The A’s are playing their final game in Oakland today, but the franchise’s rich history will live on.

Oakland produced four World Series winning teams, won 17 division titles and was home to some of the biggest stars and larger-than-life characters, something that can’t be wiped away by a temporary move to Sacramento and and longer-term plan of Las Vegas.

Here is a look at some of the well-known and not-so well-known moments and milestones in the franchise’s time in Oakland. (If you want to read about more moments and milestones, go to www.mercurynews.com)

Franchise player

Let’s get it out of the way right away: Who was the best player in Oakland A’s history? Oakland Tech grad Rickey Henderson, and it’s not really close. If you go by his WAR (wins above replacement) Henderson’s 72.7 WAR is miles ahead of No. 2 Sal Bando (50.5). Henderson, enshrined in the MLB Hall of Fame in 2009, is Oakland’s all-time leader in a wide variety of categories, including on-base percentage, runs scored, total bases, and of course, stolen bases.

Oakland’s career hit leaders

895 - Rickey Henderson

673 - Carney Lansford

652 - Campy Campaneris

639 - Eric Chavez

625 - Reggie Jackson

Ace of aces

Picking the greatest pitcher in Oakland history is no small feat. Many rotations – and eras – featured multiple aces. There was Catfish Hunter, Vida Blue and Ken Holtzman on the 1970s World Series teams. Mike Norris, Matt Keough, Steve McCatty, Rick Langford and Brian Kingman were the Five Aces of the Billy Ball era. You might not know it from the movie, but the Moneyball era wouldn’t have existed without Barry Zito, Tim Hudson and Mark Mulder. Then there are closers like Rollie Fingers and Dennis Eckersley to consider. But based on WAR, Huddy goes down as Oakland’s all-time best on the mound, largely because his 92-39 record is the franchise’s best winning percentage (.702).

Oakland Cy Young winners

Vida Blue (1971)

Catfish Hunter (1974)

Bob Welch (1990)

Dennis Eckersley (1992)

Barry Zito (2002)

Runners-up: Mike Norris (1980), Steve McCatty (1981), Eckersley (1988), Dave Stewart (1989), Tim Hudson (2000), Mark Mulder (2001)

How it started

After moving from Kansas City following the 1967 season, the A’s opened the Oakland era on the road in Baltimore. The Oakland A’s played their first game on April 10, 1968, at old Memorial Stadium. They lost 3-1, but a young outfielder named Reggie Jackson hit the second home run of his career – he’d go on to hit 561 more. The A’s reboot had been scheduled a day earlier, but was postponed because of the funeral of Martin Luther King Jr. John Donaldson, who briefly wrestled away the second base job from Dick Green, who became a mainstay of the A’s World Series-winning teams in the early 1970s, collected Oakland’s first hit – a single to center with one out in the second inning off Tom Phoebus. Jim ‘Catfish’ Hunter, two days after turning 22 but entering his fourth full season in the majors, started for the A’s and took the loss despite allowing just two runs and seven hits (and collecting one of the A’s seven hits) in six innings.

Win No. 1 didn’t take long

The Oakland A’s didn’t play their second game until three days after their debut in Baltimore, but it was worth the wait. Sal Bando, who’d assume the role of The Captain of the Swingin’ A’s squads in the 1970s, homered to spark a four-run sixth at Washington’s D.C. Stadium and Oakland earned its first win: 9-6 over the Senators. Chuck Dobson earned the win, his first of 58 he’d record in Oakland’s first four seasons before elbow issues ended his career just as the franchise began to break through.

Final tally

The A’s 4,613 regular-season wins through Tuesday are the sixth-most in the majors since they arrived in Oakland, trailing only the Yankees, Dodgers, Red Sox, Cardinals and Braves. As well as success, there were the lean years (exacerbated at multiple points of the Oakland era as the rosters were stripped of stars for cost-cutting measures) and frustrating ends to promising seasons – especially in the early 2000s when the A’s lost four straight best-of-five-game division series despite holding 2-0 series leads twice and went 0-9 in potential clinching games. In all, Oakland played in the World Series six times, winning in 1972 (Reds), 1973 (Mets), 1974 (Dodgers) and, of course, the Bay Bridge World Series against the Giants in 1989 that was interrupted by the devastating Loma Prieta earthquake. Oakland played for the AL pennant 11 times and reached the playoffs (including wild-card games) 21 times in 57 seasons.

Home sweet home

Major League Baseball debuted in Oakland on April 17, 1968. The Coliseum crowd was great – a season-high 50,164 – but the Orioles’ Dave McNally was even better, holding the A’s hitless until Rick Monday led off the sixth with Oakland’s first home hit – a home run. The only other A’s hit was a single by a 23-year-old utilityman named Tony LaRussa. The A’s first home win came a day later – 4-3 in front of an announced attendance of 5,304 – when Jackson scored on Donaldson’s sacrifice fly in the 13th inning. The win went to left-handed reliever Paul Lindblad, who spent parts of eight seasons in the A’s bullpen and earned the win in Game 3 of the 1973 World Series against the Mets.

Here’s a look at the A’s who played the most games at the Coliseum

886 - Rickey Henderson

720 - Sal Bando

711 - Reggie Jackson

679 - Campy Campaneris

669 - Eric Chavez

By the way, that utilityman only had 25 more hits in his playing career, but did OK for himself as a manager.

Oakland manager win leaders

798 - Tony LaRussa

600 - Art Howe

368 - Ken Macha

334 - Bob Geren

314 – Alvin Dark

Strong arms

Oakland had more than its share of amazing pitching, producing five Cy Young winners – Dave Stewart was nearly No. 6, with four consecutive top-four finishes from 1987-90, including the runner-up to Bret Saberhagen in 1989 – and four ERA champions (Diego Segui, Blue, Hunter and Steve Ontiveros). A’s pitchers finished second in the league in ERA five more times, including in 1981 when Steve McCatty ended the season as the ERA champ, but ended up second to the Orioles’ Sammy Stewart (2.32-2.33) when MLB retroactively stopped rounding innings to the nearest full inning for calculating the stat.

Oakland’s career win leaders

131 - Catfish Hunter

124 - Vida Blue

119 - Dave Stewart

102 - Barry Zito

96 - Bob Welch

Not surprisingly, the list of the most wins at the Coliseum is topped by the same five and almost in the exact same order:

Hunter - 80

Blue - 70

Stewart - 61

Welch - 54

Zito - 51

Top of the world

The Bash Brother era only produced one World Series title in what turned out to be Oakland’s final three appearances in the Fall Classic, but for much of the late 1980s and early 1990s, the A’s were the rock stars of baseball. It’s difficult to imagine now, but the A’s drew nearly 3 million fans to the Coliseum in 1990 and were a top attraction in every AL city where they visited. Sluggers Mark McGwire and Jose Canseco introduced the world to the forearm bash home run celebration. But the electrifying Bash Brother era had run its course by the middle of 1992 when Canseco learned of his trade to the Rangers and was pulled from the on-deck circle at the Coliseum during a loss to the Orioles. It would be another eight years until the A’s won the AL West in 2000, ending the longest playoff drought in Oakland history. McGwire remained with the A’s until he was traded to the Cardinals in 1996, but not before topping the Oakland record books in most bashing categories.

Career home run leaders

363 - Mark McGwire

268 - Reggie Jackson

254 - Jose Canseco

230 - Eric Chavez

198 - Jason Giambi

– McGwire also hit the most home runs by an A’s player at the Coliseum (166). Jackson hit 146 and Canseco bashed 122 times at home.

Career RBI leaders

941 - Mark McGwire

793 - Jose Canseco

789 - Sal Bando

787 - Eric Chavez

770 - Reggie Jackson

Nothing to hit here

Oakland produced eight no-hitters, six of them pitched at the Coliseum. Several were lopsided and none more emotional than Dallas Braden’s perfect game on Mother’s Day in 2010. Catfish Hunter threw the first, a perfect game on May 8, 1968, in just the 11th game the A’s played in Oakland. The last no-no was pitched by Mike Fiers on May 7, 2019 against the Reds. That one not only was the second of Fiers’ career and the 300th no-hitter in MLB history, it followed a one-hour, 38-minute delay because of a Coliseum lighting malfunction. Sean Manaea (Red Sox in 2018) and Dave Stewart (Blue Jays in 1990) no-hit the teams that, at the time, were leading the majors in runs scored. There also was the time relievers Glenn Abbott, Paul Lindblad and Rollie Fingers combined with Vida Blue to no-hit the Angels on the final day of the 1975 season (Blue pitched his own no-no five years earlier). But the most surprising was rookie Mike Warren’s no-hitter in the final days of 1983. Warren, 22 at the time, was making his ninth career start (he was 4-3 with a 4.76 ERA) and won just four more games before making his final major league appearance two years later.

Honor roll

Oakland more than held its own in the awards department in 57 seasons, producing seven AL MVPs in addition to the five Cy Young winners. But perhaps most impressive is that of the seven AL pitchers who have won both awards for the same season, two were A’s. In 1971, Vida Blue was just 22 and won 24 games and led the league with a 1.82 ERA to become the first AL pitcher to pull off the award double. Hall of Fame closer Dennis Eckersley did it again in 1992 when had a league-leading 51 saves and a 1.91 ERA.

Oakland MVPs

Miguel Tejada (2002)

Jason Giambi (2000)

Dennis Eckersley (1992)

Rickey Henderson (1990)

Jose Canseco (1988)

Reggie Jackson (1973)

Vida Blue (1971)