Does the Oakland Athletics logo misuse the apostrophe?

Question

For years I have thought the Oakland Athletics baseball team has misused the apostrophe. I've always thought the "A" is an abbreviation for "Athletic" and the "s" makes "Athletic" plural. Is my thinking correct?

If not, why is "A's" an acceptable shortening of "Athletics"? (The same is true with multiple versions of the Baltimore Orioles logo.)

I would like citations for reasoning.

Thanks.

Answer 1

According to the MLA Handbook, section 2.2.7:

A principle function of the apostrophe is to indicate possession. They are also used to form ... the plurals of the letters of the alphabet (p's and q's, three A's).

So, according to MLA at least, these logos have it right.

Answer 2

Apostrophes can be used to show omission of letters.

It can also be used to form plurals of lowercase letters.

Consider if, after abbreviating "Athletic(s)" to "A", you wanted to refer to the team in a sentence: The As won the game. One could easily misread the team name as the word "as", though that makes the sentence ungrammatical. The apostrophe clears up the ambiguity and prevents such hang-ups while reading.

_{On a side note: the abbreviation is usually paired with a definite article: Will the A's move to San Jose?}