The A's had not one, but two aces on their league-leading pitching staff. There was Felix McClellan (who posted a 27-9 record with the league's second best ERA at 2.67) and there was also the league's winningest pitcher in Willie Edson who posted a 29-8 mark with a 3.29 ERA. Edson, acquired from the St. Louis Cardinals during the middle of the 1935 season had long been one of the National League's best pitchers, and his 1936 campaign proved he could be just as good in the American League. So dominating were the one-two punch of McClellan and Edson that the A's "got by" with 36-year-old Eula Noe and his 17-14 record and 5.04 ERA in the third spot of the rotation with 19-year-old Orb Small (15-5, 4.04) and 28-year-old Ben Henderson (7-11, 5.52) rounding out the starting staff.

Amazingly, the offense, which led all of baseball in runs scored, did not feature a completely dominating presence in the lineup but was instead deep and talented throughout with different players sharing the load and none of the regulars having an "off year." LF Biff Jordon, at age 24, was coming into his own as an offensive star, leading the team with 116 RBIs, but getting ample run-producing support from veteran star 1B Steve Prior (.323, 16 HR, 97 RBI), 3B Bob Beam (.318-15-105) and fellow youngster 2B Willie Baldwin (.318-12-100). In fact, although the A's had three players with 100+ RBIs and six with double-digit figures in homers, no one hit more than Jordon's 18 and the best batting average on the team belonged to RF Barnaby North who hit .349 in 355 at-bats (among regulars, catcher Mickey Coughlin led the way with a .327 average). Still, the consistency throughout the lineup was remarkable and the club hit .300 collectively meaning there were no weak spots for opposing hurlers to exploit.

The player in question was Jake Waite, the slugger non-pareil who had for years dominated American League pitching while sitting in the heart of the Chicago White Sox batting order. Waite would finish the 1935 season with 34 home runs, pushing his career total to 725 (a "nice, round number," according to the man himself). Baseball's "Baron of Bash" would announce his intention to retire during the World Series, a stage on which he himself had performed just once - in 1930 when his Sox were unceremoniously swept by the St. Louis Cardinals. Waite finished his career with 3680 hits, a .335 lifetime average and as the all-time leader in slugging percentage (.607), total bases (6660), RBIs (2481) and, of course, home runs (725). Among all hitters to step onto the field either with or before him, perhaps only Heinrich Heinsohn had so thoroughly dominated the opposition's pitchers. To the amusement of some, Waite announced he was retiring not because of eroding skills (although those in the know suspected that was a large part of the reason), but rather to sign a contract with Metro Goldwyn Mayer to appear in motion pictures, starting a second career that was financially more successful than even his baseball career.

Though Waite's announcement at the end of the season dominated the headlines and stands out in retrospect, the 1935 season itself was a good one. The American League had a good race - in which Waite's White Sox played a prominent part - with the Boston Red Sox leading the race most of the way only to fade in late August with the defending World Champion Philadelphia Athletics surging to a one-game pennant win over the White Sox (Boston finished four back). The National League was won by the Pittsburgh Pirates who held off early challenges from a resurgent Chicago Cubs club as well as the defending league champion Phillies to win going away, finishing ten games ahead of second-place Boston.