Back to 1983, we get to the Oakland Athletics, who finished dead in the middle of the AL West. Billy Martin had led this team to the ALCS in 1981, but blew out the pitchers arms in the process, so by 1983, there was virtually no pitching on this team. The one bright spot for the pitching staff was a no-hitter thrown by Mike Warren. Rickey Henderson was the best player on this team by a mile and this team may have been in last place without him. A true definition of "most valuable" player.
Best Player: Rickey Henderson...by a mile
Best Pitcher: Chris Codiroli...this wasn't a good pitching staff, Codiroli led the team in wins and was one of the few who was uninjured for the whole year to give the team 200+ innings.
All-Stars: Rickey Henderson
Hall-of-Famers: Rickey Henderson
Rookie Card of the Year: Tony Phillips...played with the A's through 1989, but really had the peak of his career from 1990-1994 with the Tigers. He led the league in runs scored in 1992 and garnered MVP votes in 1993. He bounced around after that with several teams and finished his career in 1999 with the same A's that he started out with.
Other rookies: Steve Baker, Chris Codiroli, Bob Kearney
First Athletic card: Bill Almon, Steve Boros, Tom Burgmeier, John D'Acquisto (under retired players), Preston Hanna (under retired players), Carney Lansford, Jimmy Sexton (listed under St. Louis Cardinals), Al Woods (under players on new teams)
Most interesting non-Topps card: Kelvin Moore...one of the things with doing this project is how many players are completely shut out of Topps sets. Kelvin Moore had a career from 1981 through 1983, all with the A's. This is actually his second Donruss card, as he had a card in the 1982 Donruss set. He never had a Topps card, even though in 1983, he played in 41 games with 136 plate appearances.
Starters
| __ | TT | 52 | C | Bob Kearney | OAK |
| __ | TO | 233 | 1B | Wayne Gross | OAK |
| __ | TO | 365 | 2B | Davey Lopes | OAK |
| __ | TT | 87 | SS | Tony Phillips | OAK |
| __ | TT | 60 | 3B | Carney Lansford | OAK |
| __ | TO | 180 | LF | Rickey Henderson | OAK |
| __ | TO | 598 | CF | Dwayne Murphy | OAK |
| __ | TT | 24 | RF | Mike Davis | OAK |
| __ | TO | 648 | DH | Jeff Burroughs | OAK |
| __ | TT | 2 | IF | Bill Almon | OAK |
| __ | TO | 23 | C | Mike Heath | OAK |
| __ | UT | Garry Hancock |
Starting Pitchers
| __ | TT | 20 | SP | Chris Codiroli | OAK |
| __ | SP | Bill Krueger | |||
| __ | TO | 493 | SP | Steve McCatty | OAK |
| __ | TO | 620 | SP | Mike Norris | OAK |
| __ | SP | Gorman Heimueller |
Relief Pitchers
| __ | TO | 102 | CL | Dave Beard | OAK |
| __ | TO | 466 | RP | Tom Underwood | OAK |
| __ | TT | 16 | RP | Tom Burgmeier | OAK |
| __ | RP | Tim Conroy | |||
| __ | RP | Keith Atherton | |||
| __ | SP | Mike Warren | |||
| __ | TT | 6 | RP | Steve Baker | OAK |
Other Players
| __ | CF | Rick Peters | |||
| __ | TO | 208 | 1B | Dan Meyer | OAK |
| __ | SS | Donnie Hill | |||
| __ | DO | 87 | 1B | Kelvin Moore | OAK |
| __ | TO | 737 | DH | Mitchell Page | OAK |
| __ | UT | Luis Quinones | |||
| __ | C | Darryl Cias | |||
| __ | UT | Marshall Brant | |||
| __ | UT | Dave Hudgens | |||
| __ | UT | Rusty McNealy | |||
| __ | TO | 413 | RP | Matt Keough | OAK |
| __ | TO | 259 | RP | Jeff Jones | OAK |
| __ | TO | 286 | SP | Rick Langford | OAK |
| __ | RP | Mark Smith | |||
| __ | RP | Ed Farmer | |||
| __ | SP | Ben Callahan | |||
| __ | RP | Curt Young | |||
| __ | RP | Bert Bradley | |||
| __ | RP | Rich Wortham |
Manager
| __ | TT | 13 | MG | Steve Boros | OAK |
