1970s Oakland A's: Greatest baseball team ever?

There was a great story in SI several years ago about the early 1930s Philadelphia A's and whomever wrote it made a reasonable case for them being every bit as good as the late 1920s Yankee teams.

Definitely a mini-dynasty that gets overlooked.

 

Just finished watching this for the first time... interesting piece.. Still didn't make me love the Raiders, but it was interesting

 

They were a great team, but more like the Anaheim Angels of a few years back instead of the Cincy Reds. A lot of good players, but not stocked with future Hall of Famers (with the exception of Cat, Rollie and Reggie - who did a good chunk of their damage elsewhere)

 

And, how many World Series did the Big Red Machine win?

 

Only non-Yankee team ever to win three straight Series.

 

What position player from the A's would have started for the Reds besides Reggie? The A's had better pitching, I'm just saying the A's weren't loaded and were better than the sum of their parts. Aside from Reggie, which position player went on to bigger and better things after leaving the A's?

 

According to Homer Simpson the 1974 A's are the greatest ever

 

Catcher: Reds.
Third base: Tie.
Shortstop: Slight edge to A's.
Second base: Reds.
First base: Reds.
Left field: Tie.
Center field: A's.
Right Field: A's.


3/3/2....Pretty even. But big pitching edge to A's.

Long way of saying: I disagree.

 

Who cares? Focus on what they did, not what they did after.

The A's won three Series in the 70s, the Reds won twice and were beaten by the A's in their only head-to-head Series meeting in the decade. The A's won five straight division titles and some argue that the Fingers-Rudi controversy in '76 cost them a sixth-straight division before the A's crumbled under free agency and Finley's cheapness in '77.

One amazing thing about the A's -- and it kind of shoots down Oregon's point -- is some of the role players that ended up being stars elsewhere. Don Baylor, Phil Garner, Claudell Washington, George Hendrick, Rick Monday, none of those guys -- perhaps save Washington -- are remembered for being 70s A's, but they were all a part of those teams at various times before going on to stardom with other teams.

I'd put the A's over the Reds in the all-time pantheon. I don't think it's close, really.

 

For a five-year run, it'd be 1949-53 Yanks vs. 1971-75 A's in the ALCS. 1906-10 Cubs vs. 1964-68 Cardinals in the NLCS. Yanks beat Cubs ... in extra innings of Game 7. (Those Cubs, by the way, have more wins in a 5-year period than any team in baseball history. Look it up.)

Honorable mention (among teams not mentioned): 1996-2000 Yankees, 1952-56 Dodgers, 1936-40 Yankees, 1930-34 Cardinals, 1928-32 A's, 1920-24 Yankees, 1910-14 A's, 1894-98 Orioles, 1885-89 Browns.

(And yeah, those Cards teams were better than the beloved Bums. The Cards won three pennants in an NL that was much, much more talented 20 years after integration, and it was a vastly superior league than the AL in the late 1960s, whereas the AL was vastly superior during Brooklyn's dominant run.)

 

The Big Red Machine is the greatest team ever. Period. At least I heard so on 92 consecutive Sunday night baseball broadcasts.

 

As hard as it may be to believe, I'm a die-hard A's fan and always will be. My point was that looking back, they were not stocked with all-time greats like other better-known World Series champs have been. But they were loaded with a lot of very good players that formed a great all-around team from top to bottom.
You'd think a team that won three straight titles would have more than one position player in the Hall of Fame. That's my point.