Were the '29 A's Better Than The '27 Yankees?

1929 Philadelphia A's




From the SI archive:

The 1927 Yankees, who won 110 games and finished 19 ahead of second-place Philadelphia, are traditionally venerated as the finest team ever assembled. In fact, according to most old-timers who played in that era, the 1927 and '28 Yankees and the 1929 and '30 Athletics matched up so closely that they were nearly equal, with the A's given the nod in fielding and pitching and the Yankees in hitting.
"I pitched against both of them, and you could flip a coin," recalls Willis Hudlin, 90, who won 157 games for the Cleveland Indians between 1926 and 1940. "They both had power and pitching. A game would be decided on who was pitching and what kind of a day he had. You could throw a dart between 'em."
In truth, the chief difference between the two teams had less to do with how they played in any given game than with where they played their home games. Many veteran baseball observers believe that the Yankees' far more exalted status in history is due largely to the fact that they played in New York, in media heaven, where the manufacture of myth and hype is a light industry. Regardless, these observers agree that those old A's were the finest baseball team to play in Philadelphia and the greatest team that almost no one remembers.
"Those A's never got the credit they deserved," says Shirley Povich, 91, the retired sports editor of The Washington Post, who covered both teams. "The A's were victims of the Yankee mystique. Perhaps the 1927 Yankees were the greatest team of all time. But if there was a close second, perhaps an equal, it was those A's. They are the most overlooked team in baseball."

I've got to say that the 1929-1931 A's don't come to mind like the 1927 Yankees or the 1975-76 Cincinnati Reds do.  It is a very interesting story, and well worth the read.  Heck, a lot of people don't know the A's played in Philadelphia, let alone that they were loaded with talent.  I did learn when I went to Philadelphia that fans there remember the A's, but I suppose part of that is because the Philles were so horrible for most of the 20th century.

Shibe Park, around 1930

Photos from Baseball Fever and ExplorePAHistory

Update: My favorite part of the story:

There were celebrations in the streets of Philadelphia that night. The A's miraculous victory was the biggest story of the day. No wonder Hoover and his wife went north behind the locomotive President Washington to be on hand for Game 5.
Prohibition was still the law, and as Hoover walked across the field to Shibe's presidential box at 1 p.m., the crowd chanted, "Beer! Beer! We want beer!"