Charlie-O the Mule was the

mascot A mascot is any human, animal, or object thought to bring luck, or anything used to represent a group with a common public identity, such as a school, professional sports team, society, military unit, or brand name. Mascots are also used as fic ...

used by the US baseball teams Kansas City / Oakland A's from 1965 to 1976. Charlie-O the Mule was purchased from Harold Sloan a small town farmer and muleskinner from Osborn, Missouri. The mule was named after

Charles O. Finley Charles Oscar Finley (February 22, 1918 – February 19, 1996), nicknamed Charlie O or Charley O, was an American businessman who owned Major League Baseball's Oakland Athletics. Finley purchased the franchise while it was located in Kansas Cit ...

, the team's owner at the time. The team's original mascot was an

elephant Elephants are the largest existing land animals. Three living species are currently recognised: the African bush elephant, the African forest elephant, and the Asian elephant. They are the only surviving members of the family Elephantidae ...

. Use of an elephant to symbolize the Athletics dates from the early years of the franchise, when a group of

Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...

businessmen headed by industrialist Benjamin Shibe became the team's first owners. When asked to comment,

John McGraw John Joseph McGraw (April 7, 1873 – February 25, 1934) was an American Major League Baseball (MLB) player and manager who was for almost thirty years manager of the New York Giants. He was also the third baseman of the pennant-winning 1890 ...

, manager of the

New York Giants The New York Giants are a professional American football team based in the New York metropolitan area. The Giants compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's National Football Conference (NFC) East divisio ...

of the rival

National League The National League of Professional Baseball Clubs, known simply as the National League (NL), is the older of two leagues constituting Major League Baseball (MLB) in the United States and Canada, and the world's oldest extant professional team ...

said something to the effect that Shibe had bought himself a "

white elephant A white elephant is a possession that its owner cannot dispose of, and whose cost, particularly that of maintenance, is out of proportion to its usefulness. In modern usage, it is a metaphor used to describe an object, construction project, sch ...

." In response, A's manager (and future owner)

Connie Mack Cornelius McGillicuddy (December 22, 1862 – February 8, 1956), better known as Connie Mack, was an American professional baseball catcher, manager, and team owner. The longest-serving manager in Major League Baseball history, he holds untoucha ...

selected the elephant as the team symbol and mascot and from time to time the elephant has appeared on the Athletics uniforms ever since. When the A's moved to

Missouri Missouri is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. Ranking List of U.S. states and territories by area, 21st in land area, it is bordered by eight states (tied for the most with Tennessee ...

, where the official state animal is the mule,

Warren Hearnes Warren Eastman Hearnes (July 24, 1923 – August 16, 2009) was an American politician who served as the 46th governor of Missouri from 1965 to 1973. A member of the Democratic Party, he was the first officeholder eligible to serve two consecutiv ...

gave a mule to Finley for his barnyard menagerie at

Municipal Stadium Municipal Stadium may refer to: Europe and Asia *Beirut Municipal Stadium, Lebanon *Herzliya Municipal Stadium, Israel *Hiroshima Municipal Stadium (1957), Japan *Jinnah Stadium, Gujranwala or Municipal Stadium, Pakistan *Kfarjoz Municipal Stadium, ...

which also included sheep and goats that scampered up the hill behind right field. The Municipal Stadium menagerie also included Warpaint, the horse mascot of the

Kansas City Chiefs The Kansas City Chiefs are a professional American football team based in Kansas City, Missouri. The Chiefs compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's American Football Conference (AFC) West division. The t ...

. As questions swirled about whether Finley would be loyal to Missouri, he embraced the mule and removed the elephant from the A's logo and changed the A's colors from blue, red and white to green, gold, and white. Finley took the

sorrel Sorrel (''Rumex acetosa''), also called common sorrel or garden sorrel, is a perennial herbaceous plant in the family Polygonaceae. Other names for sorrel include spinach dock and narrow-leaved dock ('dock' being a common name for the genus '' ...

mule around the country, walking him into cocktail parties and hotel lobbies, and on one occasion even into the press room after a large feeding to annoy reporters. After an announcement that Finley intended to ride him around the bases at

Dodger Stadium Dodger Stadium is a baseball stadium in the Elysian Park neighborhood of Los Angeles, California. It is the home stadium of Major League Baseball's Los Angeles Dodgers. Opened in 1962, it was constructed in less than three years at a cost of ...

, a reporter wrote: :You can't tell the owner without a program."Charlie O...A Mule No Fool" Laguna Beach, California Independent Press-Telegraph, May 2, 1965 In 1965, the A's briefly had

relief pitcher In baseball and softball, a relief pitcher or reliever is a pitcher who enters the game after the starting pitcher is removed because of fatigue, ineffectiveness, injury, or ejection, or for other strategic reasons, such as inclement weather d ...

s ride the mule from the

bullpen In baseball, the bullpen (or simply the pen) is the area where relief pitchers warm up before entering a game. A team's roster of relief pitchers is also metonymically referred to as "the bullpen". These pitchers usually wait in the bullpen if ...

to the

pitcher's mound A baseball field, also called a ball field or baseball diamond, is the field upon which the game of baseball is played. The term can also be used as a metonym for a baseball park. The term sandlot is sometimes used, although this usually refers ...

, when entering a game. When the Athletics left

Kansas City The Kansas City metropolitan area is a bi-state metropolitan area anchored by Kansas City, Missouri. Its 14 counties straddle the border between the U.S. states of Missouri (9 counties) and Kansas (5 counties). With and a population of more ...

after the 1967 season, there was debate about whether Charlie-O should stay but Finley declared he was a gift and took him with him to Oakland in 1968. The mule died in 1976 at age 20. When Finley sold the team to

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...

businessman Walter A. Haas, Jr. in 1981, the use of a mule as team mascot was discontinued. Then, in 1988, the elephant was resurrected as team mascot, eventually personified by Stomper. Charlie-O appeared at two Oakland Athletics games in 2010, first in Oakland for a Turn Back the Clock game on June 26 and again in Kansas City for the

Kansas City Royals The Kansas City Royals are an American professional baseball team based in Kansas City, Missouri. The Royals compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) Central division. The team was founded as an expa ...

’ Turn Back the Clock game against the Athletics on July 17.

References

{{Oakland Athletics Major League Baseball team mascots Kansas City Athletics Oakland Athletics Individual mules Animal mascots Mascots introduced in 1965 Individual animals in the United States

See also

References