Experimentation, not a hippie link
Sport in the 1960s did try new things, and some of them look colourful alongside the psychedelic prints of fashion and posters at the time. But they were not part of the hippie movement. They were commercial and technical experiments, driven by team owners, stadium builders and new leagues that needed attention. The link to the counterculture is one of timing and mood: an era in which novelty, colour and showmanship were more welcome than before.
Charlie Finley and the Athletics
The most persistent sporting experimenter was Charlie Finley, the Chicago insurance businessman who bought the Kansas City Athletics in 1960. Finley treated baseball as a business that needed marketing, and he was ready to defy older ideas of how the game should look.
His best-known change was colour. The Athletics wore bright uniforms in green and gold, which were unusual in a sport where teams had worn grey and white for generations, and his later teams wore white shoes. He also tried an orange baseball, which he argued would be easier for players and spectators to see. The idea was tested in exhibition games but was never adopted for regular play.
He promoted other ideas as well, many of them ahead of their time. He argued for a designated hitter, for night games in the World Series, and for walks after three balls instead of four. The American League adopted the designated hitter in 1973, and the first night World Series game came in 1971. Finley was a mixed success as an owner, since many in baseball found his methods abrasive, but several of his proposals later became normal.
The Athletics leave Kansas City
Finley’s relationship with Kansas City soured, and he sought a new home. In autumn 1967, the American League owners approved the team’s move to Oakland, California, for the 1968 season. The Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum had opened in 1966, and the move followed years of disputes over stadium terms and attendance in Missouri. Kansas City was given a new expansion team, the Royals, in 1969.
The A’s later became one of baseball’s strongest teams, winning three straight World Series in 1972, 1973 and 1974. Their reputation for long hair and moustaches, partly encouraged by Finley’s offers of bonuses, makes them one of the more visible examples of sport’s changing look. That is a story for the early 1970s, and the move itself in 1967 and 1968 was mainly a business decision.
AstroTurf at the Astrodome
Another piece of experimentation was technical. The Houston Astrodome opened in 1965 as the first major domed stadium, which allowed baseball to be played in air-conditioned comfort. The roof, however, caused a problem: natural grass struggled to grow under the filtered light, and the field became patchy.
The solution was an artificial surface made of synthetic fibres. It was installed in stages for the 1966 season, and it became widely known as AstroTurf, a name taken from the stadium. Other stadiums followed. Supporters liked the consistency and the low maintenance. Many players disliked it, complaining of hard bounces, heat and injuries, and the argument over artificial turf continued for decades.
The ABA and its patriotic basketball
Basketball’s version of the same restless spirit was the American Basketball Association, which was founded in 1967 and began play in the 1967-68 season to challenge the established NBA. The league needed to be noticed, and it did so with showy touches. The best known was its red, white and blue ball, which replaced the plain brown one and was meant to stand out, especially on television. The league also used a three-point line and developed a fast, open style.
The ABA was often short of money, and many of its teams struggled. In 1976, four of its teams joined the NBA, and the league’s three-point shot was later adopted there. The colourful ball became a symbol of an era that valued difference.
Leagues in a period of expansion
These experiments happened in a period when several leagues grew. The NHL expansion of 1967 doubled that league from six teams to twelve, and baseball added teams in 1969 and split into divisional play, which created a new playoff structure. All of them were a search for new audiences and television income, and the creative changes were partly an attempt to be noticed.
What the experiments show
Seen together, these changes show a sporting world in which owners and administrators were more open to the unusual than they had been in the 1950s. Colour, novelty and showmanship became part of the product. None of this made sport countercultural, and the people behind the changes were mostly conventional businessmen. What they shared with the counterculture was the sense that old rules could be questioned.