Meet the new hitting coach

With his team moving from Kansas City to Oakland in time for the 1968 season, Athletics owner Charlie Finley 56 years ago today hires a hitting coach who is a onetime Bay Area kid from neighboring San Francisco and longtime major league player.

To entice this 52-year-old retiree – a Hall of Famer, no less – back into the dugout, Finley offers him the title of vice president with the team and a chance as a coach to tack on a couple of years to his baseball pension.

Easy decision for both – especially Finley, who needs a local gate attraction for his team.

Turns out, though, the Athletics do not draw fans any better in their new California home than they do in Kansas City, where they move from Philadelphia after the 1954 season.

On the field, however, the new-look Oakland Athletics improve by 20 victories from 1967 to 1968, winning 82 games in their first season in California after going 62-99 in their final summer in Kansas City.

Along the way, under the tutelage of their new hitting coach, the Athletics jump their team batting average from .233 to .240 – a sizeable improvement coming in the so-called “Year of the Pitcher” that is 1968.

The A’s do even better in 1969, pushing their team batting average to .249 and winning another 88 games before their new hitting coach decides two seasons is enough to max out his pension and retires again.

Then again maybe, just maybe, the new hitting coach – the great Joe DiMaggio – thinks that he looks a tad odd for a man of his statue to be wearing Oakland’s garish, Kelly green-and-gold uniform after all of his years wearing those classy, iconic Yankee pinstripes.