So glad you posted this, Dave. I noted his death as soon as it reached Wiki, but felt unqualified to say even a word about him.

Now, I DID kinda sorta follow The Athletics during their glorious early 70's run.

I loved their style, I loved the personalities of their stars, I loved Charley Findley as an owner--especially inasmuch as he was the man behind what is arguably the greatest game in MLB history [Wednesday, September 9, 1965*]--and MOST of all I loved their kelly-and-yellow uniforms.

Heck, they were even a fascinating team during their interregnum in Missouri between their Pennsylvania origins and California destiny. (No OTHER stadium in MLB, after all, had a pop-up mechanical rabbit rising from aside home plate to deliver new baseballs to the umpire!). But watching all that from suburban St. Louis was not easy, especially given The Gateway City was a NL-only town ever since the St. Louis Browns deserted us and transmogrified into The Baltimore Orioles after the 1953 season.

So I was an Oakland Athletics guy all along. And even hicks like me in The Midwest could see that San Francisco and Oakland weren't merely a Bay apart, but worlds apart as well.

BRYAN STYBLE/Florida
==================* And no, that ISN'T the date of Koufax's 1-0 perfect game against The Cubs at Dodger Stadium; THAT Vin Scully-called-over-KABC game happened the NEXT night, Thursday, September 10th...and all THAT attendant hoopla is the reason, I'm convinced, why just about nobody but me anymore remembers (much less in inning-by-inning detail, as I did on the air once) what considerably more remarkably happened just 24 hours prior. Check that--I'm confident at least ONE other fellow remembers that Wednesday night game, and I know for a fact he's alive and healthy. That genial guy was born Monday, March 3, 1942--the same day as Welsh master violist John Cale, as it happened--and is still playing old-timer games! Typically at shortstop, surely...but I imagine he could handle any defensive position. Don't have to imagine, actually.**
** I've phrased all this indirectly--even downright elliptically--for one reason: NOT that the visiting California team ultimately won that extra-innings game, but rather that the Athletics catcher couldn't finish the game***, ending up in an emergency room after a plate-defending collision with an Angel.
*** HIS game, really.

Guess I shouda specified:

That baseball-delivering robo-rabbit was in Kansas City's grand old (yet nonetheless razed) Municipal Stadium--not to mention where that above-cited game was played! It was a wonderful ballpark, by many if not all accounts. And Municipal also served as the expansion Royals' home for their first four seasons, until the Kaufmann was built next door to Arrowhead at The Truman Sports Complex.

Sounds like the late Bando had a fine life.

STYBLE/Florida

radioacti...@gmail.com <radioactiveseattle@gmail.com> wrote:
> So glad you posted this, Dave. I noted his death as soon as it reached Wiki, but felt unqualified to say even a word about him.
>
> Now, I DID kinda sorta follow The Athletics during their glorious early 70's run.
>
> I loved their style, I loved the personalities of their stars, I loved
> Charley Findley as an owner--especially inasmuch as he was the man behind

Charles O. Finley,no D.
I'm not impressed by his inventing fictional player history.

> what is arguably the greatest game in MLB history [Wednesday, September 9,
> 1965*]--and MOST of all I loved their kelly-and-yellow uniforms.
>
> Heck, they were even a fascinating team during their interregnum in Missouri
> between their Pennsylvania origins and California destiny. (No OTHER stadium
> in MLB, after all, had a pop-up mechanical rabbit rising from aside home
> plate to deliver new baseballs to the umpire!). But watching all that from
> suburban St. Louis was not easy, especially given The Gateway City was a
> NL-only town ever since the St. Louis Browns deserted us and transmogrified
> into The Baltimore Orioles after the 1953 season.

The latest incarnation of the Baltimore Orioles,
after the AAA team,
after the former Indianapolis Western League team that
moved on to become the NY Highlanders/Yankees,
after the NL team of the 1890s.

> So I was an Oakland Athletics guy all along. And even hicks like me in The
> Midwest could see that San Francisco and Oakland weren't merely a Bay apart,
> but worlds apart as well.
>
> BRYAN STYBLE/Florida
> ===================
> * And no, that ISN'T the date of Koufax's 1-0 perfect game against The Cubs at Dodger Stadium; THAT Vin Scully-called-over-KABC game happened the NEXT night, Thursday, September 10th...and all THAT attendant hoopla is the reason, I'm convinced, why just about nobody but me anymore remembers (much less in inning-by-inning detail, as I did on the air once) what considerably more remarkably happened just 24 hours prior. Check that--I'm confident at least ONE other fellow remembers that Wednesday night game, and I know for a fact he's alive and healthy. That genial guy was born Monday, March 3, 1942--the same day as Welsh master violist John Cale, as it happened--and is still playing old-timer games! Typically at shortstop, surely...but I imagine he could handle any defensive position. Don't have to imagine, actually.**
> ** I've phrased all this indirectly--even downright elliptically--for one reason: NOT that the visiting California team ultimately won that extra-innings game, but rather that the Athletics catcher couldn't finish the game***, ending up in an emergency room after a plate-defending collision with an Angel.
> *** HIS game, really.

-=-=-
The World Trade Center towers MUST rise again,
at least as tall as before...or terror has triumphed.