Old School Heritage and New School Ponies - Part 4: Red A's

Doctor Whooves is best pony. (After Derpy, that is)



It amazes me how JT at The Writer's Journey always seems to find the really cool pony stuff before I do.

Not gonna lie, I'm wiped tonight and I don't wanna do anything but I have three posts to write and I'm gonna power through 'em so I can go to bed really quick.

I've always been mildly fascinated with cards from franchises who moved cities. Not terribly surprising since my team is on its third city so far. Brookyln Dodgers, St. Louis Browns, Washington Senators, New York Giants, Seattle Pilots, Philadelphia A's. I don't count the Montreal Expos because they should still exist, goddamnit. The one defunct team I never really cared about was the Kansas City A's. I'm not even sure why. When I was a kid I would go bonkers for a Browns or a Senators card, but the KC A's was just a big meh. I don't think the word meh even existed back then, but they were still meh. Maybe it's because I thought the Philadelphia A's and Connie Mack were cooler. Maybe it was because I was a child of the '80s and couldn't think of Kansas City without seeing Royal Blue. Maybe it was because many of the sets I had KC A's cards from (1955, 1957, 1961, 1962) were kinda meh themselves.

Tonight I think I might have finally figured it out. Notice that the striking red and yellow border of this card of Ed Rakow goes nicely with his uniform. But wait, the A's unis are supposed to have yellow on them. These are red. A's aren't red! They're yellow and green! Up until 1963 when they finally went green, the KC A's uniforms were red and blue. Thinking back on it, the only KC A's card I remember fondly from when I was a kid was a Rene Lachemann card I picked out of a bargain box. Green uniform. That's an A.