The American League in Transition, 1965–1975

In the years following the decline of the New York Yankees dynasty that ended in 1964, three American League teams endeavored to stake their claim to the Junior Circuit’s crown. From 1965 to 1975, the Minnesota Twins, Baltimore Orioles, and Oakland Athletics emerged as the most significant AL clubs, but this trio achieved varying degrees of success.
Through the prism of these three teams, this book examines facets of their dynastic aspirations: the way in which key personnel were assembled into a cohesive roster, the glory that was won by the clubs, and the factors leading to their decline. Drawing on a rich variety of primary and secondary sources, the story is told of vital players from Latin America who made their way to Minnesota, the select few who ventured from the Orioles’ training facility in Thomasville, Georgia, to Baltimore, and the collegiate stars selected in the early years of the newly-created amateur draft who went on to help forge a winning combination in Oakland.

Paul Hensler has been a member of the Society for American Baseball Research (SABR) for over thirty years. The author of five books, he has contributed to numerous SABR publications as well as articles and book reviews for NINE: A Journal of Baseball History and Culture. He has presented at the SABR national convention, the NINE Spring Training Conference, and many times at the Cooperstown Symposium on Baseball and American Culture. He lives in Beacon Falls, Connecticut.

Paul Hensler
Format: softcover (7 x 10)
Pages: 264
Bibliographic Info: 39 photos, notes, bibliography, index
Copyright Date: 2013
pISBN: 978-0-7864-4626-1
eISBN: 978-1-4766-0017-8
Imprint: McFarland

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments vii
Preface 1
1 Long Live the King 5
2 Calvin Griffith and the Birth of the Twins 11
3 “Sealing the Yankees’ Tomb” 33
4 Rollercoaster: The Twins of 1966 and Beyond 61
5 Salvaging Veeck’s Wreck 83
6 Soaring 108
7 Very Good, but Not the Best 136
8 A Tale of Three Cities 154
9 Straight A’s, Williams’s Way 175
10 Dark Days and the Diaspora 207
Chapter Notes 231
Bibliography 247
Index 251