Word: finley
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Peddling insurance demanded the same fierce energy and concentration that Finley later brought to baseball ?endless hours on the job, limited delegation of authority and a careful accounting of even the most minor expenditures. Today the talk around Chicago is that the business of Charles O. Finley & Co. has been slipping. Finley insists that it is better than ever. His annual premium volume is $30 million a year. Finley himself is worth at least that amount...
...money that was rolling in by the 1950s, Finley was not satisfied. "I wanted a team in the worst way," he recalls. His first four bids?for the Philadelphia Athletics, Detroit Tigers, Chicago White Sox and California Angels?were either too little or too late. In 1960 he finally bought control of the Kansas City Athletics for $2 million. It was a large price for a last-place team...
Still, the new owner had several things going for him: the A's had a small but shrewd scouting crew, and Finley himself soon showed an uncanny instinct for spotting young talent. He was tireless in pursuit of prospects. In 1962 he struck one of baseball's alltime bargains by paying only $500 to sign Shortstop Bert Campaneris, then a catcher for a team in Cuba. Two years later Finley heard about a kid pitcher from Hertford, N.C., who had peppered his foot with shotgun pellets in a hunting accident. Finley descended upon Hertford, stalked the youngster, captured him with...
With Kansas City still in last place when the baseball draft began in 1965, Finley took advantage of early-round selections to sign Outfielder Rick Monday and Third Baseman Sal Bando. The next year he grabbed Reggie Jackson for $85,000. In 1968, the year Finley transplanted the A's to Oakland, he flew to Mansfield, La., to corral a high school fastballer named Vida Blue for a more modest $35,000. Three years ago, Bargain Hunter Finley paid $3,000 for an obscure 17-year-old named Claudell Washington. This year Washington is the A's leading hitter, batting...
...Finley never stops looking for new players or trading for established veterans. "No team is ever set," he says, "even a winner." Of the 26 players on the winning team in the 1972 World Series, only nine are still in Oakland uniform: Jackson, Rudi, Tenace, Bando, Campaneris, Blue, Fingers, Southpaw Ken Holtzman and Reserve Outfielder Angel Mangual...