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World Summit on the Information Society

The World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) was a two-phase United Nations-sponsored summit on information, communication and, in broad terms, the information society that took place in 2003 in Geneva and in 2005 in Tunis. WSIS Forums have taken place periodically since then. One of the Summit's chief aims is to bridge the global digital divide separating rich countries from poor countries by increasing internet accessibility in the developing world. The conferences established 17 May as World Information Society Day.

The WSIS+10 Process marked the ten-year milestone since the 2005 Summit. In 2015, the stocktaking process culminated with a High-Level meeting of the UN General Assembly on 15 and 16 December in New York.

Background
In the last decades of the 20th century, Information and Communication Technology (ICT) has changed modern society in many ways. This is often referred to as the digital revolution, and along with it have come new opportunities and threats. Many world leaders hope to use ICT to solve societal problems; yet, at the same time, there are concerns about the digital divide, both international level and domestic levels. This trend could lead to shaping new classes of those who have access to ICT and those who do not.

Recognizing that these challenges and opportunities require global discussion on the highest level, the government of Tunisia made a proposal at the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) Plenipotentiary Conference in Minneapolis in 1998 to hold a World Summit on the Information Society. This resolution was then put forward it to the United Nations. In 2001, the ITU Council decided to hold the Summit in two phases, the first from 10 to 12 December 2003, in Geneva, and the second from 16 to 18 November 2005 in Tunis.

On 21 December 2001, the United Nations General Assembly by approving Resolution 56/183 endorsed the holding of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) to discuss on information society opportunities and challenges. According to this resolution, the General Assembly related the Summit to the United Nations Millennium Declaration to implement ICT to facilitate achieving Millennium Development Goals. It also emphasized on the multi-stakeholder approach to use all stakeholders including civil society and private sector beside the governments. The resolution gave ITU the leading managerial role to organize the event in cooperation with other UN bodies as well as the other international organizations and the host countries and recommended that preparations for the Summit take place through an open-ended intergovernmental Preparatory Committee – or PrepCom – that would define the agenda of the Summit, decide on the modalities of the participation of other stakeholders, and finalize both the draft Declaration of Principles and the draft Plan of Action.

Geneva Summit, 2003
In 2003 at Geneva, delegates from 175 countries took part in the first phase of WSIS where they adopted a Declaration of Principles. This is a road map for achieving an information society accessible to all and based on shared knowledge. A Plan of Action sets out a goal of bringing 50 percent of the world's population online by 2015. It does not spell out any specifics of how this might be achieved. The Geneva summit also left unresolved more controversial issues, including the question of Internet governance and funding.

When the 2003 summit failed to agree on the future of Internet governance, the Working Group on Internet Governance (WGIG) was formed to come up with ideas on how to progress.

Civil Society delegates from NGOs produced a document called "Shaping Information Societies for Human Needs" that brought together a wide range of issues under a human rights and communication rights umbrella.

According to the Geneva Plan of Action the WSIS Action Lines are as follows:
 * C1. The role of public governance authorities and all stakeholders in the promotion of ICTs for development
 * C2. Information and communication infrastructure
 * C3. Access to information and knowledge
 * C4. Capacity building
 * C5. Building confidence and security in the use of ICTs
 * C6. Enabling environment
 * C7. ICT Applications:
 * E-government
 * E-business
 * E-learning
 * E-health
 * E-employment
 * E-environment
 * E-agriculture
 * E-science
 * C8. Cultural diversity and identity, linguistic diversity and local content
 * C9. Media
 * C10. Ethical dimensions of the Information Society
 * C11. International and regional cooperation

Tunis Summit, 2005

The second phase took place from 16 through 18 November 2005, in Tunis, Tunisia. It resulted in agreement on the Tunis Commitment and the Tunis Agenda for the Information Society, and the creation of the Internet Governance Forum.

Just on the eve of the November 2005 Tunis event, the Association for Progressive Communications came out with its stand. (APC is an international network of civil society organizations—whose goal is to empower and support groups and individuals working for peace, human rights, development and protection of the environment, through the strategic use of information and communication technologies (ICTs), including the internet).

APC said it had participated extensively in the internet governance process at the World Summit on Information Society. It says: Out of this participation and in collaboration with other partners, including members of the WSIS civil society internet governance caucus, APC has crystallized a set of recommendations with regard to internet governance ahead of the final Summit in Tunis in November 2005. APC proposed specific actions in each of the following five areas:
 * The establishment of an Internet Governance Forum;
 * The transformation of ICANN into a global body with full authority over DNS management, and an appropriate form of accountability to its stakeholders in government, private sector, and civil society;
 * The initiation of a multi-stakeholder convention on internet governance and universal human rights that will codify the basic rights applicable to the internet, which will be legally binding in international law with particular emphasis on clauses in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights directly relevant to the internet, such as the rights to freedom of expression, association, and privacy.
 * Ensuring internet access is universal and affordable. APC argued: "The internet is a global public space that should be open and accessible to all on a non-discriminatory basis. The internet, therefore, must be seen as a global public infrastructure. In this regard we recognize the internet to be a global public good related to the concept of the common heritage of humanity and access to it is in the public interest, and must be provided as a global public commitment to equality".
 * Measures to promote capacity building in "developing" countries with regard to increasing "developing" country participation in global public policy forums on internet governance.

The summit itself attracted 1,500 people from International Organizations, 6,200 from NGOs, 4,800 from the private sector, and 980 from the media.

Funding for the event was provided by several countries. The largest donations to the 2003 event came from Japan and Spain. The 2005 event received funding from Japan, Sweden, France and many other countries as well as companies like Nokia.

Conference developments
A dispute over control of the Internet threatened to derail the conference. However, a last-minute decision to leave control in the hands of the United States-based ICANN for the time being avoided a major blow-up. As a compromise there was also an agreement to set up an international Internet Governance Forum and Enhanced Cooperation, with a purely consultative role.

The summit itself was marred by criticism of Tunisia for allowing attacks on journalists and human rights defenders to occur in the days leading up to the event. The Tunisian government tried to prevent one of the scheduled sessions, "Expression Under Repression", from happening. French reporter Robert Ménard, the president of Reporters sans frontières, (Reporters Without Borders) was refused admission to Tunisia for phase two of the Summit. A French journalist for Libération was stabbed and beaten by unidentified men after he reported on local human rights protesters. The representatives of the Human Rights in China NGO (due to Chinese government pressure on Tunisia) were refused entry to Tunisia. A Belgian television crew was harassed and forced to hand over footage of Tunisian dissidents. Local human rights defenders were roughed up and prevented from organizing a meeting with international civil society groups.

Stocktaking process

The WSIS stocktaking process is a follow-up to WSIS. Its purpose is to provide a register of activities carried out by governments, international organizations, the business sector, civil society and other entities, in order to highlight the progress made since the landmark event. Following § 120 of TAIS, ITU has been maintaining the WSIS Stocktaking database as a publicly accessible system providing information on ICT-related initiatives and projects with reference to the 11 WSIS Action Lines.

ECOSOC Resolution 2010/12 on "Assessment of the progress made in the implementation of and follow-up to the outcomes of the World Summit on the Information Society" reiterated the importance of maintaining a process for coordinating the multi-stakeholder implementation of WSIS outcomes through effective tools, with the goal of exchanging of information among WSIS Action Line Facilitators; identification of issues that need improvements; and discussion of the modalities of reporting the overall implementation process. The resolution encourages all WSIS stakeholders to continue to contribute information to the WSIS Stocktaking database (www.wsis.org/stocktaking).

Furthermore, regular reporting on WSIS Stocktaking is the outcome of the Tunis phase of the Summit, which was launched in order to serve as a tool for assisting with the WSIS follow-up. The purpose of the regular reports is to update stakeholders on the various activities related to the 11 Action Lines identified in the Geneva Plan of Action, that was approved during First Phase of the WSIS.

Platform
The WSIS stocktaking platform is the new initiative that was launched by Mr Zhao, ITU Deputy Secretary-General and chair of ITU's WSIS Task Force, in February 2010 to improve existing functionalities and transform the former static database into a portal to highlight ICT-related projects and initiatives in line with WSIS implementation. The platform offers stakeholders interactive networking opportunities via Web 2.0 applications. In the framework of the WSIS Stocktaking Platform, all types of stakeholders can benefit from the "Global Events Calendar", "Global Publication Repository", "Case Studies" and other components that tend to extend networking and create partnerships in order to provide more visibility and add value to projects at the local, national, regional and international levels.

Since the first edition of the WSIS Stocktaking Report was issued in 2005, biannual reporting has been a key tool for monitoring the progress of ICT initiatives and projects worldwide. The 2012 report reflects more than 1,000 recent WSIS-related activities, undertaken between May 2010 and 2012, each emphasizing the efforts deployed by stakeholders involved in the WSIS process.

Forum and follow-up
The WSIS follow-up works towards achieving the indicative targets, set out in the Geneva Plan of Action and serve as global references for improving connectivity and universal, ubiquitous, equitable, non-discriminatory and affordable access to, and use of, ICTs, considering different national circumstances, to be achieved by 2015, and to using ICTs, as a tool to achieve the internationally agreed development goals and objectives, including the Millennium Development Goals.

Since 2006 the WSIS Forum has been held in Geneva around World Information Society Day (17 May) to implement the WSIS Follow up. The event is organized by the WSIS facilitators including ITU, UNESCO, UNCTAD and UNDP and hosted by ITU. Until 2010 the Forum was held in ITU building and since then it has been held in International Labour Organization building. Every year the Forum attracts more than 1000 WSIS Stakeholders from more than 140 countries. Several high-level representatives of the wider WSIS Stakeholder community graced the Forum, more than 20 Ministers and Deputies, several Ambassadors, CEOs and Civil Society leaders contributed passionately towards the programme of the Forum. Remote participation was an integral component of the WSIS Forum over 1000 stakeholders followed and contributed to the outcomes of the event in a remote manner from all parts of world. Onsite networking was facilitated by the imeetYouatWSIS online community platform. More than 250 on-site participants have actively used the tool prior and during the event which facilitated in fruitful networking leading to win-win partnerships.

WSIS Forum meetings were held in Geneva as follows:
 * WSIS Forum 2006: 9–19 May
 * WSIS Forum 2007: 14–25 May
 * WSIS Forum 2008: 13–23 May
 * WSIS Forum 2009: 18–22 May
 * WSIS Forum 2010: 10–14 May
 * WSIS Forum 2011: 16–20 May
 * WSIS Forum 2012: 14–18 May
 * WSIS Forum 2013: 13–17 May
 * WSIS+10 High Level Event: 9 to 12 June 2014
 * WSIS Forum 2015: 25–29 May 2015

Prizes
This initiative responds to the requests of participants of WSIS Forum 2011 for a mechanism to evaluate and reward stakeholders for the success of their efforts in implementing development-oriented strategies that leverage the power of information and communication technologies (ICTs). The first WSIS Project Prizes were awarded in 2012 and have been awarded each year thereafter.

The prizes provide a unique recognition for excellence in the implementation of WSIS outcomes. The contest is open to all stakeholders: governments, private sector, civil society, international organizations, academia, and others. The 18 prize categories are linked to the WSIS Action Lines outlined in the Geneva Plan of Action. The annual contest is organized into four phases: (1) Submission of project descriptions; (2) Voting by the members of the WSIS Stocktaking Platform; (3) Compilation of extended descriptions of the winning projects and preparation of "WSIS Stocktaking: Success Stories"; and (4) the WSIS Project Prize Ceremony and release of the "Success Stories" publication at the WSIS Forum. The WSIS Project Prizes are now an integral part of the WSIS Stocktaking Process established in 2004.

WSIS+10
The WSIS+10 High-Level Event, an extended version of the WSIS Forum, took place 9–13 June 2014 in Geneva, Switzerland. The event reviewed the progress made in the implementation of the WSIS outcomes under the mandates of participating agencies, took stock of developments in the last 10 years based on reports of WSIS stakeholders, including those submitted by countries, action line facilitators, and other stakeholders. The event reviewed the WSIS Outcomes (2003 and 2005) related to the WSIS Action Lines and agreed a vision on how to proceed beyond 2015.

The WSIS+10 High-Level Event endorsed the "WSIS+10 Statement on Implementation of WSIS Outcomes" and the "WSIS+10 Vision for WSIS Beyond 2015". These outcome documents were developed in an open and inclusive preparatory process, the WSIS+10 Multistakeholder Preparatory Platform (WSIS+10 MPP). "High-Level Track Policy Statements" and a "Forum Track Outcome Document" are also available.

The WSIS+10 open consultation process was an open and inclusive consultation among WSIS stakeholders to prepare for the WSIS + 10 High-Level Event. It focused on developing multistakeholder consensus on two draft outcome documents. Eight open consultation meetings among stakeholders, including governments, private sector, civil society, international organizations, and relevant regional organizations, were held between July 2013 and June 2014. Two draft outcome documents were developed and submitted for consideration at the WSIS+10 High-Level Event:
 * 1) Draft WSIS+10 Statement on the Implementation of WSIS Outcomes.
 * 2) Draft WSIS+10 Vision for WSIS Beyond 2015 under mandates of participating agencies.

The final WSIS+10 High-Level Meeting of the General Assembly took place on 15–16 December 2015 in New York, and concluded with the adoption of the Outcome Document of the high-level meeting of the General Assembly on the overall review of the implementation of the outcomes of the World Summit on the Information Society was adopted.

Civil society
A number of non-governmental organizations (NGOs), scientific institutions, community media and others participated as "civil society" in the preparations for the summit as well as the High Level Event itself, drawing attention to human rights, people-centered development, freedom of speech and press freedom.

Youth and civil society representatives played key roles in the whole WSIS process. Young leaders from different countries, notably Nick and Alex Fielding from Canada, Tarek from Tunisia, and Mr. Zeeshan Shoki from Pakistan were the active and founding members of the Global WSIS Youth Caucus having founded youth caucuses in their home countries: Canada WSIS Youth Caucus, Tunisia WSIS Youth Caucus, and Pakistan WSIS Youth Caucus. Young leaders participated in both the Geneva and Tunis phases. Youth Day was celebrated and youth showcased their projects and organised events at the summit. Youth also participated in the preparation of the WSIS Declaration and Plan of Action.

In Germany, a WSIS working group initiated by the Network New Media and the Heinrich Böll Foundation, has been meeting continuously since mid-2002.

Similarly in Pakistan, PAK Education Society/Pakistan Development Network had taken the initiative to build Pakistan Knowledge Economy or Information Society. It has honour to be pioneer in promoting ICT in Pakistan and was the only Pakistani NGO who participated in UN World Summit on Information Society, Geneva and also organised Seminar at ICT4 Development Platform. The Idea of Third World Silicon Valley was also conceptualised.

One of the most significant results of civil society participation in the WSIS first phase was the insertion, in the final declaration signed by the nation's delegates, of the clear distinction between three societal model of digitally-driven increase in awareness : proprietary, open-source and free software based models. It is the result of the work led by Francis Muguet as co-chair of Patent, Copyrights and Trademark working group.

Some civil society groups expressed alarm that the 2005 phase of the WSIS was being held in Tunisia, a country with serious human rights violations. A fact-finding mission to Tunisia in January 2005 by the Tunisia Monitoring Group (TMG), a coalition of 14 members of the International Freedom of Expression Exchange, found serious cause for concern about the current state of freedom of expression and of civil liberties in the country, including gross restrictions on freedom of the press, media, publishing and the Internet.

The coalition published a 60-page report that recommends steps the Tunisian government needs to take to bring the country in line with international human rights standards. At the third WSIS Preparatory Committee meeting in Geneva in September 2005, the TMG launched an update to the report that found no improvements in the human rights situation.

The Digital Solidarity Fund, an independent body aiming to reduce the digital divide, was established following discussions which took place during the Tunis summit in 2005.

Digital divide and digital dilemma
Two main concerns seemed to be the issue and talk of the UN World Summit on the Information Society held in Tunis, (i) the digital divide and (ii) the digital dilemma.

First the digital divide, which was addressed in Archbishop John P. Foley's address before the WSIS and in the Vatican document, Ethics in the Internet. According to Archbishop Foley the digital divide is the current disparity in the access to digital communications between developed and developing countries and it requires the joint effort of the entire international community. The digital divide is considered a form of discrimination dividing the rich and the poor, both within and among nations, on the basis of access, or lack of access, to the new information technology. It is an updated version of an older gap that has always existed between the information rich and the information poor. The term digital divide underlines the reality that not only individuals and groups but also nations must have access to the new technology in order to share in the promised benefits of globalization and not fall behind other nations.

In a statement delivered by Senator Burchell Whiteman from Jamaica he stressed that Jamaica realizes the importance of bridging the digital divide which he sees as promoting social and economic development for 80% of the countries that are still struggling with this gap and the impact that it has on them. In a statement given by Mr. Ignacio Gonzalez Planas, who is the minister of Informatics and Communications of the Republic of Cuba, he also talked about the concern of only a few countries enjoying these privileges. Mentioning that over half of the world population does not have telephone access, which was invented more than a century ago. A statement by Vice Premier Huang Ju, the State Council of the People's Republic of China, said that the information society should be a people centered society in which all peoples and all countries share the benefit to the fullest in greater common development in the information society.

Second the digital dilemma, which the Holy See emphasized as a disadvantage to the information society and urged caution to avoid taking the wrong steps. It is a real and present danger with technology especially the Internet. The Holy See strongly supports freedom of expression and the free exchange of ideas, but argues that the moral order and common good must be respected. One must approach it with sensitivity and respect for other people's values and beliefs and protect the distinctiveness of cultures and the underlying unity of the human family.

Whiteman from Jamaica agreed on the issue of facing digital dilemmas as well. He stated that information resources combined with technology resources are available to the world and they have the power to transform the world for good or ill. In a statement made by Mr. Stjepan Mesic, President of Croatia, it was stated that we are flooded with data and we think that we know and can find everything about everyone but we also must remember that we don't know what so easily accessible is like. He states that although the information society is a blessing one should not ignore the potentiality of it turning into a nightmare.

The Holy See's caution of the information society is being heard and echoed by other countries especially those that were present at the WSIS in Tunis. Echoing the statement made in Ethics in the Internet, "The internet can make an enormously valuable contribution to human life. It can foster prosperity and peace, intellectual and aesthetic growth, mutual understanding among peoples and nations on a global scale."

In a press statement released 14 November 2003 the Civil Society group warned about a deadlock, already setting in on the very first article of the declaration, where governments are not able to agree on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as the common foundation of the summit declaration. It identified two main problems:

 * 1) On the issue of correcting imbalances in riches, rights and power, governments do not agree on even the principle of a financial effort to overcome the so-called "digital divide", which was precisely the objective when the summit process was started in 2001.
 * 2) In its view, not even the basis of human life in dignity and equality, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, finds support as the basis for the Information Society. Governments are not able to agree on a commitment to basic human right standards as the basis for the Information Society, most prominent in this case being the freedom of expression.

The "digital divide" concept was criticized by some civil society groups as well. For instance, the Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure (FFII) rejected the term.

Internet governance
The Summit's first phase took place in December 2003 in Geneva. The summit process began with the first "Prepcom" in July 2002. The last Prepcom, held from 19 to 30 September 2005 in Geneva, ended without securing final agreement on Internet governance, with the U.S. rejecting a European Union proposal to relinquish control of ICANN.

An issue that emerged was Internet governance and the dominant role that the USA plays in policy making. The most radical ideas about devolving this authority were those supporting a civil society approach to Internet governance.

In a document released on 3 December 2003 the United States delegation to the WSIS advocated a strong private sector and rule of law as the critical foundations for development of national information and communication technologies (ICT). Ambassador David Gross, the US coordinator for international communications and information policy, outlined what he called "the three pillars" of the US position in a briefing to reporters 3 December.

 * 1) As nations attempt to build a sustainable ICT sector, commitment to the private sector and rule of law must be emphasized, Gross said, "so that countries can attract the necessary private investment to create the infrastructure."
 * 2) A second important pillar of the US position was the need for content creation and intellectual property rights protection in order to inspire ongoing content development.
 * 3) Ensuring security on the internet, in electronic communications and in electronic commerce was the third major priority for the US. "All of this works and is exciting for people as long as people feel that the networks are secure from cyber attacks, secure in terms of their privacy," Gross said.

As the Geneva phase of the meeting drew closer, one proposal that was gaining attention was to create an international fund to provide increased financial resources to help lesser-developed nations expand their ICT sectors. The "voluntary digital solidarity fund" was a proposal put forth by the president of Senegal, but it was not one that the United States could currently endorse, Gross said.

Gross said the United States was also achieving broad consensus on the principle that a "culture of cybersecurity" must develop in national ICT policies to continue growth and expansion in this area. He said the last few years had been marked by considerable progress as nations update their laws to address the galloping criminal threats in cyberspace. "There's capacity-building for countries to be able to criminalize those activities that occur within their borders...and similarly to work internationally to communicate between administrations of law enforcement to track down people who are acting in ways that are unlawful," Gross said.

Many governments are very concerned that various groups use U.S.-based servers to spread anti-semitic, nationalist, or regime critical messages. This controversy is a consequence of the American position on free speech which does not consider speech as criminal without direct appeals to violence. The United States argues that giving the control of Internet domain names to international bureaucrats and governments may lead to massive censorship that could destroy the freedom of the Internet as a public space.

Ultimately, the US Department of Commerce made it clear it intends to retain control of the Internet's root servers indefinitely.

The main UN level body in this field is the Internet Governance Forum, which was established in 2006.

Selected media responses
A report by Brenda Zulu for The Times of Zambia explained that the (Dakar) resolution "generated a lot of discussion since it was very different from the Accra resolution, which advocated change from the status quo where Zambia participated in the Africa WSIS in Accra. The Dakar resolutions, in the main, advocated the status quo although it did not refer to internationalization of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN)."

The Jamaica Observer had a column which saw Cyberspace as backyard for the new 'Monroe Doctrine'. The Monroe Doctrine, expressed in 1823, proclaimed that the Americas should be closed to future European colonization and free from European interference in sovereign countries' affairs. The Doctrine was conceived by its authors, especially John Quincy Adams, as a proclamation by the United States of moral opposition to colonialism, but has subsequently been re-interpreted in a wide variety of ways, including by President Theodore Roosevelt as a license for the U.S. to practice its own form of colonialism.

From India, The Financial Express interviewed Nitin Desai, who is special advisor to the United Nations Secretary General. Desai is quoted saying, "Our main goal is to find ways for developing countries to gain better access to the Internet and information and communication technologies (ICTs), helping them improve their life standards right from their knowledge base to their work culture, and spread awareness about diseases and other crucial issues. This will aim to bridge the huge communication technology and infrastructure gap existing currently in the world. This will include connecting villages, community access points, schools and universities, research centers, libraries, health centers and hospitals, and local and central government departments. Besides looking at the first two years of implementation of the Plan of Action after the Geneva summit, the Tunis episode will seek to encourage the development of content meant to empower the nations."

The Association for Progressive Communications criticizes Desai's view: "He says: 'The way India has made use of IT, fetching the country not only profits, but a huge percentage of employed people, it has been really impressive.' My view: it's a shame that we in India have so many IT professionals, but these skills get used so much for the export-dollar, and hardly at all (except in a spillover manner) to tackle the huge issues that a billion seeking a better life have to daily deal with."

The South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC), had a Reuters report titled 'Rights groups says Tunisia is not right for WSIS', citing the position of the IFEX Tunisia Monitoring Group. It said: "As thousands of delegates and InfoTech experts gathered in Tunisia this weekend for a UN World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS), human rights and media freedom groups were asking: Is this meeting in the wrong place?' and points to both the positions critical of the Tunisian government on free speech, and the administration's defense of its record. Finally, when it comes to reporting on the unfair global village, and communication rights we have within it, isn't it ironic that the awareness and ability to keep up with the issue – of information – is itself so unfair?"

title: World Summit on the Information Society


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Seattle Pilots

The Seattle Pilots were an American professional baseball team based in Seattle, Washington during the 1969 Major League Baseball season. During their single-season existence, the Pilots played their home games at Sick's Stadium and were a member of the West Division of Major League Baseball's American League. On April 1, 1970, the franchise moved to Milwaukee, Wisconsin and became the Milwaukee Brewers.

Formation

The lead man for the franchise ownership, Pacific Northwest Sports, Inc. (PNSI), was Dewey Soriano, a former Rainiers pitcher and general manager and former president of the Pacific Coast League. The team's nickname of "Pilots" came from Soriano's part-time job as a harbor pilot and the city's association with the aviation industry. The team colors were royal blue and gold (with accessory red in the logo: helm and baseball seams).

Seattle had long been a hotbed for minor league baseball and was home to the Seattle Rainiers, one of the pillars of the Pacific Coast League (PCL). At the time, Seattle was the third-biggest metropolitan area on the West Coast. The then-Cleveland Indians (now Guardians) briefly considered a move to Seattle in 1964 but opted to stay in the city. In 1967, Charles Finley looked to move his Kansas City Athletics to Seattle, but ended up moving the Athletics to Oakland, California instead. There was no real competition from other professional teams at the time in the city. While Seattle had landed the National Basketball Association (NBA)'s SuperSonics (now the Oklahoma City Thunder) in 1967, the NBA was not as popular as baseball was at the time. The NFL would come to the city in 1976 with the addition of the expansion Seahawks, followed by the NHL in 2021 with the addition of the expansion Kraken.

In an ominous sign of things to come, Soriano found himself short of cash after making little effort to find locally-based partners. He had to ask William R. Daley, who owned the Indians during the time they flirted with moving to Seattle, to underwrite much of the purchase price. In return, Soriano sold Daley 47% of the stock. Daley became the team's largest shareholder and chairman of the board, while Soriano remained team president.

A couple of factors were beyond the Pilots' control. They were originally not set to start play until 1971 along with the Kansas City Royals. However, the date was moved back to 1969 under pressure from Senator Stuart Symington of Missouri. Professional baseball had been played in Kansas City in one form or another from 1883 until the A's left for Oakland after the 1967 season, and Symington would not accept the prospect of Kansas City having to wait three years for baseball to return there. The American League would not allow only one new team to enter the league, as the resulting odd number of teams would unbalance the schedule. That meant that Kansas City and Seattle had to be admitted together.

Despite Soriano having been president of the PCL, he had to pay the PCL $1 million to compensate for the loss of one of its longest-standing and most successful franchises. After King County voters approved a bond for a domed stadium (what would become the Kingdome) in February 1968 with 62% in favor,   the Seattle Pilots were officially born. California Angels executive Marvin Milkes was hired as general manager, and Joe Schultz, a coach with the National League champion St. Louis Cardinals, became manager.

Team issues
With expansion to twelve teams in each league came a realignment into two divisions. Unlike the National League, the AL owners voted to align strictly based on geography. On paper, the newly-formed American League West was by far the weaker division, as it consisted of the two expansion teams and the four clubs that had finished sixth through ninth place in the 1968 campaign. The Oakland Athletics were the only AL West team that had a winning record in 1968, finishing 82-80.

Due to the favorable alignment, Schultz and Milkes both optimistically predicted that the Pilots could finish third in the new division. However, the Pilots experienced the typical struggles of a first-year expansion team. They won their first game, and then their home opener three days later, but only won five more times in the first month. Nevertheless, the Pilots stayed within striking distance of .500 for much of the spring, and were only six games out of the AL West lead as late as June 28. But a disastrous 9–20 July ended even a faint hope of any kind of contention, though they were still in third place as late as August. However, a 6–22 August sent them into the AL West basement for good. The team finished the season with a record of 64–98, 33 games behind division winner Minnesota and five games behind their expansion brethren, the Royals. Only Cleveland had a worse record in the American League. On the plus side, they did finish 12 games ahead of the two National League expansion teams, Montreal and San Diego, both of whom lost 110 games.

However, the team's poor play was the least of its troubles. The most obvious problem was Sick's Stadium. The longtime home of the Rainiers, it had once been considered one of the best ballparks in minor league baseball. However, in 1964, the Rainiers sold the stadium to the city, which was more interested in building a freeway on the stadium site than maintaining it. Indeed, both the Indians and A's had balked at moving to Seattle because of Sick's rapid deterioration. While a condition of awarding the Pilots to Seattle was that Sicks' had to be expanded to 30,000 seats, work did not really begin in earnest until January 1969. Only 18,000-19,500 seats (depending on the source) were ready by Opening Day because of numerous delays. The scoreboard was not even ready until the night before the season opener. By June there were finally 25,000 seats in place. Water pressure was almost nonexistent after the seventh inning, especially with crowds above 8,000.

The Pilots had a total attendance of 677,944 people for the season, 20th out of 24 teams in Major League Baseball, and their average attendance per game, 8,268, was also 20th. Seattle finished above fellow cellar dweller teams like the Cleveland Indians, Chicago White Sox, Philadelphia Phillies, and the expansion San Diego Padres. The other two expansion teams outdrew the Pilots, with the Kansas City Royals having 902,414 attend their games while the Montreal Expos finished 10th in attendance with 1,212,608. The highest attendance for a Pilots home game was 23,657, on August 3 against the New York Yankees. The lowest attendance for a Pilot home game was on April 29, their 17th game, when a reported 1,954 fans showed up to watch them play the California Angels. The Pilots lost several hundred thousand dollars their first and only season. The team's new stadium was slated to be built at the Seattle Center, but a petition by stadium opponents ground the project to a halt. The project was later moved to south of downtown and developed for the Kingdome.

Additionally, the Pilots were severely underfinanced. The Sorianos were forced to bring Daley into their group after making almost no effort to court Seattle-based partners. However, the American League did not even consider any other prospective owners. When league president Joe Cronin scouted out the city in 1967, his only interview was with Soriano. Despite their straitened financial condition, the Sorianos balked at corporate support, a critical factor even in those days for sports franchises.

Relocation
By the end of the season, the Pilots were gasping. However, Daley refused to put up more financing. It was obvious that they would not survive long enough to move into their new park without new ownership. It was also obvious that the timetable for a new stadium would have to be significantly advanced, as Sicks' Stadium was inadequate even for temporary use.

It turned out both the league and commissioner's offices were concerned about the Pilots' viability as well. As early as June, an MLB memo envisaged the Pilots moving to Milwaukee. During the offseason, Soriano made contact with car salesman and former Milwaukee Braves minority owner Bud Selig, who was leading the effort to bring major league baseball back to Milwaukee. They met in secret for over a month towards the end of the season, and during Game 1 of the World Series, Soriano agreed to sell the Pilots to Selig for $10.8 million. Selig would then move the team to Milwaukee. However, the remaining owners of the Pilots turned it down in the face of pressure from Washington's two senators, Warren Magnuson and Henry M. "Scoop" Jackson, as well as state attorney general Slade Gorton.

Local theater chain owner Fred Danz, restaurateur Dave Cohn, and Westin Hotels head Eddie Carlson came forward with an offer to buy out the Sorianos and reduce Daley's stake to 30 percent. The $10 million deal received preliminary approval in December. However, the deal fizzled when it emerged that three months earlier, the Bank of California had called in a $4 million loan (or $3.5 million, depending on the source) it made to the Soriano-Daley group to finance the purchase of the franchise. No one in the American League knew that the loan had even existed. Faced with having to raise more money than expected, Danz walked away. In January 1970, Carlson put together a nonprofit group, modeled loosely on the ownership structure of the National Football League's Green Bay Packers, to buy the team. However, the other American League owners rejected the idea almost out of hand. Chicago White Sox owner John Allyn expressed the concerns of the owners when he said that under Carlson's plan, "no one person, group, or firm" would be responsible for team expenses. The owners also feared it would devalue the other clubs' worth. A slightly modified deal came one vote short of approval.

Bankruptcy
After a winter and spring full of court action, the owners loaned Soriano and Daley $650,000 to send the team to spring training and settle the Pilots' most immediate debts. Under new manager Dave Bristol, the Pilots arrived for spring training in Tempe, Arizona unsure of where they would play. However, Soriano and Daley declared bankruptcy, claiming that the loan was not enough to keep the team alive. The league stripped Soriano and Daley of their authority over the Pilots and took control of the team.

Soon afterward, the league gave tentative approval to sell the Pilots to Selig's Milwaukee group, but final approval was delayed due to the state seeking an injunction to stop the sale. PNSI's bankruptcy filing, however, was intended to forestall post-sale legal action. At the bankruptcy hearing a week later, Milkes testified there was not enough money to pay the coaches, players, and office staff. Had Milkes been more than 10 days late in paying the players, they would have all become free agents and left Seattle without a team for the 1970 season. With this in mind and with no credible alternatives to Selig's offer, Federal Bankruptcy Referee Sidney C. Volinn declared the Pilots bankrupt on March 31—seven days before Opening Day—clearing the way for them to move to Milwaukee. The team's equipment had been sitting in Provo, Utah, with the drivers awaiting word on whether to drive toward Seattle or Milwaukee.

Selig intended to change the team's colors to navy and red in honor of the minor-league Brewers of his youth. Instead, due to the move being finalized at such a late date, the Brewers were stuck using old blue and gold Pilots' uniforms, with the team name replaced. Blue and gold remain the Brewers' colors today although the shades have been darker since 2000. The move also came too late for Topps to change the cards for the 1970 season - so the 1970 Topps set has cards for the Pilots.

Ball Four
Jim Bouton was a Pilots relief pitcher through most of 1969, his contract having been sold to the Seattle Pilots by the New York Yankees in mid-1968. His book Ball Four is based on a journal that Bouton kept during the 1969 season. Bouton spent most of the season with Seattle, although he was traded to the Houston Astros in late August.

Lawsuit and enfranchisement of the Seattle Mariners
In 1970, in the aftermath of the Pilots' purchase and relocation to Milwaukee, the City of Seattle, King County, and the state of Washington (represented by then-State Attorney General Slade Gorton) sued the American League for breach of contract. Confident that Major League Baseball would return to Seattle within a few years, King County built the multi-purpose Kingdome, which would become home to the NFL's expansion Seattle Seahawks in 1976. The construction of the Kingdome had originally been approved by area voters as a condition of getting the Pilots, but hadn't begun prior to the Pilots leaving for Milwaukee.

The Pilots lawsuit continued until 1976. At trial, the American League offered to give Seattle an expansion baseball franchise in return for dropping the suit, and details were ironed out over the next year. To keep the league with an even number of teams, a formal expansion proceeding was held, with a second team, the Blue Jays, being awarded to the city of Toronto (also allowing both leagues to place a team in Canada, the National League's Montreal Expos [now the Washington Nationals] having been established in 1969). The new Seattle team, to begin play in 1977, would be owned by a consortium led by entertainer Danny Kaye, along with Stanley Golub, Walter Schoenfeld, Lester Smith, James Stillwell, Jr. and James A. Walsh. Seattle's new team would be known as the Mariners, and would initially incorporate the same blue and gold colors used by the Pilots (since 1993, they have worn teal, navy blue and silver for their color scheme).

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Seattle Pilots


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Kansas City Athletics

The Kansas City Athletics were a Major League Baseball team that played in Kansas City, Missouri from 1955 to 1967, having previously played in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania as the Philadelphia Athletics. After moving in 1967, the team became the Oakland Athletics. In 2025 the franchise will move temporarily to Sacramento before permanently moving to Las Vegas.

The Kansas City franchise played at Municipal Stadium from 1955 to 1967.

Relocation from Philadelphia
In 1954, Chicago real estate magnate Arnold Johnson bought the Philadelphia Athletics and moved them to Kansas City, Missouri. Although he was initially viewed as a hero for making Kansas City a major-league town, it soon became apparent that he was motivated more by profit than any particular regard for the baseball fans of Kansas City. He had long been a business associate of New York Yankees owners Dan Topping, Larry MacPhail, and Del Webb, and had even bought Yankee Stadium in 1953, though the league owners forced Johnson to sell the property before acquiring the Athletics. Johnson had also bought Blues Stadium in Kansas City, home of the Yankees' top Triple A level Minor league baseball farm team, the Kansas City Blues of the second American Association. After Johnson got permission from the American League to move the A's to Kansas City, he sold Blues Stadium to the city, which renamed it Kansas City Municipal Stadium and leased it back to Johnson. The lease gave Johnson a three-year escape clause if the team failed to draw one million or more customers per season. The subsequent lease signed in 1960 contained an escape clause that lowered that threshold to 850,000 per season.

Normally, Johnson would have had to pay the Yankees an indemnity for moving to Kansas City, and also would have had to reimburse the Yankees for the costs they incurred for moving the Blues to Denver as the Denver Bears to make way for the A's. Major-league rules of the time gave the Yankees the major-league rights to Kansas City. However, the Yankees waived these payments as soon as the purchase was approved. Even though the Yankees had no intention of going anywhere, the waivers led to rumors of collusion between Johnson and the Yankees. The rumors grew louder due to the Yankees' thinly concealed support for the sale, to the point of planting rumors in the press to derail an 11th-hour attempt to keep the A's in Philadelphia.

1955–1960: Johnson era
Rumors abounded that Johnson's real motive was to operate the Athletics in Kansas City for a few years, then move the team to Los Angeles (the Brooklyn Dodgers would later move there after the 1957 season). Whatever the concern about the move to Kansas City, fans turned out in record numbers for the era. In 1955, the Kansas City Athletics drew 1,393,054 to Municipal Stadium, a club record easily surpassing the previous record of 945,076 in 1948; in fact, it was the third-highest attendance figure in the majors, behind only the all-powerful Yankees and the also recently relocated Milwaukee Braves in the National League (1953–1965). That number would never be approached again while the team was in Kansas City, and would remain the club record for attendance until 1982—the Athletics' 15th season in Oakland. The A's of this era were barely competitive; in five years under Johnson's ownership, the closest they got to a winning record was 1958, when they finished 73–81, eight games below .500 and 19 games out of first.

During Johnson's tenure, virtually every good young A's player was traded to the Yankees for aging veterans and cash. Over the years, Johnson traded such key players as Roger Maris, Bobby Shantz, Héctor López, Clete Boyer, Art Ditmar and Ralph Terry to New York; in return, he did receive some talented younger players such as Norm Siebern and Jerry Lumpe, and the cash helped the team pay the bills. However, with few exceptions, the trades were heavily weighted in favor of the Yankees and arguably helped keep the Yankee dynasty afloat. For example, ten players from the 1961 Yankees, reckoned as one of the best teams of all time, came from the A's. This led to accusations from fans, reporters and even other teams that Johnson had reduced the A's to a Yankee farm team at the major-league level. Bill Veeck, for instance, recalled that under Johnson, the A's were "nothing more than a loosely controlled Yankee farm club."

On the positive side, Johnson devoted attention to player development for the first time in the history of the franchise. Under longtime owner and manager Connie Mack, the A's did not or could not spend any money building a farm system, a major reason why Mack's Philadelphia teams fell from World Series champions to cellar-dwellers so quickly. When Johnson bought the team, the A's only had three scouts in the entire organization. Johnson did make some improvements to the farm system, but was unwilling to pay top dollar for players that could get the A's within sight of contention.

1955
In the inaugural season of the Athletics in Kansas City, under new manager Lou Boudreau, saw the team slightly improve compared to the final dismal years in Philadelphia, but still perform poorly. Prior to the June 15 trade deadline, the Athletics mostly placed in fifth or seventh place, eventually falling to a record of .370, in seventh place. From June 18 through the end of the season, the team would not leave sixth place, ending the season with a .400 record, 33 games behind the New York Yankees.

1956
The sophomore season of the Athletics in Kansas City saw the team slide further into mediocrity. Prior to June 27, the Athletics mostly wavered between sixth and seventh place, having a record of .400, in seventh place, by the June 15 trade deadline. From June 27 through the end of the season, the team would not leave last place, ending the season with a dismal .330 record, 45 games behind the World Series winning New York Yankees.

1957
The season saw the Athletics hire George Selkirk as general manager, and saw an improvement relative to their previous season, though still perform poorly. Early in the season, the team was roughly an average team, though as the season progressed, would slowly fall in the standings. From June 20 through the end of the season, the team hovered between seventh and eighth place. Prior to the August 6 game against the Chicago White Sox, the Athletics fired manager Lou Boudreau on August 6 following a .340 record, and Harry Craft was elevated from coach to manager. Following Craft's elevation to manager, the Athletics ended the season in seventh place, with a slightly improved record to .380, 38½ games behind the New York Yankees.

1958: Best season in Kansas City
The season saw the best season of the Athletics while in Kansas City, although still finishing with a losing record. Prior to the All-Star break, the Athletics were somewhat competitive, mostly placing between second and third place (alternating between the Boston Red Sox), with a record of .490 by July 10. However, the Athletics were 12½ games behind the New York Yankees, who themselves were ahead of second place by 11 games. By August, the team fell to mostly seventh place, where they would roughly stay until seasons end, with a record of .470, 19 games behind the World Series winning Yankees.

1959
For the season, the Athletics hired Parke Carroll as their new general manager, in what would be a worse performance than the previous season. The season saw the Athletics falling and rising in the standings several times. Up to June 7, the team spent most of the season in or around fourth place, before dropping to sixth place by the June 15 trade deadline, with a record of .470. July would see the Athletics place at their lowest of the season in last place, but not before finishing the month in third place following an 11-game winning streak to bring the team record to .500 and 8½ games behind on July 30. The success would not last long, as after having a great July of .650, what followed was a dismal August of .310, which saw the team fall to seventh place, and an even more dismal September of .280. The Athletics would remain in seventh place until the end of the season, 28 games behind the Chicago White Sox.

1960
Prior to the start of the season, owner Arnold Johnson was returning from watching the Athletics in spring training when he was fatally stricken with a cerebral hemorrhage. He died in West Palm Beach, Florida on March 3, 1960, at the age of 53. His estate continued to own the team until the end of the year.

The season saw the Athletics under new manager Bob Elliot. The team placed towards the bottom of the standings for most of the season. From May onwards, the Athletics would not place above sixth, and from August through the end of the season, the team would sit exclusively in last place, ending the season with a .370 record, 39 games behind the New York Yankees.

1961–1967: Finley era
On December 19, 1960, Chicago insurance magnate Charlie Finley purchased a controlling interest in the team from Johnson's estate after losing out to Johnson six years earlier in Philadelphia. He bought out the minority owners a year later. Finley promised the fans a new day. In a highly publicized move, he purchased a bus, pointed it in the direction of New York, and burned it to symbolize the end of the "special relationship" with the Yankees. He called another press conference to burn the existing lease at Municipal Stadium which included the despised "escape clause". He spent over $400,000 of his own money in stadium improvements (though in 1962 the city reimbursed $300,000 of this). He introduced new uniforms which had "Kansas City" on the road uniforms for the first time ever and an interlocking "KC" on the cap. This was the first time the franchise had acknowledged its home city on its uniforms. He announced, "My intentions are to keep the A's permanently in Kansas City and build a winning ball club. I have no intention of ever moving the franchise." The fans, in turn, regarded Finley as the savior of Major League Baseball in Kansas City.

While the A's were still dreadful in the first eight years of Finley's ownership, he began to lay the groundwork for a future contender. Finley poured significant resources into the minor league system for the first time in the history of the franchise. By 1966, the A's were reckoned as having the strongest farm system in the majors. He was assisted by the creation of the Major League Baseball draft in 1965, which forced young prospects to sign with the team that drafted them—at the price offered by the team—if they wanted to play professional baseball. Thus, Finley was spared from having to compete with wealthier teams for top talent. The Athletics, owners of the worst record in the American League in 1964, had the first pick in the first draft, selecting Rick Monday on June 8, 1965.

In regards to managing the team, Finley would hire general managers Pat Friday, Hank Peters, and Eddie Lopat between 1961 and 1967, though they mere figureheads. With the firing of Frank Lane in 1961, Finley effectively became the team's de facto general manager, and would remain so for the duration of his ownership.

1961
In January, Charlie Finley hired Frank Lane, a veteran baseball man with a reputation as a prolific trader, as general manager. Lane began engineering trades with several other teams, including the Yankees, the bus-burning stunt notwithstanding. Finley also fired manager following the 1960 season and hired Joe Gordon as the new manager.

The season saw the Athletics perform poorly, with their first 100+ loss season since their worst in Kansas City in 1956. Though the team performed at league average through April and May, the Athletics would begin to falter shortly after. Prior to the June 19 game, Finley fired Gordon and as manager and named Hank Bauer as player-manager. By the All-Star break, the Athletics were in last place, with a dismal record of .370, 23 games behind the first place Detroit Tigers. Following the July 21 game, Bauer would retire from playing and take on the manager role exclusively. August would see Finley replace Lane with Pat Friday as general manager, though his sole qualification for the job was that he managed one of Finley's insurance offices. With the firing of Lane in 1961, Finley effectively became the team's de facto general manager, and would remain so for the duration of his ownership. September would see the Athletics and newly created Washington Senators fight to avoid last place, but would eventually tie for ninth place, each with a record of .370, 47½ games behind the World Series winning New York Yankees.

1962
Though still a poor showing, saw the Athletics second-best season in Kansas City to date. The team hovered between seventh and eighth place through June, before dropping to ninth for most of the rest of the season. By season's end, the Athletics finished in ninth, with a record of .370, 24 games behind the World Series winning New York Yankees. The poor showing led to Finley to fire manager Hank Bauer following the conclusion of the season.

1963: Rebrand to Green, Gold, and White
Following the firing of Hank Bauer, Finley promoted Eddie Lopat from pitching coach to manager for the season. The season started with promising results, as they were competitive with at least four other teams for first place through May, having a .560 record on May 31, 3 games behind the Baltimore Orioles. By June 18, the team fell to eighth place, though was only 7 games behind with a record of .480. However, the Athletics would continue to falter for the remainder of the season, remaining roughly in eighth place through the season's end. They'd finish in eighth place with a record of .450, 31½ games behind the New York Yankees.

Rebrand
Finley made further changes to the team's uniforms. The Philadelphia Athletics wore blue and white or black and gray outfits through most of their history; in the last years in Philadelphia and the first in Kansas City, the team used a red, white and navy-blue scheme. In 1963, Finley changed the team's colors to "Kelly Green, Fort Knox Gold and Wedding Gown White". In June 1963, Bill Bryson wrote of the uniforms,

"Kelly green is the Athletics' accent color. It was more a nauseous green the players wore on their wholesome, clean-cut faces the first few times they had to appear in public looking like refugees from a softball league."

Finley replaced Mack's elephant with a Missouri mule—not just a cartoon logo, but a real mule, which he named after himself: "Charlie O, the Mule". He also began phasing out the team name "Athletics" in favor of simply "A's". Some of his other changes—for instance, his repeated attempts to mimic Yankee Stadium's famous right-field "home run porch"—were less successful. AL President Joe Cronin ordered Finley to remove the fence which duplicated the 296-foot right-field foul line in Yankee Stadium. Smarting from this edict from the league office, Finley ordered Municipal Stadium PA announcer Jack Layton to announce, "That would have been a home run in Yankee Stadium", whenever a fly ball passed the limit in Municipal Stadium's outfield. That practice ended quickly, however, when it was apparent that other teams were hitting more "would-be" home runs than the A's.

1964
The season would see the Athletics have their worst season in Kansas City since 1956. The team didn't spend a single day with a positive record and were consistently towards the bottom of the standings. From May 17 on, the teams spent the rest of the season in ninth or last place. On June 11, with a dismal record of .320, Finley fired manager Eddie Lopat and elevated coach Mel McGaha to manager. Though the team saw a slight improvement under McGaha (his record as manager was .360), the team finished in last place, with a record of .350, 42 games behind the New York Yankees.

1965
The season saw the Athletics perform barely better than the previous season, still with a dismal performance. Finley replaced general manager Pat Friday with Hank Peters prior to the start of the season. This season would follow the trend that began the previous year of never spending a day with a positive record. With a terribly poor start of .190, sitting in last place by 4½ games behind the ninth place Washington Senators, manager Mel McGaha was fired following the game on May 15. Manger of the team's Triple-A affiliate Vancouver Mounties of the Pacific Coast League, Haywood Sullivan, was promoted to manager of the major league team. Under his supervision, the team played at an improved, though the team would still barely see a day out of last place. The season ended with the Athletics in last place, with a record of .360, 43 games behind the Minnesota Twins.

Satchel Paige
The 1965 season is most notable for a promotional move of Finley's. On September 25, against the Boston Red Sox, Finley invited several Negro league veterans, including Satchel Paige and Cool Papa Bell, to be introduced before the game. Paige, who was 59 at the time, had signed earlier in the month to play one game. This game would make Paige the oldest player to ever play in Major League Baseball. Paige went three scoreless innings, facing ten batters and giving up only one hit and throwing one strikeout.

1966
The season would see Finley replace general manager Hank Peters and manager Haywood Sullivan with Eddie Lopat and Alvin Dark, respectively. The new duo would oversee the second-best season of the Athletics in Kansas City, second only to the 1958 season. This relative success was not before starting the season with a .170 record by May 5, which was the worst start of the Athletics tenure in Kansas City. The team spent most of the season wavering between eighth and last place, though September saw the Athletics improve to seventh place, where they finished the season. Their record was .460, 23 games behind the World Series winning Baltimore Orioles.

1967
The final season of the Athletics in Kansas City was reflective of the team's tenure in Kansas City: that of mediocrity. From April to May, the team slowly improved from being a "second division" to "first division" team, having placed in the upper half of the league, even placing as high as third by May 25 (albeit in a three-way tie with the Baltimore Orioles and Boston Red Sox), with an .500 record and 5½ games behind the first place Chicago White Sox. However, any sense of being competitive quickly deteriorated, as the team was in ninth place by the end of May and would exclusively place at ninth or last from June 25 on. August 6 saw the Athletics fall to last place permanently. Following the August 19 game, with a .420 record, manager Alvin Dark was replaced by Luke Appling. Appling would oversee the team's final 40 games with a .250, eventually ending the Athletics season with a .380 record, 29½ games behind the Red Sox.

During the World Series on October 11, Finley announced Oakland as his team's new desired home. Just four days later, Eddie Lopat resigned as general manger, a role which would not be filled in the Athletics franchise until 1981. Three days later, the Athletics were given permission to move to Oakland for the 1968, officially marking the season as the final season of the Kansas City Athletics.

Relocation to Oakland
Almost as soon as the ink dried on his purchase of the Athletics, Finley began shopping the Athletics to other cities despite his promises that the A's would remain in Kansas City. Soon after the lease-burning stunt, it was discovered that what actually burned was a blank boilerplate commercial lease available at any stationery store. The actual lease was still in force—including the escape clause. Finley later admitted that the whole thing was a publicity stunt, and he had no intention of amending the lease.

In 1961 and 1962, Finley talked to people in Dallas–Fort Worth and a four-man group appeared before American League owners, but no formal motion was put forward to move the team to Texas. In January 1964, he signed an agreement on to move the A's to Louisville, promising to change the team's name to the "Kentucky Athletics". (Other names suggested for the team were the "Louisville Sluggers" and "Kentucky Colonels", which would have allowed the team to keep the letters "KC" on their uniforms.) The owners turned it down by a 9–1 margin on January 16, with Finley being the only one voting in favor. Six weeks later, by the same 9–1 margin, the AL owners denied Finley's request to move the team to Oakland.

These requests came as no surprise, as impending moves to these cities, as well as to Atlanta, Milwaukee, New Orleans, San Diego, and Seattle—all of which Finley had considered as new homes for the Athletics—had long been afloat. He also threatened to move the A's to a "cow pasture" in Peculiar, Missouri, complete with temporary grandstands. Not surprisingly, attendance tailed off. The city rejected Finley's offer of a two-year lease agreement; finally, American League President Joe Cronin persuaded Finley to sign a four-year lease with Municipal Stadium in February 1964.

During the World Series on October 11, 1967, Finley announced his choice of Oakland over Seattle as the team's new home. A week later on October 18 in Chicago, AL owners at last gave him permission to move the Athletics to Oakland for the 1968 season. According to some reports, Cronin promised Finley that he could move the team after the 1967 season as an incentive to sign the new lease with Municipal Stadium. The move came in spite of approval by voters in Jackson County, Missouri of a bond issue for a brand new baseball stadium (the eventual Royals Stadium, now Kauffman Stadium) to be completed in 1973. Senator Stuart Symington of Missouri blasted Finley on the floor of the U.S. Senate, calling Oakland "the luckiest city since Hiroshima".

Legacy
When Symington threatened to have baseball's antitrust exemption revoked, the owners responded with a hasty round of expansion. Kansas City was awarded an American League expansion team, the Kansas City Royals. They were initially slated to begin play in, but Symington was not willing to have Kansas City wait three years for another team, and renewed his threat to have baseball's antitrust exemption revoked unless the expansion teams — the Royals and the Seattle Pilots — began play in , two years earlier than originally planned. The owners complied, but while Kansas City was major league ready, Seattle was not; its stadium problems affected profitability and ultimately forced the sale and move to Milwaukee after only one season as the Pilots.

Attendance
During the Johnson years, the Athletics' home attendance averaged just under one million per season, respectable numbers for the era, especially in light of the team's dreadful on-field performance. In contrast, during the years of Finley's ownership, the team averaged under 680,000 per year in Kansas City. According to baseball writer Rob Neyer (a native of the Kansas City area), this was largely because Finley tried to sell baseball tickets like he sold insurance. Just before the 1960 season, he mailed brochures to 600,000 people in the area, and only made $20,000 in ticket sales. During their thirteen years in Kansas City, the Athletics' overall record was .400, and the best season was 1966 at .460.

Notable Kansas City Athletics

 * Catfish Hunter, a pitcher who played on the team from 1965 to after the team's 1968 departure to Oakland. He was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1987.
 * Reggie Jackson, an outfielder who played his rookie season on the team's final season in 1967 to after the team's 1968 departure to Oakland. He was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1993.
 * Satchel Paige, a pitcher who played on the team in his first major league appearance in 12 years, for one game on September 25, 1965, at age 59. He is notably the oldest player to ever play in Major League Baseball. He was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1971.
 * Enos Slaughter, an outfielder who played on the team from 1955 to 1956. He was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1985.

Uniforms
When the Philadelphia Athletics moved to Kansas City, new owner Arnold Johnson kept the franchise's traditional color scheme of red, white, and blue. The home uniforms was a plain white uniform with script "Athletics" across the chest. The road uniforms were the same save for the shirt being gray.

Following the purchase of the team in 1960 by owner Charles O. Finley, he introduced road uniforms with "Kansas City" printed on them, with an interlocking "KC" on the cap (as opposed to the previous "A"). In 1963, Finley changed the team's colors from their traditional red, white, and blue to what he termed "Kelly Green, Wedding Gown White and Fort Knox Gold". It was here that he began experimenting with dramatic uniforms to match these bright colors, such as gold sleeveless tops with green undershirts and gold pants.

title: Kansas City Athletics


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Homage (arts)

Homage ( or ) is a show or demonstration of respect or dedication to someone or something, sometimes by simple declaration but often by some more oblique reference, artistic or poetic. The term is often used in the arts, where one author or artist shows respect to another by allusion or imitation; this is often spelled like and pronounced similar to the original French hommage.

Description
It was originally a declaration of fealty in the feudal system – swearing that one was the man (French: homme), or subordinate, of the feudal lord. The concept then became used figuratively for an acknowledgement of quality or superiority. For example, a man might give homage to a lady, so honouring her beauty and other graces. In German scholarship, followers of a great scholar developed the custom of honouring their mentor by producing papers for a festschrift dedicated to him.

In music, homage can take the form of a composition (Homage to Paderewski), a tribute album (Homage to Charles Parker) or a sample. Digital techniques used to generate many forms of media make it easy to borrow from other works, and this remediation may be used in homage to them.

title: Homage (arts)


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Friedrich August von Alberti

Friedrich August von Alberti (September 4, 1795 – September 12, 1878) was a German geologist whose ground-breaking 1834 publication recognized the unity of the three characteristic strata that compose the sedimentary deposits of the Triassic period in Northern Europe. From the fossils contained in the three distinct layers— of red bed sandstones, capped by limestones (Muschelkalk), followed by black shales— that are found throughout Germany and Northwest Europe, and are called the 'Trias' (Latin trias meaning triad), Alberti detected that they formed a single stratigraphic formation; today it would be termed a system. He identified the Triassic as bearing a unique fossil fauna, bounded by the Permian extinction below and by another extinction above.

Alberti grew up in Stuttgart and Rottweil where he was educated at the Gymnasium and went to the military school in Stuttgart. Afterwards he went back to Rottweil, a town 100 km south of Stuttgart. He learned the salt processing system and became a Salinentechniker (salt technician). He was quickly promoted to Salineninspektor (salt supervisor). In 1823, based on his perception of the area's geology, he had an idea to drill for salt in Rottenmünster. Eight months later the team had success and found salt, in a location where no one would have considered the possibility of finding salt.

He also made excavations in the Roman ruins of Rottweil, the ancient Arae Flaviae; he published his findings from 1833 to 1837.

Alberti bought a house and lived in Rottenmünster, a former abbey 2 miles from Rottweil, from 1829 to 1853. While there he worked as manager for two salt companies. After he retired he moved to Heilbronn. He took a position as advisor, salt technician, and geologist. He had excellent skills in understanding sandstone and limestone. He discovered that if you find combinations of these two kinds of stone together, you will always find salt. He wrote books on his experiences of looking and drilling for salt.

He invented the method of mining salt by pumping water into the mine; when the brine rose to the surface, he would allow the water to evaporate and then he would collect the salt.

The Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen gave Friedrich August von Alberti an honorary doctorate for his achievements in the salt-mining industry. The city honored him with a street in his name.

Alberti was very well thought of and popular. People liked him for his personality, his happiness, and the fact that he was very open and honest to everyone. After he died his family stayed in Rottweil, where also a street bears his name. Today many of his descendants still live in the town.

In Bad Friedrichshall, also a former salt town, a school is named after him, the Friedrich-von-Alberti-Gymnasium.

title: Friedrich August von Alberti


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Picathartes

The picathartes, rockfowl, or bald crows are a small genus of two passerine bird species forming the family Picathartidae found in the rain-forests of tropical west and central Africa. They have unfeathered heads, and feed on insects and invertebrates picked from damp rocky areas. Both species are totally non-migratory, being dependent on a specialised rocky jungle habitat. Both species are listed as vulnerable to extinction on the IUCN Red List.

Taxonomy and systematics
The taxonomic position of the clade and its two species has been confusing. At various times, it has been grouped with the babblers, flycatchers, starlings, crows and others before being placed in a family of its own. Serle in 1952 thought it resembled the Asian genus Eupetes while Sibley used egg-albumin protein similarity, determined by electrophoresis, to suggest that it belonged to the Timaliidae. Olson revived the idea that it was related to Eupetes in 1979. A molecular sequence based study suggests that it may indeed be closely related to the crows and placed somewhere at the boundary between the Passerida and Corvida. More specifically they appear to be a sister of the rockjumpers (Chaetops) and are basal to the clade containing the Sylvioidea, Passeroidea and Muscicapoidea but outside the core Corvoidea.

This generic name comes from a combination of the Latin genera pica for "magpie" and cathartes for "vulture".

Species

 * White-necked rockfowl (Picathartes gymnocephalus)
 * Grey-necked rockfowl (Picathartes oreas)

A possible third species may exist in Uganda, in the vicinity of the Kazinga Channel, linking Lake Edward with Lake George.

Description
The picathartes are large 33 to 38 cm long passerines with crow-like black bills, long neck, tail, and legs. They weigh between 200 and 250 g. The strong feet and grey legs are adapted to terrestrial movement, and the family progresses through the forest with long bounds on the ground. The wings are long but are seldom used for long flights. The plumage is similar between the two species, with white breasts and bellies and darker grey and grey-black wings, backs, and tails. The neck color varies between the two species, giving them their individual names (grey-necked and white-necked picathartes). They also have bald heads with brightly coloured and patterned skin.

Behaviour and ecology
Rockfowl are generalised feeders, taking a wide range of invertebrate prey. Prey items include a range of insects, particularly beetles, termites, and ants, as well as millipedes, centipedes, earthworms, and gastropods. Frogs and lizards are also taken, but these are mostly fed to their chicks. Prey is taken both by foraging on the ground and in the trees. They will also forage in shallow flowing water for crabs. When foraging on the ground, they move forward with hops and bounds, then pausing to search for prey. The longish bill is used to turn over leaves and seize prey, but the feet are never used for either. Both species will follow swarms of ants in order to snatch prey fleeing the ants.

Both species of rockfowl breed seasonally in the wet season. Where an area experiences two wet seasons in a year, they will breed twice in that year. Despite reports of cooperative breeding, it is now thought that they are exclusively monogamous, breeding in pairs. They are also commonly reported to be colonial, and will breed in colonies of up to seven pairs, but solitary breeders and smaller colonies of just two pairs are more common. The nest is made of mud attached to a cave roof or overhanging rock on a cliff. The nest is a cup-like structure of dried leaves, twigs and plant fibres set into dried mud. Two eggs are laid, 24 to 48 hours apart. Both parents participate in incubating the eggs, each taking 12-hour shifts before being relieved by their partner. It takes around 20 days for the eggs to hatch. Picathartes hatchlings are altricial at hatching, almost naked (a few feathers are present on the crown and back) and helpless. The chicks take around 25 days to fledge.

Distribution and habitat
The rockfowl are distributed in West Africa and western Central Africa, in Guinea, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Ivory Coast, Ghana (white-necked rockfowl), Nigeria, Cameroon, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, the Republic of the Congo, and the Central African Republic (grey-necked rockfowl). The rockfowl live in lowland rainforest at up to 800 m, in rocky and hilly terrain on the slopes of hills and mountains. These birds require forest litter for foraging, a large enough area to contain army-ant swarms (Dorylinae), and rocks, cliffs, or caves for nesting sites.

title: Picathartes