of the issues that the Phillies were unhappy about at Jack Russell Stadium. That same year the field was formally named McKechnie Field. Kansas City/Oakland Athletics era The Kansas City Athletics played at McKechnie Field from 1963–1968. Ironically, the team left Connie Mack Field for Bradenton, after the Milwaukee Braves arrived in West Palm Beach. The team was not open to sharing their spring training facilities or stadium with the Braves. The City of Bradenton talked A's owner Charlie Finley into staying at McKechnie until . By that time, the A's relocated from Kansas City to Oakland. Finley believed that his west coast team should train on the west coast, in Mesa, Arizona. During the Athletics tenure, Finley routinely tied his Athletics team mascot, a donkey named "Charlie O", to a tree inside the stadium during games." The Pirates land: 1969–present day Once the Athletics left Florida for the west coast, Bradenton made plans to attract a new major league club. The city would attempt to lure the Pittsburgh Pirates or the Cleveland Indians to McKechnie Field. At the time, the Indians had a ten-year contract to play at Randolph Field, located in Tucson, Arizona and were written off by Bradenton officials. However the Pirates were unhappy at Terry Park, their spring training home for 14 years, located in Fort Myers. In February 1968, Bradenton representatives met with Pirates' general manager Joe Brown and owner John W. Galbreath and both sides agreed to a lease of 40 years, with an option for another 40 years. In 1969 the Pittsburgh Pirates began their lease of McKechnie Field. Still the team threatened to move several times in the first 34 years they had been there. The potato patch Prior to 1993, the playing field at McKechnie was much less popular with the players than it is today. Whitey Herzog, the Kansas City Royals manager in the late 1970s, called it "the closest thing to a cow pasture I've seen." Pirates outfielder Dave Parker later stated "playing in the outfield [at McKechnie] was like playing in a "potato patch"." This led the city to finally install new grass and build new clubhouses, a grandstand and a press box in the 1980s. But McKechnie was still the oldest spring training facility in Florida, so city officials agreed to give the Pirates a renovated stadium to make sure they would stay. The 1993 renovation During