Forgotten Treasures: 1973 All-Star Game Program

Leading up to the 1973 season, both the Kansas City Royals and their brand new stadium were getting quite a bit of love.

The team was entering just its fifth season, but had already surprised people with how quickly they became competitive and were being picked to have a winning record again and challenge the A’s for the division title. They ended up doing exactly that, winning 88 games for a new franchise high and finishing second, 6 game behind Oakland. Two years later they’d win 91, and then won the division in their eighth season and the two that followed.

That was odd. Expansion teams usually took quite a while to get their footing, or even to be something short of embarrassing, but the Royals had been pretty respectable right away. Just compare them to opening years of the other clubs that started playing in 1969:

• Montreal Expos: Winning percentages of .321, .451, .441, and .440. Finished last in each of their first two seasons, and fifth in each of the two seasons that followed.

• San Diego Padres: Winning percentages of .321, .389, .379, and .379. Finished last every year in their first four seasons, and would finished last for two more as well.

• Seattle Pilots: Winning percentages of .395, .401, .429, and .417. Finished last in the first year and in years 3 and 4 as well. Moved to Milwaukee after just one season.

• Royals: Winning percentages of .426, .401, .528, and .494. Never finished last, or even next-to-last. They managed three fourth-place finishes playing in the same division as the juggernaut Oakland A’s, and a second-place finish and winning record in just their third season.

Their success wasn’t just unique to the 1969 crop of franchises. With one exception, the Royals were also competitive faster than the previous group of expansion clubs in the early 1960s.