15 Silver and black facts about your Oakland Raiders!

1. The Oakland Raiders were first granted a professional football franchise on January 30, 1960 in the now-defunct AFL. They joined the NFL in 1970 with the AFL-NFL merger.

2. The Raiders won football’s ultimate prize, a Super Bowl Championship, three times:

Super Bowl XI on January 9, 1977, 32-14 win over the Minnesota Vikings

Super Bowl XV on January 25, 1981, 27-10 win over the Philadelphia Eagles

Super Bowl XVIII January 22,1984, 38-9 win over the Washington Redskins

3. Entering the 2016 season, the Raiders’ all-time NFL record stands at

389 wins, 354 losses and 6 ties.

4. While they don’t often play each other, the Raiders have a heated rivalry with the adjacent San Francisco 49ers to capture bragging rights and Bay Area fan attention. 

5. In fact, they’ve only played 13 times with the Raiders winning 7 and the 49ers 6. They aren’t slated to play head-to-head again until 2018 (unless they both meet in the Super Bowl before then!)

6. Since 1961, the team cheerleaders have been called the Raiderettes, often known as "Football's Fabulous Females".

7. Part of the Raiders’ checkered history includes a move from their native Oakland to Los Angeles in 1982. Spurned by Oakland’s refusal to improve their stadium and add luxury boxes, Al Davis and the Raiders moved to the 95,000-seat Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum after a lengthy legal battle, where they played until 1994, before moving back north.

8. The all-time record holders among Raiders players include:

Marcus Allen – most rushing yards with 8,545 yards (1982-1992).

Ken Stabler - most passing yards with 19,078 yards (1970-1979).

Tim Brown – most caught passes with 1,070 receptions (1988-2003).

Sebastian Janikowski – all-time Raiders leading scorer with 1,574 points and growing (2000 to current).

9. The Raiders are famous for their silver and black pirate logo and uniforms, but those weren’t always the team colors. In fact, the original Raiders’ jerseys were gold and black, with gold stripes on the sleeves.

10. Although they soon switched to all silver and black uniforms, it wasn’t the end of color changes. The team used to wear silver jerseys when they played on the road, and black ones at home. But on sunny days the reflection caused a problem for TV cameras and viewers, so the NFL asked them to change to black road jerseys.

11. “Just win, baby!” was a Raider rallying cry made famous by owner Al Davis, but Davis originally proclaimed “Just win! Be right!” and Raider linebacker Phil Villapiano added the “baby” to the end.

12. The Raiders’ official credo is “Commitment to Excellence,” in reference to a line from a speech by Winston Churchill.

13. The team we know so well as the “Raiders” almost never was, since the original team name was left up to a fan contest, which voted for “The Señors.” But after plenty of ridicule and jokes, the name was changed after only 48 hours.

14. The official team song is The Autumn Wind, a ballad of bad-guy buccaneers (and football teams) that’s played before every home game. In fact, the song was originally written impromptu by David Morocom, an employee of NFL Films, to accompany footage of the Raiders.

15. The Raiders now play in venerable Oakland Coliseum, which they’ve shared with the Oakland A’s baseball team since 1968 (except for the years in Los Angeles). In fact, the A’s dirt infield is still bare and visible for Raiders games, and the midfield and end zones are devoid of any Raider logos or badging like you see on other NFL fields. 

16. The unofficial name for Raiders fans is “Raider Nation,” known for their undying loyalty, rambunctious behavior, and colorful costumes to express their fandom. Al Davis coined that phrase was back in 1968.

17. “The Black Hole” is a particularly rowdy (and sometimes dangerous!) area of fans at home games, located on field level in the end zone in sections 104-107 in The Coliseum.

18. Famous California rapper Ice Cube recorded a song called "Raider Nation" in 2009, as well as contributing to a documentary about the role of Raiders clothing and gear in 1980s Los Angeles gang culture.

19. Over the years, the Raiders have featured a host of players that are former Heisman Trophy Winners, including Marcus Allen, Bo Jackson, Tim Brown, Charles Woodson, Billy Cannon, Desmond Howard and Jim Plunkett.

19. John Madden is one of the most iconic Raiders and football “lifers.” Madden was the Raiders head coach starting on February 4, 1969 and went on to a surprisingly good 12-1-1 record that year, with a close loss in the AFL Championship game. 

20. Madden went on to coach the Raiders for 10 seasons and his lifetime winning percentage (including playoffs) is the second best in league history! In fact, Madden led the Raiders to their first Super Bowl and never had a losing season, and went on to become a household name as an announcer and for his Madden Football video game.

21. When the Raiders hired Art Shell as their head coach in 1989, he became the first African American head coach in the NFL. The Raiders had also hired the first ever Latino head coach in the NFL when they brought on Tom Flores in 1979. 

22. The Raiders ushered in a new era of leadership when they hired Jack Del Rio has head coach on January 14, 2015, replacing fired coach Dennis Allen and then interim coach Tony Soprano.

23. This year’s team shows particular promise to soon overcome the Raiders playoff and even Super Bowl draught. With young stars Khalil Mack (1st player ever to be selected as an All-Pro at 2 positions the same year), wide receiver Amari Cooper (first Oakland Raider rookie to reach 1,000-yards) and budding QB star Derek Carr  (53 TD passes in his first two seasons are the 2nd–most in NFL history) they Raiders are poised for an epic resurgence!

24. However, there is a cloud over the future of the team remaining in Oakland, as plans are underway for the Raiders to relocate to Las Vegas. On September 15, 2016, the Southern Nevada Tourism Infrastructure Committee voted to approve an initial $750 million funding package for a new stadium to host the Raiders. 

25. But if history has shown us one thing, it’s that no matter where the Raiders play the diehard Silver and Black fans will remain loyal! 

20 Facts about the lovable, sometimes laughable, but always entertaining Oakland Athletics

“Hope springs eternal” are the opening lines to a famous essay by Alexander Pope, but it also could describe the optimism of Oakland A’s fans, who typically enjoy hot starts, stellar play by breakout stars, and even knock on the post season door before ending up cooling off with the fall weather.

Still, there’s no denying that NorCal’s A’s are one of the most entertaining and storied franchises in baseball history, home team to Reggie Jackson, Rollie Fingers, Vida Blue, Dennis Eckersley, Dave Stewart, Mark McGwire, Rickey Henderson, José Canseco, Jason Giambi and others.

Yet, no team in baseball trades away their homegrown young talent like the A’s, and their front office penny-pinching approach has led to some genius innovation that inspired a best-selling book and movie, but World Series glimpses that are few and far between lately. Still, if you grew up in Sacramento or the surrounding area, you might have grown up loving and emulating the A’s, not their cross-Bay Giants, and it’s a love affair that won’t fade soon.

So here are 20 facts about your Oakland A’s as we go through the summer enjoying A’s baseball, with hope that maybe – just maybe – this will be their year!

1.         The A’s are one of few teams in major professional sports that features green as their team color, along with the Celtics and NFL’s Eagles. But Oakland’s squad is definitely the only team in sports to rock green and gold as the official team colors, and in such wild (and often atrocious) combinations that their fashion choice contributed to their nickname, “The Swinging A’s.” Always ready to rock the baseball boat, the A’s are the only team in the Majors to wear their white cleats both at home on the road, a tradition that goes back to owner Charlie Finley’s era.

2.         While many celebrities and prominent Californians regularly jump on the Giants and Dodgers bandwagons, NorCal and Sacramento native Tom Hanks is a lifelong A’s fan, and still periodically attends games or is caught in private moments wearing an A’s baseball cap.

3.         You wouldn’t believe it by watching baseball these days, but for most of the 20th century, baseball players were all clean-shaven and facial-hair free. But that changed dramatically in 1972, when the Oakland A’s played the baseball renegades with a wild array of facial hair and went on to win the World Series.

4.         The A’s won World Series titles nine times throughout their history, including 1989, 1974, 1973, 1972, 1930, 1929, 1913, 1911, and 1910. Those nine World Series rings are the third most of any current team in baseball.

5.         They’ve also won 15 Pennants, 16 West division titles (the latest in 2012 and then again in 2013), and Wild Card births in 2001 and 2014.

6.         The A’s not only changed baseball but also revolutionized front offices across all major sports with their Moneyball approach. The term was coined for the 2003 Michael Lewis book that documented A’s General Manager Billy Beane’s unconventional approach to fielding a competitive team despite having one of the lowest payrolls in baseball. Moneyball is really a testament to advance statistics and analytics, and went on to be a hit movie with Brad Pitt in 2011, complete with a green carpet – not the traditional red carpet – at the premier.

7.         The Oakland A’s came incredibly close to being the New Orleans A’s. In 1978, the New Orleans Superdome wanted the A’s to relocate east to the city of Mardi Gras and jazz, and started negotiations. The A’s were reportedly very interested, and the move could have become official if the A’s weren’t bound by their stadium lease in Oakland, and could find no way out.

8.         While the 1989 World Series winning Bash Brothers of Jose Canseco, a young Mark McGwire, Rickey Henderson, Dave Stewart, Dennis Eckersley, etc. were an incredible team, the best Oakland A’s squad ever assembled was the 1972-1974 team that won three World Series in row with behind Catfish Hunter, Reggie Jackson, ace reliever Rollie Fingers.

9.         The A’s hosted their first game after moving to California on April 17, 1968, losing to the Baltimore Orioles in front of a jubilant crowd of 50,164 fans.

10.      The A’s (at that time the Athletics) started in Philadelphia in 1901 as one of the American Leagues first eight charter teams. They had success in the early decades, winning multiple World Series behind iconic manager Connie Mack. The team relocated to Kansas City in 1955, keeping the Athletics team name, and then to Oakland in 1968.

11.      The A’s mascot is a white elephant, with origins going as far back as the team itself. Although this might be impossible for current A’s fans to believe, back when the team started in Philadelphia they were known for spending big to bring in the best talent. (Yes, the A’s were a big market, free-spending team!) At the time, John McGraw, manager of the New York Giants, told reporters that the rival A’s had “A White elephant on their hands,” a term that meant something looked good but was actually high maintenance. Never to be one-upped, A’s owner and manager Connie Mack embraced the intended-slight by giving McGraw a stuffed white elephant at the start of the 1905 World Series, and by 1909 had white elephants put on the sleeves of the team’s sweaters, and it was an official part of the uniform and the team by 1918.

12.      The A’s mascot elephant has been called Stomper since the 1997, but that wasn’t always the case. In fact, when it was called Harry Elephante in the mid 1980s (worst mascot name ever?). Prior to that, in 1963 when the A’s called Kansas City home, team owner Charlie Finley tried to change the elephant mascot to a Missouri mule! It’s rumored that he wanted to make the change partially because Missouri was such a popularly Democratic state and he wanted to appeal to fans of the donkey, not the traditional Republican elephant.

13.      The team has a long and often confusing history with their name. The “A” in A’s originated from the term “Athletic Club” back in 1860. That first amateur team played with a black “A” on the front of their jerseys. The A’s became the team moniker through the decades and into the next century as a professional team in the major leagues, though it wasn’t always popular, as several owners or staffers tried to expunge the “Athletics” from the A’s official team name, while others wanted to keep it to honor the tradition.

14.      The Oakland A’s have retired six player numbers in their history. However, only five of those players ever suited up for the A’s. Oakland pulled a classy move by retiring Jack Robinson’s number 42 when baseball honored the 50th anniversary of his accomplishment breaking the color barrier.

15.      The Oakland A’s tradition of elite hurlers extends back to their first years in California. Since then, Vida Blue (1971), Catfish Hunter (1974), Bob Welch (1990), Dennis Eckersley (1992), and Barry Zito (2002) have all won Cy Young awards.

16.      They’ve also had a great modern tradition of fielding the top player in the game in certain years, as Vida Blue (1971), Reggie Jackson (1973), José Canseco (1988), Rickey Henderson (1990), Dennis Eckersley (1992), Jason Giambi (2000) and Miguel Tejada (2002) have won Most Valuable Player Awards.

17.      The team also has a well-deserved reputation for developing some of the best homegrown talent in the game (and then trading them away, unfortunately.) The list of Oakland A’s that have won Rookie of the Year winners includes José Canseco (1986), Mark McGwire (1987), Walt Weiss (1988), Ben Grieve (1998), Bobby Crosby (2004), Huston Street (2005) and Andrew Bailey (2009).

18.      A’s all-time team hitting records include:

Batting average .356 Al Simmons (1924-44)

Hits 1,882 Bert Campaneris (1964-1976)

Home runs 365 Mark McGwire (1986-1997)

Stolen bases 867 Rickey Henderson (1979-1988 on and off)

19.      A’s team pitching records include:

Wins 284 Eddie Plank (1901-1914)

Win-loss percentage .712 Lefty Grove (1925-1933)

ERA 1.97 Rube Waddell (1902-1907)

Saves 320 Dennis Eckersley (1987-1995)

Strikeouts 1,985 Eddie Plank (1901-1914)

20.      Who holds the A’s all-time record for most home runs in a single season? It’s got to be Mark McGwire, José Canseco, or maybe Reggie Jackson, right? Wrong! In fact, Jimmie Foxx set the A’s single-season homer record when he hit 58 in 1932. (He also set the A’s record with 169 RBIs that year.)