Charles O. Finley

Despite his wealth, and the fact that he was the owner, Charlie felt insecure. His insecurity seemed to manifest itself by his need to micro-manage the team (some would say, compulsive controlling). This need to be constantly present, if not personally then by proxy through his cousin, Carl Finley who resided in Oakland and conferred every day with Charlie who typically remained in Chicago, was a major source of irritation on the team and with the media.

Perhaps a greater source of irritation was the fact that he was perceived, rightly so, as a man who knew little about the game, and yet kept making changes intended to make the game more entertaining, but which were deemed to cheapen the dignity and traditions of baseball, anathema to the old-school owners and other professionals in the industry.

Charlie was wrong about this ... the gimmicks he imposed, such as the mechanical rabbit, colored uniforms, and the ever-present mule, did not enamour the teams fans, and in fact may have alienated many who disliked the circus atmosphere.

And yet in another way, Charlie was truly a genius, in that he somehow made a team of only somewhat above-average ability to achieve its potential all at the same time, to great effect. Charlie knew instinctively that the game is a game of inches and increments of arithmetic, and could sense what was needed to fully balance the effect and each position. He knew, for example, perhaps only on a subconscious level, when he needed a player to occupy right field who was a fraction of an inch faster than another outfielder, or when he needed a pitcher who could pitch a 95 mph fastball, rather than a 94 mph pitcher. By maximizing every opportunity to squeeze out the last drop of talent from an average munch of players (pitching staff excepted), he could squeeze out one more run than his opponent.

This genius is manifest in the fact that the vast majority of his world series wins were by one run, and most of his losses were also by one run. This is not an overpowering team, nor is it a team of super heroes, like the Giants Mays or McCovey. Rather, it is a team with a slightly above-average batting average that just happened to play its slightly-above average game every game of every series.

And oh, how the professionals and the media hated him for this.