(Triumph Books, 2007) 227 pages.

Not long after you’ve began your fascination with baseball, a decision has to be made on which MLB team you should support.  Once chosen, you then find yourself wanting to learn about the history of the team that you now call your own.  If you’ve fallen for a team like the Yankees or the Red Sox, you are spoilt for choice when it comes to great books about them.  If a small or medium market team has won you over, it may be a little more difficult to find a good overview of their history.  As an Oakland fan, I was therefore interested to find A’s Essential when browsing on Amazon recently. 

Steven Travers has so far released four MLB-related books in his “everything you need to know to be a real fan!” series.  The Oakland version is joined by similar efforts on the L.A. Angels, L.A. Dodgers and the Arizona Diamondbacks (the latter being a good forty or so pages shorter than the others, on account of the relatively youthful nature of the franchise).  The books provide an overview of each team’s history, written in lots of short chapters about specific players and moments that you “need to know”.  This makes them perfect for dipping in and out of, while also being lively to read from cover to cover (although, in the Oakland example, there is the occasional bit of repetition to put individual chapters into context).

A’s Essential leads you through the history of one of the most successful and colourful franchises that Major League Baseball has seen.  Beginning with Connie Mack’s Philadelphia A’s (a period that is covered in some brevity) , we then pass through the controversial reign of Charlie O. Finley (and his mule) in Kansas City and Oakland, before ending with the Billy Beane era of the early twenty-first century.  A significant part of the book focuses on the legendary “Moustache Gang” of the early 1970s that won three World Series in a row.  With vibrant characters such as Reggie Jackson, Catfish Hunter and Rollie Fingers performing heroic feats, their attraction as a source of great stories is obvious.  The same can be said for the Oakland team of the late 1980s and early 1990s.  With Rickey Henderson, the ‘Bash Brothers’ Mark McGwire and Jose Canseco, Dennis Eckersley to name but a few, they who made it to the World Series in three successive years from 1988 to 1990, winning it all in 1989.

The stories help you get a sense for the identity of the organization: the players that have worn the A’s uniform and the common strands that link the teams from different eras together.  Newcomers to the A’s will be well aware of General Manager Billy Beane’s current ‘rebuilding’ project.  This is the product of the organization being unable to afford to keep hold of its best players and it’s interesting to learn that this has often been the A’s way.  Connie Mack’s great team from 1910 to 1914 was sold off to pay the bills, as was the 1929-1931 team that won two World Series.  Oakland’s great run in the 1970s came to an end due to “baseball’s economics” making the players unaffordable, with the departures of Reggie Jackson and Catfish Hunter to the Yankees being the most notable examples.  The trend is epitomized by the fact that the star player chosen to adorn the front cover of this book, Dan Haren, is no longer with the team.  It has always been a case of feast or famine with the A’s; greatness or relative hopelessness.  That’s what makes them worth supporting though, through the good times and the bad. 

Throughout the book, the main text is accompanied by ‘Trivia’ boxes that pose questions for you to consider before flicking to the back to find out the answer.  This doesn’t always work seamlessly.  A question on page 60 about pitcher Vida Blue, for example, can be answered by reading the main text right next door to the ‘Trivia’ box.  The short chapters are further broken up by black and white photos and boxes containing additional information such as ‘Top Ten’ lists and, most useful of all, ‘Teams of the decade’.  They all add to the snappy presentation and tone of the book, summed up by Travers’ comment that L.A. Dodgers pitcher Orel Hershiser “shoved the bat so far up Oakland’s keisters they could not walk for a week” during the 1988 World Series.

A’s Essential also contains an all-time A’s roster list, which is handy when you want to look up the dates between which a certain player represented the team.  Of course, the only trouble with such lists is that they become out of date almost as soon as the books are printed.  In the same way, the chapter arguing why manager Dick Williams should be in the Hall of Fame is less relevant now that he has finally been inducted in Cooperstown this year (although that does show Travers’ arguments were/are valid).

These are only minor quibbles though.  A’s Essential is a fun, if not comprehensive, guide to the franchise.  It’s a great place to start for new Oakland fans and, if they follow the same pattern, Travers’ books on the Angels, Dodgers and Diamondbacks should appeal to fans of those respective teams as well.

Have you read “A’s Essential”? Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments section below. Can you recommend any other similar books? If so, let us know.

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