A Retired Charlie Finley Still Gets in His Rips

Charlie O. Finley has not slipped into quiet retirement. The once-controversial big league baseball team owner still speaks his mind.

Baseball team owners are idiotic, Finley says.

Former Commissioner Bowie Kuhn deserved the ax, Finley says.

Baseball’s rule makers are idiots, too, Finley says.

Jimmy Piersall, former big leaguer and onetime Finley employee who wrote an unflattering portrayal of his former boss, deserves to be pitied, Finley says.

That’s Charlie Finley, whose Oakland A’s ruled the World Series from 1971 to 1973; the man who fought for the designated hitter, the orange baseball, and the three-ball walk.

“A maverick? I think the word most used to describe me was controversial,” he said in a recent interview. “And if they called me controversial because I tried to improve the game then I’m proud of that fact.”

Finley talked about his career in baseball, his cherished innovations and his unstinting opinions about the game’s countless “idiots,” in an interview with the South Bend Tribune.

Retired from baseball, Finley divides his time between his home in LaPorte, Ind., and his Chicago insurance business. Despite his status on the inactive roster, he still studies the box scores every morning.

“But I don’t miss baseball,” he insists.

“I was in it 24 hours a day for 20 years and when I finally got out, I realized how fast that time had gone by and that I had missed a lot in life,”he said.

What he doesn’t miss is a chance to cut loose an opinion, or a barb.

“I’m glad (Kuhn) got the ax,” Finley says. Not much love lost there. Nine years ago, Kuhn nixed a deal that would have brought Finley a cool $3.5 million for key players Vida Blue, Joe Rudi and Rollie Fingers.

Finley has kinder words for Kuhn’s successor, Peter Ueberroth.

“I liked how he settled the umpires’ trike,” he says. “And I like the fact that he brought Willie Mays and Mickey Mantle back into baseball after Kuhn kicked them out.”

Finley’s notions about orange baseballs and three-ball walks got kicked around, too. Both would give the offense a fighting chance in a game overwhelmingly tilted toward the defense, he says. The rules need revising to balance offense and defense, he says.

“Football, basketball and hockey are always studying their rules, mainly to keep the offense and defense in balance,” he says. “But not those idiots in baseball.”

As for the designated hitter rule, well, everybody knows the pitcher couldn’t poke one past his grandmother, Finley said.

“I even had one pitcher, Rollie Fingers, who got all the way to the plate before he realized he hadn’t even taken his bat with him,” Finley says.

Finley always takes his bat with him to get in a few hard swings against owners who put lots of zeros on the players’ paychecks. “I don’t blame the players,” he says. “It’s the idiotic--and I do mean idiotic--owners in the game today who continue to play those astronomical, unjustified salaries.”

Unjustified might be the word Piersall would use to describe some of his tasks as a ticket salesman and parttime announcer for Finley’s A’s in 1972. In a recent book, Piersall described his boss as an untidy man who left him to clean up chicken bones and other debris in Finley’s Oakland apartment.

Finley claims he befriended Piersall, giving the man a job when he desparately needed one. “All I have to say is that I feel sorry for Jimmy,” he concludes.

Living only a short drive from Chicago and doing business there, Finley finds himself following the city’s two major league teams. For Chicago Cubs general manager Dallas Green, Finley has kinder words. “It’s very important that a general manager will stand up and be counted,” he says. “Dallas Green is that kind of man. And he knows baseball, too.”

And after all these years, what does Charlie Finley know about baseball? “I know you’ve got to be an idiot to own a baseball team,” he says with a smile.