A’s played last KC game 40 years ago

Kansas City Star: A's played last KC game 40 years ago

Forty years ago tonight, a young Jim Hunter — the fans called him Catfish — was in the zone. Bottom of the ninth, two outs. The frustrated White Sox had managed just three hits and no runs.

Was it heat? A change-up? Whatever: Chicago first baseman Tom McCraw liked what he saw and took a hack at Hunter’s offering.

Pop-up, foul territory. The game, second of a doubleheader at Municipal Stadium, 22nd and Brooklyn, was over.

McCraw and his teammates left the diamond disgusted. Losing both games to the lowly Kansas City Athletics all but eliminated them from the 1967 pennant race.

Hunter and his teammates walked from the chilly night air into a different kind of immortality: It was the last game the Kansas City A’s would ever play in Kansas City. …

Well, you know it's not well when there are playoff scrambles in the last week of regular season baseball, and the front story of the Star is about a game from forty years ago. I moved to KC as a little guy in the baseballless summer of '68, between the A's and the Royals. It was great for the first couple of decades. Lately, I just keep hoping they can win 70 games.