A Philadelphia name, a rival’s jibe and a mascot adopted in reply.

The name is older than the franchise. English Wikipedia says “Athletics” comes from the term “Athletic Club,” used for local gentlemen’s clubs, and dates to 1860, when an amateur team, the Athletic of Philadelphia, was formed. That club turned professional and later versions of it played in Philadelphia in the nineteenth century before the present franchise was founded in 1901 as the Philadelphia Athletics, one of the eight charter clubs of the American League. Wikipedia says Connie Mack was the club’s owner and manager for its first 50 years; Ben Shibe, a Philadelphia manufacturer, held the controlling interest at the start.

The mascot began as an insult. According to Wikipedia, the New York Giants manager John McGraw told reporters that Shibe had “a white elephant on his hands,” and Mack responded by adopting the white elephant as the team’s mascot, presenting McGraw with a stuffed toy elephant before the 1905 World Series. By 1909 the players wore an elephant logo on their sweaters, Wikipedia says, and by 1918 it was on the regular uniform jersey.

The early uniforms kept the city off the shirt. Wikipedia says that until 1954, when “Athletics” was spelled out in script across the front, the team name never appeared on the home or road uniforms, and neither “Philadelphia” nor a letter “P” appeared on the jersey or cap. The Philadelphia uniform carried only a script “A” on the left front, and the cap usually carried the same letter. In the early standings, Wikipedia adds, the club was listed as “Athletic” rather than by its city, in keeping with the older amateur tradition. The shortened “A’s” also dates to that era, when headline writers used it to save space, and it has been used interchangeably with the full name ever since.

The club then moved twice. Wikipedia records that the franchise left Philadelphia for Kansas City in 1955, playing at Municipal Stadium, and moved again to Oakland in 1968, where it played at the Oakland Coliseum through the 2024 season. Each move kept the name Athletics, so the city name on the road jersey was the main part of the identity to change.

Kelly green and gold, a mule, and an apostrophe.

The green and gold arrived in Kansas City. Wikipedia says that after Charles O. Finley bought the team in 1960, he introduced road uniforms with “Kansas City” on them and an interlocking “KC” on the cap, and changed the team’s colours from their traditional red, white and blue to kelly green and gold. He began experimenting with bold uniforms to match, such as gold sleeveless tops over green undershirts with gold trousers. In 1963, Wikipedia says, Finley also replaced the elephant mascot with a mule, the state animal of Missouri.

The move to Oakland brought the letter back. Wikipedia says the “A” cap emblem was restored when the club arrived in 1968, and that in 1970 an apostrophe and “s” were added to the cap and uniform emblem because Finley was officially changing the team’s name to the “A’s.” From 1972 through 1980 the official name was “Oakland A’s.” The move also came with polyester pullover uniforms, and in the 1970s the club used many combinations of green, gold and white jerseys and trousers and did not wear the traditional grey on the road.

A calmer look followed a change of owner. Wikipedia says the new owner, Walter A. Haas Jr., restored the official name “Athletics” in 1981 while keeping “A’s” for marketing, and that the club moved its primary colour to a more subdued forest green in 1982 and began returning to more traditional uniforms. At first the word “Athletics” came back only in the logo, beneath the large stylised “A”; by 1987 it had returned in script lettering across the front of the jerseys. From 1988, the club’s 21st season in Oakland, an illustration of an elephant was worn on the left sleeve of the home and road uniforms, and it stayed there through the final Oakland season in 2024.

The elephant also returned as a costumed character. Wikipedia says that from the mid-1980s the on-field mascot was called Harry Elephante, a play on the singer Harry Belafonte, and that in 1997 he became Stomper, who debuted on opening night that April. The later uniform sets kept the green, gold and white base and added and retired alternates in black, gold, forest green and kelly green over the following decades.

Design and documentation.

Professional clubs carry names that can outlast the cities, owners and ballparks attached to them. When a club changes its name, the new identity usually arrives as a complete set rather than a single swap: a wordmark, a cap or helmet insignia, a primary logo, home and road uniforms and a colour palette, all launched together so that signage, merchandise and broadcast graphics can switch on the same date. Leagues often supply design support, and clubs commonly test options with supporters before an announcement.

Relocation works differently. A club that moves may keep its nickname, colours and lettering while the city name on the road jersey changes, so the visual system becomes the thread that links one home to the next. Some clubs play for a period in an interim home, such as a smaller ballpark or a shared stadium, before a permanent building is ready, and their identity then has to read clearly in surroundings designed for another team.

Many clubs also keep a single element through every change: a script wordmark, a letter monogram or an animal mascot. Such elements are often redrawn rather than replaced, with thicker strokes, revised serifs or a simplified outline, so that supporters can recognise them on a cap, a sleeve patch or a scoreboard across several decades.

A club between cities, and a name without one.

The latest move left the club without a city name. Writing for CBS Sports on 4 November 2024, Dayn Perry reported that the franchise had issued “brand transition guidelines” as it left Oakland: the team was to be called only “Athletics,” with “A’s” allowed on second reference; the club’s new primary logo was the green “A’s”; and the primary wordmark would remain the green “Athletics” script. Perry identified John Fisher as the club’s owner.

The interim home is a minor-league ballpark. Wikipedia says the club is playing at Sutter Health Park in West Sacramento, home of the San Francisco Giants’ Triple-A affiliate, for the 2025 to 2027 seasons, with an option for 2028. The uniform set was largely kept, Wikipedia says, except that the road wordmark changed from “Oakland” to “Athletics.” The elephant sleeve patch was replaced by a green patch showing one of the towers of Sacramento’s Tower Bridge, with “Sacramento” beneath it in yellow, and from 2026 the club added a gold alternate jersey with “Sacramento” in script across the chest.

The planned permanent home is in Nevada. Wikipedia records that Major League Baseball’s owners approved the move to Las Vegas on 16 November 2023. The Associated Press reported on 4 December 2025 that the club was scheduled to move to Las Vegas before the 2028 season, that a ceremonial groundbreaking for its ballpark on the Las Vegas Strip had taken place on 23 June 2025, and that club president Marc Badain had previously overseen the building of Allegiant Stadium for the Raiders. Wikipedia adds that in January 2026 the Associated Press reported that the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office had denied the club’s applications for the names “Las Vegas Athletics” and “Vegas Athletics.”

For a design guide, Athletics shows how a club can carry one name, one script letter and one animal through four home cities, and let the city name on the road jersey do the changing. Compare the football club that made the same move in our Las Vegas Raiders guide, the club’s old Bay Area neighbour in the San Francisco Giants guide, and the league-wide marks in the MLB guide. For this guide we use forest green, Athletics gold and kelly green with a condensed sans, an unofficial interpretation; no product or logo is reproduced.

Keep Athletics’s identity on hand — save it to a board in the Made Good inspiration library.