1961 KC A's Letter Regarding Segregated Spring Training Housing

A rather interesting A's artifact from Goldin Auctions. The letterhead alone is pretty great. But the content of the letter is a stark reminder that segregation was still going on in some parts of the country as late as 1961. The A's moved to Kansas City in 1955, and were integrated from the start. That doesn't mean they didn't come face to face with race-related issues, whether it be spring training facilities or an on-field brawl that pitted white vs. black kids after a 1956 game in KC. 

1967 Topps KC Killers

Jim Baker posted this item on the teammates subset of cards from the 1967 Topps set. Topps neglected to issue teammates cards for nine MLB teams, including the fightin' Kansas City Athletics. Baker suggested the nine cards that should have been, including a KC Killers card featuring Ed Charles and Danny Cater. I didn't really want to live in a world without that card, and since we have the technology now to create the cards we would like to see, I fired up the time machine, headed to 1966, and convinced the Topps brass to put out such a card. I requested that the players stand awkwardly in relation to each other in the photo. Then I came back to the present, headed to my neighborhood card shop, purchased my KC Killers card and scanned it up for the intertubes. You're welcome humanity.

Royals & A's Defense Independent Perfect Games

My main strength as a blogger is finding cool ideas from other people and applying them to the Royals. The latest such idea to tickle my fancy is defense independent perfect games (DIPG), as dreamed up by David Wishinsky. He defined a DIPG as a nine inning game with no walks or home runs allowed. As suggested by Tom Tango, zero hit-by-pitches should also probably be included, which I have for my lists below. I have also included eight inning complete DIPG, of which there have been six in Royals history. There is yet to be an extra inning DIPG by a Royals player. There have been 96 regular season DIPG by the Royals, or about 2.2 per season. They have gotten more rare as complete games have; In the 2000s, there have been nine DIPG, or only .75 per season. No Royals pitcher pulled the trick in 2010 or '11.

Zack Greinke's insane start in 2009 shows up with four DIPG between April 18 and May 26. He only had eight starts in that span.

Kevin Appier might be the best pitcher in team history, but he only had one DIPG, and it came in an eight inning loss. Bret Saberhagen pulled the trick an impressive 15 times in the regular season, plus once in a pretty memorable World Series game seven.

Most DIPG games:

16: Bret Saberhagen

10: Mark Gubicza

7: Dennis Leonard

7: Larry Gura

6: Al Fitzmorris

5: Dick Drago

The team's record in DIPG is 84-12. Saberhagen took four of the losses. 

Tom Tango also suggested making the definition stricter by requiring 13 strikeouts in an eight inning game and 15 K in a nine inning game (the reasoning behind those numbers being that the pitcher would have a 0.00 FIP for the game). No Royals player has reached that height. It has only happened 12 times since 1919 in all MLB. The most strikeouts a Royals pitcher has had in a DIPG is 10; Greinke did it twice, Mark Gubicza once and Rich Gale once.

The Royals have been on the wrong end of a DIPG 99 times; Catfish Hunter, Jimmy Key, and LaMarr Hoyt lead the way with three DIPG against the Royals each--except Hunter did it again in the '76 ALCS, the only pitcher to do it vs. the Royals in the playoffs.

The full list of Royals and KC A's DIPGs after the jump.

Top rWAR Players of the KC A's Era (1955-67)

Position players:

Rk	Player	WAR	From	To	G	H	2B	3B	HR	SB	CS	BA	OBP	SLG	OPS
1	Willie Mays	116.6	1955	1967	1992	2316	369	102	499	268	77	.310	.385	.587	.972
2	Hank Aaron	103.9	1955	1967	1997	2487	424	78	468	185	52	.318	.377	.572	.950
3	Mickey Mantle	95.3	1955	1967	1746	1751	241	44	434	122	22	.303	.432	.586	1.018
4	Eddie Mathews	78.9	1955	1967	1920	1863	279	55	397	51	29	.270	.375	.499	.874
5	Frank Robinson	75.8	1956	1967	1786	2004	375	59	403	171	65	.304	.392	.563	.955
6	Al Kaline	73.9	1955	1967	1825	2082	354	61	299	107	43	.307	.385	.509	.894
7	Ernie Banks	60.3	1955	1967	1948	2058	333	78	421	42	43	.279	.336	.517	.853
8	Ken Boyer	58.1	1955	1967	1916	2073	309	66	276	103	75	.289	.351	.466	.816
9	Roberto Clemente	52.6	1955	1967	1821	2238	332	117	166	73	40	.314	.352	.463	.815
10	Rocky Colavito*	45.8	1955	1967	1762	1687	278	19	366	19	26	.268	.361	.492	.853
11	Vada Pinson	43.7	1958	1967	1435	1746	313	90	181	204	73	.299	.343	.477	.820
12	Ron Santo	42.7	1960	1967	1214	1284	212	47	198	23	26	.285	.365	.485	.850
13	Harmon Killebrew	41.2	1955	1967	1424	1301	181	15	380	7	8	.264	.375	.538	.913
14	Brooks Robinson	39.9	1955	1967	1564	1637	281	47	156	19	19	.280	.330	.424	.754
15	Roger Maris*	38.4	1957	1967	1363	1246	177	40	270	21	9	.260	.348	.483	.831
16	Orlando Cepeda	38.1	1958	1967	1388	1606	287	22	268	112	56	.309	.359	.528	.886
17	Norm Cash	37.0	1958	1967	1244	1110	145	29	235	37	24	.275	.385	.500	.885
18	Luis Aparicio	34.2	1956	1967	1775	1811	251	76	62	435	110	.258	.305	.341	.646
19	Carl Yastrzemski	33.4	1961	1967	1064	1201	258	33	139	52	42	.298	.380	.482	.861
20	Willie McCovey	33.0	1959	1967	1077	947	135	32	232	15	16	.276	.369	.536	.905

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*played for A's


Pitchers:

Rk	Player	WAR	From	To	G	W	L	W-L%	IP	BB	SO	ERA	ERA+
1	Don Drysdale	60.0	1956	1967	475	190	150	.559	3130.1	786	2307	2.98	122
2	Jim Bunning	59.1	1955	1967	467	192	133	.591	3059.0	800	2398	3.07	124
3	Sandy Koufax	54.5	1955	1966	397	165	87	.655	2324.1	817	2396	2.76	131
4	Larry Jackson	50.8	1955	1967	524	181	166	.522	3019.0	764	1582	3.45	113
5	Bob Friend	44.8	1955	1966	466	169	180	.484	2935.1	627	1479	3.35	112
6	Whitey Ford	44.7	1955	1967	412	193	91	.680	2640.2	823	1662	2.72	134
7	Warren Spahn	42.2	1955	1965	414	197	135	.593	2810.2	691	1299	3.20	111
8	Juan Marichal	42.1	1960	1967	253	144	68	.679	1924.1	403	1417	2.67	134
9	Bob Gibson	36.6	1959	1967	280	125	88	.587	1904.0	704	1582	3.12	124
10	Robin Roberts	34.6	1955	1966	401	149	157	.487	2682.2	463	1374	3.72	102
11	Camilo Pascual	31.7	1955	1967	412	153	144	.515	2510.1	891	1931	3.61	107
12	Jim Maloney	31.4	1960	1967	219	106	65	.620	1416.1	605	1302	3.04	123
13	Billy Pierce	30.6	1955	1964	347	132	90	.595	1894.2	528	1149	3.23	118
14	Frank Lary	29.5	1955	1965	347	128	116	.525	2158.2	613	1094	3.49	114
15	Hoyt Wilhelm	27.6	1955	1967	669	92	89	.508	1539.2	484	1135	2.50	145
16	Milt Pappas	27.2	1957	1967	331	138	98	.585	2059.1	608	1206	3.36	110
17	Chris Short	26.8	1959	1967	329	96	83	.536	1578.1	540	1130	3.25	110
18	Vern Law	26.1	1955	1967	389	140	116	.547	2268.1	441	937	3.54	106
19	Turk Farrell	26.1	1956	1967	490	99	101	.495	1547.2	409	1080	3.42	105
20	Bob Purkey	25.8	1955	1966	350	126	107	.541	1983.1	448	755	3.71	106

Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Play Index Tool Used