What would have happened if the Washington Senators didn't move to Minnesota?

[TNT44]

I'm looking up some old baseball info for a project I am doing, and I have found out that the then-New York Giants were planning on moving to Minnepolis. So I'm wondering, what would have happened if the Giants moved to Minneapolis rather than to San Fransisco, and the Senators didn't move to Minnesota? Does anyone know of an alternate location for relocation, or would they have stayed in Washington?

[rams80]

I'm looking up some old baseball info for a project I am doing, and I have found out that the then-New York Giants were planning on moving to Minnepolis. So I'm wondering, what would have happened if the Giants moved to Minneapolis rather than to San Fransisco, and the Senators didn't move to Minnesota? Does anyone know of an alternate location for relocation, or would they have stayed in Washington?

Bay Area strikes me as a likely locale then, but IMO part of the success of the West Coast move in the late 50s came from the NL having both San Fran and LA there. I wonder how the Dodgers would have done if they were alone on that island.

[chakfu]

They probably would have moved to Texas :-)

[speedy]

They probably would have moved to Texas :-)

Touche.

[winghaz]

The only way this would have worked is if the Giants moved to Minneapolis in '57 and Walter O'Malley talked the Griffith family into moving to San Francisco. The Dodgers needed another team to move with them to the West Coast, at least back then.

It would have been interesting, though: The Minnesota Giants? Willie Mays sure would have had a lot more homers hitting in Metropolitan Stadium instead of Candlestick Park. Likewise, Harmon Killebrew wouldn't have hit as many out at Candlestick instead of the Met.

And what would have the Griffith family named the San Francisco team?

[cappital92]

The only way this would have worked is if the Giants moved to Minneapolis in '57 and Walter O'Malley talked the Griffith family into moving to San Francisco. The Dodgers needed another team to move with them to the West Coast, at least back then.

It would have been interesting, though: The Minnesota Giants? Willie Mays sure would have had a lot more homers hitting in Metropolitan Stadium instead of Candlestick Park. Likewise, Harmon Killebrew wouldn't have hit as many out at Candlestick instead of the Met.

And what would have the Griffith family named the San Francisco team?

Seals or Bays, perhaps.

[24 Hour Charleston]

The Sourdoughs! Their farm team would be the Montgomery Biscuits!

[vikmurphy]

Thank God they did move. GO TWINS GO! WS champs '87, '91 '07?

[Gothamite]

They would have moved anyway - Griffith was a notorious racist who thought Washington was too black.

I don't see them moving to San Francisco - whiter than DC was in those days, but I doubt it was white enough. Just a different shade of brown....

As winghaz said, if a team didn't move to SF, then the Dodgers couldn't have moved to LA. O'Malley helped broker the deal with San Francisco, after all - he needed another club on the West Coast, preferably a rival. If the Giants ended up elsewhere, I am convinced that the Dodgers would have folded, and accepted Robert Moses' offer of land in Queens.

There are a lot of great "what if"s in baseball. What if Bill Veeck wasn't hated by the other AL owners and been allowed to move the St. Louis Browns to Milwaukee as he planned - the Braves couldn't stay in Boston, so where would they have gone?

[griffelh]

The cities that ended up getting teams are the ones that would have gotten them anyway. If the Giants had moved to Minnesota, then the Senators likely would have moved to LA, SF or Oakland.

[Bronxmet]

Here's Another one:

What would have happened if the White Sox moved to Seattle and the A's in Chicago?

[24 Hour Charleston]

Then they'd be the Seattle White Sox and Chicago A's.

But seriously, the Royals would come in to replace the A's, and the Brewers would come in to replace the Braves in lieu of the Pilots. The Mariners expansion team would've gone to Tampa Bay, and Oakland wouldn't have gotten a team.

Haha, I speak as if I know for a fact.

[smith03]

They would have moved anyway - Griffith was a notorious racist who thought Washington was too black.

I know Cal made the statement at least twice once in the early 60s and again in late 70s about something to the effect that DC had too many blacks and that they did not buy tickets for baseball. But I don't know that it is fair to call him or refer to him as a a "notorious racist". Unless you know something more and would like to share why you feel he should be called a notorious racist.

The Twins team in the early 60s had a lot of Cuban born players.

Also I don't think the Sens would have moved to SF, because with them in the AL and the Dodgers in the NL all the other teams in both leagues would only be playing one and not the other. The Dodgers needed an NL team to move to the West Coast. Unless Bud Selig was commissioner at the time and he could have moved his beloved Braves to the AL and the Sens to the NL oh wait yeah I guess Bud would not want to be in the AL.

[BallWonk]

They would have moved anyway - Griffith was a notorious racist who thought Washington was too black.

I know Cal made the statement at least twice once in the early 60s and again in late 70s about something to the effect that DC had too many blacks and that they did not buy tickets for baseball. But I don't know that it is fair to call him or refer to him as a a "notorious racist". Unless you know something more and would like to share why you feel he should be called a notorious racist.

As for whether it's fair to call Cal a "notorious racist," that's easy to establish. Was he a racist? Yes. Is his racism notorious, in that it is well-known and widely counted against his reputation? Yes. Ergo he is a notorious racist. QED.

I can't help but think that the Giants moving to Minneapolis (whose minor-league Millers were a Giants farm club) would have increased the odds that the franchise would have changed names. Thus avoiding the insanity in which the only city in America other than Brooklyn where the name "Dodgers" makes perfect sense gets a team named the Giants while the only other city in America other than New York where the name "Giants" makes perfect sense gets a team named the Dodgers. Minneapolis or Minnesota Giants? That's just too odd a name. Unless Paul Bunyan becomes the team mascot. And, actually, Paul Bunyan stories were kind of big in Minnesota, the Dakotas, and the Pacific Northwest in the '50s ...

Anyway. Let's say the Dodgers move falls though when the Giants jump to Minneapolis and start wearing orange-and-black lumberjack plaid. Would that have given the Pacific Coast League the breathing space to establish itself as a bona fide big league? It was already on the cusp of taking that step. Ironically, a couple of PCL franchises would probably not have survived very long by that point, and would have had to relocate to the east, possibly into Texas, Phoenix, Denver, or the Plains states. Or Hawaii, which at the time had a great deal of cache thanks to looming statehood; the experiences of two generations of American soldiers for whom Honolulu was the last stop before the war and the first stop on the way home from the front; and the first stirrings of mass air travel. Sacramento and Hollywood would probably have moved soon after '57 (and Oakland had just lost its Oaks to Vancouver).

The PCL's lineup in 1956 was:

Los Angeles Angels

San Francisco Seals

San Diego Padres

Seattle Rainiers

Vancouver Mounties

Portland Beavers

Sacramento Solons (who did move to Hawaii in 1961)

Hollywood Stars (likely candidate for relocation due to team's precarious state anyway)

With three major leagues, the World Series would probably have to become a contest between the champion of the league whose representative won the previous Series and the winner of a playoff between the other two league champions. So you get a playoff system a decade early. But divisions might have been longer in coming, since the pressure for expansion in the '60s would have been significantly relieved by the addition of the PCL as a major league. But intra-market pressures would likely still have led to some movement of teams to the Midwest, and perhaps even sooner into the South than in real life.

With Milwaukee, Kansas City, and Minneapolis, and the West Coast closed to the Senators in 1961, would Cal have been able to move the team? That is, what other city would not have posed the same or greater "problem" of having to appeal to black fans? Denver, perhaps, if Sacramento or Hollywood hadn't already moved there. Otherwise, I suspect a flight to the suburbs and away from downtown Washington would have been likely. A new ballpark in Arlington, Vienna, or perhaps Fairfax or Leesburg would have situated the team more comfortably among the suburban white middle class rather than inner Washington's growing black middle class. Not that the Griffiths would have spent a dime on a new ballpark, but this was an era when Northern Virginia was beginning to assert itself socially and politically, so a new ballpark isn't unthinkable. Dulles Airport was sited in '58; it's not hard to imagine the first cookie-cutter concrete doughnut ballpark being built on unused parcels abutting Dulles in the early '60s, surrounded by a vast plain of parking lots.

[BaltimoreFan]

Anyway. Let's say the Dodgers move falls though when the Giants jump to Minneapolis and start wearing orange-and-black lumberjack plaid. Would that have given the Pacific Coast League the breathing space to establish itself as a bona fide big league?

No way the PCL becomes a major league, even without a move from an MLB team to the West Coast. MLB would have put them out of business. In the 1920s, MLB recieved an exemption from the anti-trust act. No doubt the MLB would have used it to stop the PCL from becoming a big league. A third major league, the Continetial League, was attempted announced in 1959 (just one year after the California moves). MLB put expansion teams (NY Mets, Houston Astros) into a few of the league's key areas, forcing the league to fold. In your proposed scenerio, MLB would have just put those expansion teams on the west coast to draw the any PCL fans away.

[rams80]

Anyway. Let's say the Dodgers move falls though when the Giants jump to Minneapolis and start wearing orange-and-black lumberjack plaid. Would that have given the Pacific Coast League the breathing space to establish itself as a bona fide big league?

No way the PCL becomes a major league, even without a move from an MLB team to the West Coast. MLB would have put them out of business. In the 1920s, MLB recieved an exemption from the anti-trust act. No doubt the MLB would have used it to stop the PCL from becoming a big league. A third major league, the Continetial League, was attempted announced in 1959 (just one year after the California moves). MLB put expansion teams (NY Mets, Houston Astros) into a few of the league's key areas, forcing the league to fold. In your proposed scenerio, MLB would have just put those expansion teams on the west coast to draw the any PCL fans away.

I think they could have pulled it off. They did succeed in getting the "open" classification (which is this nether region between AAA and Majors) in the 1950s.

Found this here ( http://roadsidephotos.com/baseball/02-4rules.htm ), btw

Requirements for being designated a major league-8 team minimum.

Evidence of financial soundness;

? 15,000,000 population in the eight cities;

? All cities with parks seating at least 25,000;

? Average paid attendance of 3.5 million over the three previous seasons;

? Balanced schedule of at least 154 games;

? Major league minimum salary, with no maximum;

? Agreement to become parties to the Major League Agreement and the Professional Baseball Agreement;

? Agreement to accept Uniform Players' Contract;

? Agreement to join the major league players' pension plan or create something comparable.

In regards to the CL, I was under the impression that it was intended as a way to force baseball to expand (which it did, after some deals with the CL leadership-Shea Stadium isn't Shea Stadium for nothing.)

BallWonk's scenario would be an interesting "alternate history" of Major League Baseball. Think of it-major league sports in Canada in the late 1950s, expansion being seen as less of an option for major leagues, the NL and AL geographically constrained.

[cappital92]

I suspect a flight to the suburbs and away from downtown Washington would have been likely. A new ballpark in Arlington, Vienna, or perhaps Fairfax or Leesburg would have situated the team more comfortably among the suburban white middle class rather than inner Washington's growing black middle class. Not that the Griffiths would have spent a dime on a new ballpark, but this was an era when Northern Virginia was beginning to assert itself socially and politically, so a new ballpark isn't unthinkable. Dulles Airport was sited in '58; it's not hard to imagine the first cookie-cutter concrete doughnut ballpark being built on unused parcels abutting Dulles in the early '60s, surrounded by a vast plain of parking lots.

Lord I wish....Although if George Preston Marshall, owner of the Redskins, decided not to intergrate the Redskins, they wouldn't be able to play in D.C. Stadium A.K.A RFK, so Mr.Marshall may have built G.P.M. Stadium somewhere in (Puts on announcer voice)warm, sunny, fabulous, Fairfax County,Virginia!

[jfurdell]

I know Cal made the statement at least twice once in the early 60s and again in late 70s about something to the effect that DC had too many blacks and that they did not buy tickets for baseball. But I don't know that it is fair to call him or refer to him as a a "notorious racist". Unless you know something more and would like to share why you feel he should be called a notorious racist.

People, we're on the Internet here. This stuff's not hard to find.

Sadly, perhaps Griffith's lasting legacy, besides his frugality, are the racist comments he made to a Lions Club meeting in Waseca, Minnesota in late 1978. There, he spoke off-the-cuff about why he had moved his team to Minnesota:

"I'll tell you why we came to Minnesota. It was when we found out you only had 15,000 blacks here. Black people don't go to ballgames, but they'll fill up a rassling ring and put up such a chant it'll scare you to death. We came here because you've got good, hardworking white people here."

Unfortunately for Calvin, his words were recorded by a reporter for the local newspaper, and soon they were pasted all over the Minnesota Star, which called for his resignation (despite the fact he was majority owner.) The Twins' star player Rod Carew, a free agent, declared he was leaving Griffith's "plantation" and signed with the California Angels. Griffith was demonized in the press, and perhaps fairly so. But his words were simply a byproduct of the times, the ignorant words of an old man.

I think that qualifies! Calvin, wherever your are, say hi to Marge for us.

[So_Fla]

From Wikipedia, so take it for what it is worth:

LA Dodgers

When Los Angeles officials attended the 1955 World Series looking to entice a team to move to the City of Angels, they were not even thinking of the Dodgers. Their original target was the lowly Washington Senators (who would in fact move to Minneapolis and become the Minnesota Twins in 1961).

Moreover, O'Malley was hardly the first team owner to see the possibilities of Los Angeles. The St. Louis Browns were attempting to move to LA after the 1941 season. A vote on the proposed relocation was to take place at an owners' meeting scheduled for December 8, 1941. The was canceled due to the Japanese attacks on Pearl Harbor. Kansas City Athletics owner Arnold Johnson was rumored to have parked the A's in Kansas City while waiting to move the team out to California, and the American League would expand to Los Angeles in 1961.

LA Angels

For many years, there had been talk of an existing American League team relocating to Los Angeles. In 1940, the St. Louis Browns asked AL owners for permission to move to Los Angeles, but were turned down. They planned another move for the 1942 season, and this time got permission from the league. A schedule was even drawn up including Los Angeles, but the bombing of Pearl Harbor in December 1941 made major-league sports of any sort on the West Coast unviable. In 1953, there was again talk of the Browns moving to L.A. for the 1954 season, but the team was sold and moved to Baltimore instead as the Orioles. There were on-again, off-again discussions between city officials and the Washington Senators regarding a possible move. There were also rumors that the Philadelphia Athletics' move to Kansas City in 1955 was a temporary stop on the way to Los Angeles.

Cincinnati Reds

The tipping point came in 1967 with the appointment of Bob Howsam as general manager. That same year the Reds avoided an all but certain move to San Diego when the city of Cincinnati and Hamilton County agreed to build a new, state of the art, downtown stadium on the edge of the Ohio River. The Reds entered into a 30-year lease in exchange for the stadium commitment keeping the franchise in its original home city.

In the early-1960s, Powel Crosley was courted by a group seeking to return a National League franchise to New York City to replace the Dodgers and the Giants, who had moved to Los Angeles and the San Francisco after the 1957 season, respectively. The moves left the American League Yankees as the city's sole baseball team. However, Crosley was unwilling to move.

Chicago White Sox

Selig was denied an expansion franchise at the 1968 owners meetings, and turned his efforts toward purchasing and relocating an existing club. His search began close to home, with the White Sox themselves. According to Selig, he had a handshake agreement with Arthur Allyn in early 1969 to purchase a majority stake in the Pale Hose and move them north to the Cream City. The American League, however, blocked the sale, unwilling to give up its presence in a major city. Allyn instead sold his shares to his brother John, who agreed to stay in Chicago. Selig would go on to buy the Seattle Pilots and move them to Milwaukee instead.

Several lawsuits against Major League Baseball from Seattle over the move of the Pilots to Milwaukee almost resulted in the Sox being moved to the Emerald City in 1975. An elaborate scheme for a franchise shuffle soon came to light. The Sox were to be moved to Seattle, then the Oakland Athletics were to take the Sox's place in Comiskey Park. Oakland owner Charlie Finley was from nearby LaPorte, Indiana. His A's had not drawn well during their Championship years in Oakland, and he wanted to bring them to Chicago. However, the shuffle collapsed when owner John Allyn sold the team to the physically-rehabilitated Bill Veeck. In 1977, the Seattle Mariners were created, thus restoring the major leagues' presence in the Pacific Northwest.

By 1980, the Sox were looking for new ownership. Veeck favored Ohio real estate tycoon Ed DeBartolo. Many know him as the father of NFL's San Francisco 49ers owner Ed DeBartolo Jr. The elder tried to buy several teams and move them to New Orleans. But he pleaded to buy the Sox and promised to stay in the South Side. The only person blocking the transaction was baseball commissioner Bowie Kuhn. Kuhn thought DeBartolo was not "RP" or right people. DeBartolo was rejected by the other AL owners.

With the sale to DeBartolo blocked, Veeck sold the team to an ownership group headed by Jerry Reinsdorf and Eddie Einhorn. Rather than focusing on announcers Caray and Jimmy Piersall, or the threat of the team moving to Denver, the focus would be the team on the field.

In the late 1980s, the franchise threatened to relocate to Tampa Bay (as did the San Francisco Giants), but frantic lobbying of the part of the Illinois governor and state legislature resulted in approval (by one vote) of public funding for a new stadium.

[BaltimoreFan]

I think they could have pulled it off. They did succeed in getting the "open" classification (which is this nether region between AAA and Majors) in the 1950s.

I still don't think so, MLB had the anti-trust exemption and surely would have used it. I mean if the government allows you to have a legal monopoly your going to do it. Nobody's stopping them from running other leagues out of business. MLB has never had any reason to get rid of it. Back in '98(?) for the Curt Flood Act they had a chance to get rid of it, but made sure to only lift the exemption for player labor relations. I highly doubt the league would have let any kind of competition start up.