Leaving Philly

After 54 seasons in Philadelphia, the Athletics’ stay in the city all but ends 71 years ago tomorrow as Major League Baseball’s owners reject a bid from a local group to purchase the foundering franchise from the family of longtime manager and owner Connie Mack.

The Macks — Earle, left, Connie and Roy

The A’s – by then under control of Mack’s sons, Roy and Earle – will be sold within a week to Chicago realtor Arnold Johnson.

Johnson, whom the New York Yankees quietly support, pays Mack and his family $3.5 million for a team he moves to Kansas City in time for the 1955 season.

A dozen years after moving to Kansas City, the A’s prepare to relocate in 1968 to Oakland, where they play through 2024 before temporarily relocating to West Sacramento and, eventually, resettling in Las Vegas.

As for the value of the franchise, according to the good folks from Forbes Magazine, the team that Johnson buys from the Mack family for $3.5 million in 1954 — and now owned by John Fisher — today is worth $1.8 billion.

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