-88, he led teams to three American League pennants, one National League pennant, and two World Series triumphs. He is one of seven managers to win pennants in both major leagues, and joined Bill McKechnie in becoming only the second manager to lead three franchises to the Series. He remains the only manager in history to lead four teams to seasons of 90 or more wins. On December 3, 2007 Williams was elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame by the Veterans Committee. He was formally inducted on July 27, 2008.

After spending 1970 as the third base coach of the Montreal Expos, Williams returned to the managerial ranks the next year as boss of the Oakland Athletics, owned by Charlie Finley. The iconoclastic Finley had signed some of the finest talent in baseball -- including Catfish Hunter, Reggie Jackson, Sal Bando, Bert Campaneris, Rollie Fingers and Joe Rudi -- but his players hated him for his penny-pinching and constant meddling in the team's affairs. During his first decade as the Athletics' owner, 1961-1970, Finley had changed managers a total of ten times.

Inheriting a second-place team from predecessor John McNamara, Williams promptly directed the A's to their first AL West title in 1971 behind another brilliant young player, pitcher Vida Blue. Despite being humbled in the ALCS by the defending World Champion Orioles, Finley brought Williams back for 1972, when the "Oakland Dynasty" began. Off the field, the A's players brawled with each other and defied baseball's tonsorial code. Because long hair, mustaches and beards were now the rage in the "civilian" world, Finley decided on a mid-season promotion encouraging his men to wear their hair long and grow facial hair. Fingers adopted his trademark handlebar mustache (which he still has to this day); Williams himself grew a mustache.

Of course, talent, not hairstyle, truly defined the Oakland Dynasty of the early 1970s. The 1972 A's won their division by 5½ games over the White Sox and led the league in home runs, shutouts and saves. They defeated the Tigers in a bitterly fought ALCS, and found themselves facing the Cincinnati Reds in the World Series. Cincinnati's powerful Big Red Machine was favored to win, but the home run heroics of Oakland catcher Gene Tenace and the managerial maneuvering of Williams resulted in a seven-game World Series victory for the A's, their first championship since 1930, when they played in Philadelphia.

In 1973, with Williams back for an unprecedented (for the Finley era) third straight campaign, the A's again coasted to a division title, then defeated Baltimore in the ALCS and the NL champion New York Mets in the World Series -- each hard-fought series going the limit. With their World Series win, Oakland became baseball's first repeat champion since the 1961-62 New York Yankees. But Williams had a surprise for Finley. Tired of his owner's meddling, and upset by Finley's public humiliation of second baseman Mike Andrews for his fielding miscues during the World Series, Williams resigned. George Steinbrenner, then finishing his first season as owner of the Yankees, immediately signed Williams as his manager. However, Finley protested that Williams owed Oakland the final year of his contract and could not manage anywhere else, and so Steinbrenner hired Bill Virdon instead.

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[junetuesday]

Great video!Charlie O. Finley is my uncle,he was a funny guy.

[SamuelYLam]

I was there at the induction ceremony. it was awesome! thanks for doing this and sharing what the celebration is like in Oakland. Check out my vids, as I also have my vids from the celebration!

[markaxe]

The Swingin' A's rule!

[Icachowda]

this man is my grandfather... i just got back from the baseball hall of fame in cooperstown. i am very proud of him...

[whitgold]

thanks for posting this, this honor for him is long overdue. i grew up living near them and with his son as my childhood friend. our parents are still very good friends.