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The best relocation in MLB history was the move of the St Louis Browns to Baltimore after the 1953 season. In the postwar era, St Louis was losing population to the suburbs, and the city, once the fourth largest in the US, could no longer support two franchises. The move stablized both clubs. The Cardinals' fanbase grew to the point that the team routinely draws around three million fans. And the Orioles became a powerhouse under Earl Weaver in the 1960s and 70s. They earned several titles along the way while the Cardinals became the most successful franchise (in terms of championships) in National League history.
Sounds very similar to the situation in Philadelphia just before the A’s moved to KC. From what I’ve read, it was a negotiated move, with Philly officials working behind the scenes to facilitate it. Nobody wanted to see the A’s cease to exist, but Philly couldn’t afford two teams - even while sharing a stadium. Philly threw their support behind the younger Phillies, sought to tear down the old, crumbling stadium both teams were then playing in, and in essence told the A’s to either move or close shop. Interestingly, there was still a Philadelphia A’s museum and fan club still operating as of a few years ago. Fans remember - for a looooong time. MLB should remember that.
Good video with the historical perspective of the A's in Kansas City. I knew Charlie Finley wanted to move the team to Louisville, but didn't remember all those other places. He was the prototype for all those jerks who've owned sports franchises since. Kansas City did indeed benefit but only for as long Ewing Kaufman owned the Royals.
There are so moving parts here and just one thing being different would have resulted in a very different baseball map. If Kansas City had announced they would build the stadium that eventually the Royals would use, and still use to this day, the Athletics might still be in KC today. There would be no Royals. Because of this and the city of Kansas City demanding a team right away, it affected two of the four new franchises, and nearly affected three of them. The original plan for the 1969 expansion was to be for 1971. The announcement of the four new teams was in May 1968, less than 11 months before they were to begin play. This affected the Seattle Pilots as they simply were not ready. They stayed in Seattle for just one season before becoming the Milwaukee Brewers. The Montreal Expos also were time-pressed and they almost lost their franchise to Buffalo as they had trouble finding a place to play, eventually settling on their first home at Jarry Park. The Padres came so close to moving to Washington in 1973 that Topps had their players' baseball cards say Washington. Ray Kroc saved that franchise, yep, the owner of McDonalds. The Athletics moving to Oakland may have been good for KC who basically bullied MLB but not so much for some other cities, although in the same kind of way Seattle did get its team eventually. If the league had allowed the A's to move to Seattle, there would be no Mariners today. Any of those other proposed moves, Atlanta, Milwaukee, New Orleans, San Diego, imagine how different the baseball map would be today. Some of the same cities we have today but not known by their current nicknames. Imagine if it were New Orleans and hurricane Katrina in 2004 might have affected a team there the same way Milton has affected the Rays. I doubt history will repeat itself. The A's situation doesn't seem resolved, other than them playing in Sacramento for the next few years and Las Vegas seems iffy right now. The Rays likely not playing anywhere near Tampa in a few years. So I predict at least these two teams relocating soon, it's just unclear where for both. After this, it's hard to see expansion happening. MLB will expand of course simply because of the money but it could be a bad move, not for the league but those teams which could affect current teams.
Also remember that twice, because of the presence of the A's, the inability of the Bay Area to support two teams, and their own lousy stadium situation, the Giants were twice on the verge of moving, once to Toronto, later to Tampa. The Toronto move was especially a close call because it was all but assumed they were gone and were only saved at the very last minute by a franchise sale to local owners. When that happened the American League jumped in and "stole" Toronto from the NL, which had the NL crying to MLB Commissioner Bowie Kuhn that the AL was playing dirty but Kuhn refused to get involved in a "league matter". At the same time the AL added the Seattle team to settle a long standing lawsuit with the city of Seattle caused by the move of the Pilots to Milwaukee. The baseball map could have been even more different. The Giants should be the Toronto Giants. With the Giants gone, the A's would obviously still be in the Bay Area, but probably in the new stadium built for the Giants and would be known as the San Francisco A's, or maybe by a regional name like the NBA Warriors. Golden State A's? Oakland would still be out and unlike KC, Oakland is NEVER getting another team. It would also have meant another city would have gotten the second 1977 AL expansion team, since Toronto would have been taken. We could only guess where that team would have gone. Possibly Denver, but if it had been New Orleans, which was also in the rumor mill at the time, that team probably would have moved out years before Katrina because NO is not a Major League city. It also had a big on field effect. For many years the American League played with 14 teams while the NL played with 12. This meant the AL was drafting two more players in every round of every entry draft for almost 20 years. Working with a bigger player pool they were able to reverse the dominance the NL had enjoyed since the 1950's, getting more good players through the draft and just having 50 more players in their league every year. The leagues were already evening out by the mid 70's after the NL totally dominated from the mid 50's to the mid 60's, but the addition of two new teams and the NL's refusal to expand, speeded up and exaggerated the reversal of on-field fortunes for the two leagues. And the American League has been the dominant league ever since.
@@RRaquello Toronto got the Blue Jays because when the Giants deal fell through, it made sense for Toronto to get an expansion team because they had all the people already in place. They just thought the Giants were coming, not get an expansion team. The other team of course was the Mariners as compensation of having lost the Pilots in 1970. Would the A's still be in the Bay Area? Not so sure. Agree that maybe Denver would likely have gotten that second expansion team. For that matter, would it have been the Toronto Giants? Doesn't sound right.
Also, if Buffalo had the Expos (with a different name of course), would we have gotten the expansion into Toronto in 77? It could be argued that Montreal's failure would mean that Canada was not ready for baseball... and with a team in Buffalo, that area would already be represented. Not sure how many Canadians would cross the border for Buffalo Baseball, but savvy marketers would cross the border to get people interested...
@@RRaquello Not sure how the A's would have been regionally named unless they were the Bay Area A's (and BAA would look pretty bad as a three letter abbreviation) or as mentioned SF A's since we had the California Angels at the time. I would argue that "Golden State" is too infringing on "California" in MLB (we all know California is the Golden State) versus in the NBA where only the Lakers could lay any claim and they were always LA.
@@pierrelevasseur2701 As I remember it, the AL wasn't planning to expand THAT year but when the Giants dropped out of their Toronto deal, the AL jumped on it and grabbed Toronto. It was a big surprise and the NL was most surprised of anyone. They made a big stink about it. I may be remembering it wrong because it's a long time ago and I was just a teenager at the time. I actually was in Toronto that summer on a family vacation and we went to the Hockey Hall of Fame which, at that time, was in Exhibition Park, and we saw them doing the renovation work on Exhibition Stadium to get it ready for the Blue Jays. That was in the summer of 1976. I think the A's would be in the Bay Area because there'd have to be a team there once the Giants left. The A's would have eventually left Oakland and gotten the new stadium SF built for the Giants.
I could argue that the relocation of the Dodgers and Giants was a good relocation in spite of what it did to Brooklynites (and NL fans in New York more broadly) because the Giants really had no choice but to move, and a second team probably had to go west with them. As beloved as the Dodgers were in Brooklyn, having them move with the Giants worked out well because it preserved their historic rivalry from their time together in New York, only on the West Coast. (I know Horace Stoneham initially planned to move the Giants to Minneapolis, but it was Walter O'Malley that convinced him to look into San Francisco as he was weighing his options for the Dodgers in both Brooklyn and LA. And in any case, O'Malley only moved the Dodgers because Robert Moses wouldn't give him the deal he wanted in Brooklyn and Robert F. Wagner Jr., the mayor of NYC at the time, couldn't promise him anything more than the ballpark Moses wanted to build in Queens).
Also the Dodgers and Giants relocation to California forced MLB to expand, which resulted in the formation of the Mets and several other teams, and the Mets won the World Series only 11 years after the Dodgers and Giants departures.
Agreed. O'Malley saw the $$$'s the Braves were earning in Milwaukee, and was open & willing to finding a more renumeration stadium in the NYC area. Robert Moses didn't approve of a few possible locations and LA beckoned.
Actually the Giants moving along with the Dodgers was idiotic--for the Giants. With the Dodgers leaving the Giants could have had all of NY for themselves, as far as the National League goes. Giants owner Horace Stoneham was no business man. Bill Veeck made a comment that he had to be the stupidest man in baseball not to be able to make money in the biggest market in the country with the most exciting player in the sport (Willie Mays) and Veeck wasn't far wrong. Stoneham was led around by the nose by O'Malley and while O'Malley got the gold mine with his brand new stadium in LA on a sweetheart deal, Stoneham got stuck with the worst ballpark in Major League history at Candlestick Park and never made money with the team in SF, even with the very good teams he had in the 60s, while the Mets, with a historically bad last place team at Shea Stadium in NY, were outdrawing the Giants.
@@RRaquello Giants' attendance in their last two years in New York was atrocious, averaging less than 650,000 per season. Polo Grounds was a very substandard facility and needed to be replaced, and was in Harlem which is a neighborhood most people in New York did not want to go, particularly at night.
@@HighpointerGeocacher Yet the Mets, with a team losing 110+ games their two years in the Polo Grounds, drew close to and then over a million fans. The Giants didn't promote at all. They just expected people to show up at the ball park. Bill Veeck talked about this in his books and how he managed, when he bought the White Sox, to draw fans to Comiskey Park which was older than the Polo Grounds and in a neighborhood just as bad. The Giants made no effort. Stoneham knew baseball but he was a terrible businessman. My father, who was an old NY Giants fan from childhood, used to say that all Stoneham did was sit in his office in the Polo Grounds and get drunk. I don't know if this was true but it's what the fans thought and that didn't help sell tickets. The Flushing Meadows Stadium which became Shea Stadium, was already on the drawing board and waiting to be built and the city was waiting for a firm commitment from one of the NL teams. They wanted it to be the Dodgers because at that time it was assumed the Giants were moving (to Minneapolis). If Stoneham had half a brain he would have let the Dodgers move and had NY all to himself with the new stadium. Instead he was suckered into being O'Malley's dupe and moved to San Francisco. One question is whether Dodger fans would have become Giants fans if the Giants were the only NL team in NY. In that way maybe it was better starting with a new team in the Mets that both Giant and Dodger fans could switch to.
Throughout his entire ownership of the A's, Finley was a stone in everyone's shoe. As a avid pre-teen baseball fan in the late 1970's, I distinctly remember that Finley tried to relocate out of Oakland as well. I don't remember the chronology, but at one point or another I remember watching sports reports on how the A's were allegedly moving again: to New Orleans, to Louisville, to Memphis. Sometime around 1980'ish, Finley was going through a divorce and his soon to be ex-wife played harder ball than the A's of that era. His last maneuver was to try and sell the team to megamogul Marvin Davis, who was going to relocate the A's to Denver. At that point, the American League finally stepped in, blocking that sale and forcing Finley to sell to ownership that would keep the team where they were.
It was like in 1974. The San Diego Padres were about to move to Washington D.C. But Ray Kroc saved the team from moving to Washington. I guess they were about to be named the Washington Stars?
Wasn't Washington going to be the original choice for the franchise that was given to San Diego. Seems like I remember some Topps Baseball Cards being printed showing a Washington National League team.
Walter O'Malley insisted on Sn Diego, and he was the most powerful owner in the NL. The only reason he couldn't stop the Angels was that when he threatened to do so, the Yankees said, then we'll stop the NL from coming back to New York.
Charlie Finley was the prototype for the jackass who screwed St. Louis, Stan Kroenke. For those unfamiliar with the area, Peculiar, MO is a small town in Cass County, due south of KCMO.
@@michaelleroy9281 I feel bad for St. Louis, but it was such a bizarre move in the first place. I wonder if we'd ever see something similar again. A main franchise in a top 3 media market moving to a market that wasn't even in the top 10.
Random fact: the A’s never had a winning season in Kansas City. The Philadelphia Athletics had a winning season in 1952, and would not have another until 1968, their first season in Oakland. Symington also said “Oakland is the luckiest city since Hiroshima” on the floor of the US Senate in a speech deriding Finley and the move.
It should be remembered that Symington wasn't just a senator. He was one of the most powerful politicians in the country, at the head of the Democratic party, and closely tied in with the Kennedys and ex-President Harry Truman, who was still alive at the time and still a person of great influence.
@RRaquello Truth. He was a strong contender for the Democratic nomination in 1960, and just the IDEA that he would introduce legislation to void MLB’s antitrust exemption brought them to heel.
I forget the year, but it was during the 80's that Charlie Finley agreed to sell the A's to Denver oilman Marvin Davis who would bring the A's to Denver. The deal fell through, though, when Barbara Davis, Marvin's wife, said that the first thing to go would be those "God awful green and yellow uniforms" worn by the A's. Charlie's Irish heritage wouldn't allow that, so the A's sale and move to Denver never happened.
It was in 1979-80. At the same time, Oakland was about to lose the Raiders (for the first time) to LA, and the city leaders didn't want to lose both their teams at once. So they convinced Finley to sell to local buyers instead (he eventually sold them to Walter Haas' group), and the team stayed in Oakland.. with Billy Martin as their new manager.
@@johnpat3622 It goes to show what a dump the Oakland Coliseum was from the beginning. Davis (and Finley) were trying to get out of the stadium when it was less than 15 years old. Finley wouldn't even live in Oakland while he had the team there, running it from Chicago.
He best and most successful franchise moves in baseball history are (1) Dodgers moving to Los Angeles from Brooklyn ( 2 ) the Giants moving to San Francisco from New York (3) the Braves moving to Milwaukee then Atlanta from Boston ..
Are you sure about that? I doubt Wisconsin thought that last Braves move was good for Milwaukee… not only did they hustle to get the Pilots but later Bud fought to get the Brewers in the NL because they were still hurting over the loss of the Braves decades later…
@@MichaelRegan Yeah and Selig sure has had a lot of success with the Brewers. One pennant, no WS wins in 50+ years. And he wanted to be in the same National League that screwed Milwaukee over in the first place. The guy's a shithead.
The move was great for Kansas City because that meant that they no longer had to deal with Finley, but because Missouri Senator Stuart Symington threatened to go after MLB's anti-trust exemption the American League was forced to expand two years earlier than planned, which led to the one year disaster that was the Seattle Pilots.
Good conclusion. Finley was looking to leave Oakland too a few years in. The Bay Area wasn’t ready to support two teams when the A’s went to Oakland though, as one of the A’s or the Giants had a foot out the door for the next 30 years. I agree that it worked well for Kansas City, but forced unstable ownership sitatuins in Seattle and then San Diego, and bad stadium situations on Seattle and Montreal.
In 1968 on the home opener at the Coliseum (Wednesday, Apr 17), the A's hosted the Baltimore Orioles with an attendance of 50,164. The following night, attendance was 5,014. They ended the season with a home attendance of 837,466 (second worst in the AL that season), despite having a winning record. This was marginally better than their last season in KC (726,639), despite all the turmoil there. Their first two years in KC (1955-1956), they drew over 1 million each season, despite being a horrible team (63 wins and 52 wins, respectively). They did not draw over 1 million fans in Oakland until the 1973 season, despite a consistent winning record, a pennant in 1971, and a World Series win in 1972. Finley knew he had made a mistake, and continued shopping the team to other cities, as a previous commenter mentioned. Charlie Finley was a cancer to baseball.
@@gordongross6311 True, but not by much. From 1968 to 1999 (Pac Bell park opened in 2000), the Athletics drew 42.7 million, vs. the Giants 41.8 million over that time span.
Finley never put money into marketing. There were small ads in the Chronicle and Tribune for some of the promotions and half price Mondays which actually drew big crowds. The Haas ownership has plenty of TV commercials, billboards and newspaper ads. First class owner, downhill since.
Don’t forget they had a losing record every year they were in KC. Under Arnold Johnson every talented player was traded to NYY, most notably Roger Maris when NYY had used up their “bonus baby” roster space. Finley was even worse, arguably the first instance of tanking ahead of the first MLB draft in 65. The Swingin’ A’s were a direct result.
Finley was apparently quite the character. Though I was not born yet / too young to follow Finley's antics, he and, later on, Steinbrenner, appeared to be two colorful MLB owners who kept themselves and their team in the news with their stunts / behavior regardless of how well their teams were playing. Smart as it likely captured the attention and interest of sports fans in those cities whether they followed baseball or not.
The Twins franchise started in KC as the Blues, before moving to DC to become the Senators. Therefore, the Royals would technically be the 3rd team to play in KC.
Wrong I just Googled it, the Twins have never played in Kansas City, the team began as a charter member of the American League in 1901, as of course the Washington Senators
The Blues left KC in 1954 when the As arrived, moving west to Denver to become the Bears. The Bears left Denver when the Rockies arrive in 1993 and moved to New Orleans as the Zephyrs…
Google Minnesota Twins and Kansas City blues. The Blues were a member in 1900, but then moved in 1901 to become the Senators. A new Blues team later came into existence, although it sometimes went by cowboys instead.
Brodie, your commentary on this subject is accurate, but some facts were left out. As someone who lived in Kansas City at that time and attended several A's games as a young boy, I can tell you about some of the talk that I heard at that time. Mayor H. Roe Bartle lured the Dallas Texans of the American Football League to Kansas City and offered them free rent at KC's Municipal Stadium for 5-seasons beginning in 1963, in order to get Lamar Hunt (Chiefs owner and AFL founder) to move his team from Dallas to KC. The Chiefs began play at Municipal Stadium in the 1963 season. Mr Finley spoke to Bartle and the Kansas City City council and asked for the same lease as the Chiefs but was denied. That factor was at the root of his displeasure for the city. In following seasons, Finley attempted to market the A's in a number of creative ways but his efforts were seen by many as whacky, strange, out of character with the norm for promoting baseball. So that became an issue with some Kansas City sports fans. Then, when he spoke out against the city publicly in a number of ways, many in the citizenry simply took the attitude of: 'sell the team or if you don't like it, leave!' I felt Mr Finley was creative and made games fun to attend. He had a mule named Charlie-O up in a pen behind the seats down the 3rd base line. We as kids used to go over and pet Charlie-O, The mule was ridden onto the field at times as well. Mr Finley was a promoter. He was also a brilliant executive in some ways, stating that baseball would save millions of dollars if EVERY contract was of 1-year in duration. That way players who played well could earn raises and players who played poorly would get the same contract or no contract at all. The A's moved to Oakland in 1968, then won 3-straight World Series titles from 1970 to 72. We had to wait on the Royals until 1985 for their 1st championship. Mr Finley didn't get a completely fair shake in Kansas City, but his approach rubbed some on the City Council the wrong way.
Appreciate the greater context! Crazy how this story seemed to haunt the A’s every relocation they’ve had. I doubt we’re going to get another MLB franchise in Oakland for a very long time if ever. This all sucks, but glad things worked out for your city, baseball and football.
If every contract was 1 year in duration it certainly would make the owners super rich and then players would have a lot more injuries/ruined careers as they would either try too hard or play injured. In other words, TOTAL INSANITY.
You’re giving Finley too much credit, he was a carnival barker not a businessman. The Swingin’ A’s were a direct result of their top draft picks in 65-67 which Finley lucked into by fielding the worst team in baseball while in KC
In 1975, Charles Finley wanted to move his at-that-time Athletics to Chicago, to become the NEW Chicago White Sox, contingent upon the at-that-time CURRENT White Sox heading to Seattle. That was also the same year the SF Giants were contemplating a move to the Toronto. Imagine MLB with NO team in the SF Bay Area.
The original plan was that previous KC A's owner, famous Yankee toady Arnold Johnson, was to be pretty much caretaker of the team and Kansas CIty was always supposed to be a temporary stop. Yankee owner Del Webb had plans to sell the Yankees and take over the Athletics and move them to Seattle and at the same time work a deal with Seattle to get the contract to build a new municipally owned stadium in Seattle (or Seattle don't get the team). He was a building contractor whose company is still a big name in the business. This plan was kiboshed when Johnson died unexpectedly around 1960 before Webb was ready to sell the Yankees, so Finley moved in. He was a crackpot but not a Yankee toady and even 15 years later was tweaking the Yankees by not allowing them to hire Dick Williams as manager when Williams quit the A's. Webb pretty much ran the American League and, along with Walter O'Malley, Major League Baseball, AL President Joe Cronin & Commissioner Ford Frick being mere stooges. Webb did get a consolation prize when he picked Gene Autry to be owner of the AL's new Los Angeles franchise with the quid pro quo that Webb would get the contract to build the Autry's new stadium in Anaheim and Autry would sign a lucrative (for Webb's buddy O'Malley) lease to play in Dodger Stadium while his stadium was being built, turning all but ticket revenues over (meaning souvenirs, parking, concessions, etc.) to friend O'Malley to pay the mortgage on O'Malley's new baseball palace. Autry got hosed on the deal, but he knew going in that he would. He wanted the Angels for his radio & TV stations in Southern California and was willing to pay the graft.
Dallas I knew about, Louisville is news to me....if Seattle had won out, we wouldn't have been treated to the Seattle Pilots......and Symington from Missouri was JFK's 1st choice for VP in his 1960 bid
The A's relocation to Oakland is a *great* thing, speaking as a Mariners fan! They, the Toronto Blue Jays, the Milwaukee Brewers, and the Kansas City Royals wouldn't exist but for this move.
Absolutely need to envoke some anti trust lawsuit again after this debacle, especially with how clearly the A's never negotiated in good faith with the city of Oakland.
MLB WS forced to give Seattle another team after the Pilots left after 1 year and Seattle sued MLB. So for Milwaukee, the Pilots relocation was a good thing.
The key words in Finley's original statement were "intentions" and "intention". He's not promising to stay. Like every smart pro sports team owner before and after him who wants something from one or more levels of government, he used those words to convey (at best) that he'd like to stay in KC and work with the city on a solution, but things could change at some point if they can't come to an agreement.
The Raiders moved out of Oakland TWICE. The Warriors were in SF then at the Oracle Arena. Now back at SF. The Athletics came to Oakland in 1968. Tried to move out in the middle of their dynasty years. This was a preexisting condition for Oakland. Fans love teams, teams not loyal to fans. City officials tried to keep them but failed.
@@MrBlazemaster525 The bonds Jackson County voted for to build the present duo stadiums in Kansas City... Even Lamar Hunt was threatening to leave Kansa City at that time as well... Even today if Clark Hunt doesn't get a new stadium San Antonio beckons with the Alamodome... Clark Hunt is a Texan and knows how large South Central Texas has grown, the combined metros of San Antonio and Austin is nearly as large as the DFW and Houston metros... Some will say the Alamodome isn't great enough for the NFL, well San Antonio will either upgrade the Alamodome or build a new stadium if necessary to LAND a NFL team...
Calvin Griffith promised never to move the Senators, saying they'd move "over my dead body." Then sportswriter Shirley Povich quipped when they moved to Minnesota, "Calvin Griffith died today."
Bob Short was worse. I grew up a Senators fan. Then we moved to Baltimore and I got Irsay(ed). I was a Baltimore Colts season ticket holder. Then, I moved to the Bay Area 39 years ago and became a diehard A's fan. 1971, 1984, 2024.
The bad thing though initially for KC is that the A's left town and 4 years later, the A's win 3 World Series Championships in a row. That could have been KC and how joyous and spectacular it would have been with all of those losing years in KC with the A's.
At the time it was probably good for Kansas but these days I wouldn’t be so sure as the Royals can’t get a ballpark deal going!!! Also is this the first time I’ve heard you swear!!!
And in 1970, Milwaukee got the Brewers. The team they got was the previous Seattle PILOTS (not the Mariners). The team only played one season because they were ill-prepared (stadium-wise and financially-wise) when they entered MLB one year earlier. The powers that be in Seattle were hoping to start in 1971, but the 1969 entry of the Royals forced Seattle' to play their hand earlier.
I think the Dodgers and Giants were a good move to the west coast and New York got the Mets. Seattle Pilots were forced to move to Milwaukee because of their crappy stadium after 1 year of existence. Both versions of the Washington Senators moved to Minneapolis and Dallas respectively. St. Louis Browns became the Baltimore Orioles. People from Oakland need to stop complaining about the A's leaving since for almost all their existence they never supported the A's there.
Brody, didn't Oakland vote in a new Mayor this past election and if so is that new Mayor wanting to try and get a new stadium deal for the A's. As a kid growing up in Rancho Cordova and being a Giants fan, the A's were always my 2nd team I rooted for. I remember watching those world series wins with Dave Stewart, Carney Lansford and Dennis Eckersley. The A's dont need to be in Vegas, if not Oakland then maybe Sacramento permanently.
I don’t think that CA has the power in congress to really threaten anything right now, but I also think there is a sense that one team is enough for the Bay Area. I’m of the opinion that the Bay Area really ought to be much more populated, if they had enough housing to lower rents to reasonable levels that would be millions more fans, like you see in Los Angeles or New York. So perhaps what killled baseball in Oakland is as much NIMBYism as anything else.
The point of the vid was it was good for both the team leaving and the market being left Considering it took what almost 40 years for Minneapolis to get the Timberwolves and they've been mid-to-ass for almost 30....?
honestly when it comes to expanding anything I believe its at a saturation point for pretty much all major leagues. Would they honestly be financially viable? You might say yes but reality likely says no. There is only so much disposable cash for people to spend and that has shrunk majorly over the last 4 years. And with a major debt crisis inbound its only going to get worse no matter what the next US admin attempts to try and fix, the damage is already done, and honestly the only fix is to let the entire thing crash and burn and then rebuild fresh.
I almost certain Seattle and Vegas will both be successful NBA franchises, along with two new NHL teams if they are granted to Houston and Atlanta (I think third time will be the charm).
Some relocations obviously are necessary. For example, do you think it would be appropriate for St. Louis to maintain two major league teams, as it had prior to 1954?
I'm from Kansas City and as you can see it's very important to have a champion to go to bat for you(haha) in situations like this. In our case it was a powerful senator Stuart Symington. Now, Kansas City is about to bulldoze Kauffman stadium but we've had a much better run(six decades!) than we did with that obnoxious clown Charlie O. Finley.
I can’t help but have a sense of schadenfreude about the situation. Also, didn’t the Royals have better attendance numbers than the A’s for many years?
@@curtiseverett6044 Finley did have his A's winning 3 straight world series but his old ways of being cheap and petty caught up with him and the A's attendance dropped into the gutter. By 75 the Royals had put together a great team and the attendance was over 2 million each year for many years. There's an infamous Royals at A's game(77) where the Royals radio announcers couldn't tell whether the A's had a couple of fans in the nosebleeds of the Coliseum and it turned out they didn't, they were just 2 chairs with faded paint.
The MLB has become more frugal in awarding franchises nowadays. The musical chairs of the A's and Rays (maybe Arizona) needs to stop before anything changes. They are risking the possibility of net or negative fan growth in some cases.
Not only in MLB, but all of professional sports. How many times have owners threatened to move if they didn’t get a new facility, or remodel the old one, or just enrich them somehow? Perhaps, they should pay some sort of gift tax on these “presents.” There is a growing change of attitude among taxpayers. Let the owners pay for their playpens.
@@michaelleroy9281 Why are so many people obsessed to putting an MLB team in Montreal, a French-speaking city in a foreign country where the per capita income is lower than any state in the USA, and there are USA metropolitan areas like Charlotte, Raleigh, Nashville, Austin, San Antonio, and Salt Lake City that are more prosperous and growing at far faster rates of growth than Montreal? Consider that the combined population of North and South Carolina is over 16 million which is greater than the population of California in 1958. Texas has over 30 million people so it can definitely support a third major league team. A good relocation to consider, which wouldn't be a far move, would be the White Sox to Indianapolis. They can get out of the shadow of the Cubs and have the whole state of Indiana to dominate. I don't understand why that relocation isn't being considered, especially given the fact that the politics in Indiana are more favorable than Illinois and Indiana is growing in population, unlike Illinois which is declining in population.
@@HighpointerGeocacher Because Montreal loved its team and almost all cities do even better the second time. What happened to them was not fair -- and I'm glad the team came to DC -- and it should be rectified before it's been 33 years like DC.
The thing about baseball and why they don’t award franchises as much has to do a lot with the state that Selig put baseball in along with how Florida/Miami, Tampa Bay and Arizona to an extent have never put up the attendance numbers to make the 90’s expansion teams look successful, the Marlins have a legitimate excuse and show potential while the Rays, and Diamondbacks post 2003 ish haven’t hit the highs that they did in the late 90’s. Selig also oversaw the sport fall from its position and he was the worse possible individual to take over as commissioner, his early moves etc proved that, you had Fay Vincent who at least had a vision and on the other hand you had Selig with a vendetta against the Players Association. Also the late 90’s expansion didn’t work out because MLB’s hand was forced into awarding Tampa Bay a team, if it wasn’t for litigation that team may have went to Buffalo or they would’ve pushed Charlotte, Buffalo has a die hard sports market which would’ve also fit well with rivals in Toronto, Boston and NYC hell maybe even Cleveland. That and Tampa Bay not drawing over 2 million after 1998 really put a cramp in the outlook by MLB on expansion.
MLB is not going to expand until the A's the Rays situations get sorted out along with a long-term solution / agreement re. the White Sox (either a new stadium or new owner who commits to stay at Guaranteed Rate Field). IMO, relocation is more likely near-term, with SLC being the first destination for any team that wants to relocate anytime MLB makes it official (Smith's Ballpark while an MLB one is built) provided the owner will sell the team to the Miller group.
@@michaelleroy9281 To date, Reinsdorf has apparently only stated that, after he dies, he wants his family to keep the Bulls and sell the White Sox. He's 88 years old. The lease on Guaranteed Rate Field expires in 2029.
NHL has a few that turned out better. Atlanta to Calgary Atlanta to Winnipeg (2nd time) Quebec to Denver Phoenix to Salt Lake NBA, NFL and MLB had a few also but that is going way back and not always for the better.
I thought the point of this video was that the relocation worked out for both the team and the city it left behind…? Are you saying that Atlanta & Phoenix are better off with no teams and no hopes of one? I think you missed Brodie’s point here
I do hope legislation is introduced to remove the antitrust exemption, but in the interest of all fans of baseball, I hope MLB doesn’t respond at all, and loses their exemption. If the best-case scenario occurs, the MLB would be forced to either split up in some way, or lose a lot of money, and force the league to start caring about the fans.
The trouble now is that KC doesn't know where their new stadium is going to be placed and the 3/8% tax to go toward the Royals and Chiefs was rejected as well. It wouldn't surprise me to hear of a relocation plan for KC in a year or two when someone like Salt Lake comes along and says "we have all of this money and we'll give you a stadium deal, so please come to us." So they may not be all that much better than Oakland was in the end. Time will tell on that one.
Objectively speaking the structures are at a point where renovation costs are too much vis-a-vis earning potential Still doesn't justify shaking down local government for stadia truly@@curtiseverett6044
@@curtiseverett6044 Specific to Kauffman: it's over 50 years old, in a bad location, and incapable of bringing in more income for the area or the team. They need to be Downtown.
@@curtiseverett6044 I'm from KC I think over time the area around the current Chiefs/Royals stadiums has decayed drastically over the last 25 years. At the same time, the Kansas side is newer, more modern, and probably a lot more money. In other words it's the nicest part of the KC area.
The A's have a history of cheapskate owners going back to Philadelphia. The A's are a franchise that could of have almost as many world series titles as the Yankees, if they kept their players for many more years. The Seattle Pilots have Topps baseball cards in 69 & 70 before relocating to Milwaukee to become the Brewers in 1970. The 2nd edition of the Senators have baseball cards upto 1970 when they relocated to become the Texas Rangers.
To be fair, the A's were consistently bad, and playing second fiddle to the Phillies there. The last two seasons in Philly, they had a total attendance under 400,000 per season, a little less than half of what the Phillies were able to draw.
@GizzardGary Fair. But the A's got turned into a Yankee farm team for several years. What's crazy to me is that the A's were, literally until a year or two before they moved, the more popular team. Can't say that about the Braves in Boston or Browns in STL
@@kjorlaug1the A's didn't get turned into a Yankee 4A team until the KC move The problem with their tail end times in Philly was Connie Sr was a senile coot and his son & bastard son butted heads
@@kjorlaug1 More or less true. Looking at the numbers, thru the 1930's and 1940's, the Athletics had far better attendance figures; however, from 1950 on, the Phillies were consistently outdrawing them. Not being from the Philadelphia area, I'm not sure if that was due to a demographics or population shift at the time. And you are totally right about the A's being turned into a Yankee farm team. That was more or less a joke at the time, watch the KC Athletics to see the Yankees of the future. Once Finley started shopping the A's to other markets, he pretty much alienated the KC fanbase, and the attendance suffered. The Royals under David Glass were largely the same for several years, they would get a good player, and after his contract was up, he was shopped to another market.
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The best relocation in MLB history was the move of the St Louis Browns to Baltimore after the 1953 season. In the postwar era, St Louis was losing population to the suburbs, and the city, once the fourth largest in the US, could no longer support two franchises. The move stablized both clubs. The Cardinals' fanbase grew to the point that the team routinely draws around three million fans. And the Orioles became a powerhouse under Earl Weaver in the 1960s and 70s. They earned several titles along the way while the Cardinals became the most successful franchise (in terms of championships) in National League history.
Sounds very similar to the situation in Philadelphia just before the A’s moved to KC. From what I’ve read, it was a negotiated move, with Philly officials working behind the scenes to facilitate it. Nobody wanted to see the A’s cease to exist, but Philly couldn’t afford two teams - even while sharing a stadium. Philly threw their support behind the younger Phillies, sought to tear down the old, crumbling stadium both teams were then playing in, and in essence told the A’s to either move or close shop.
Interestingly, there was still a Philadelphia A’s museum and fan club still operating as of a few years ago. Fans remember - for a looooong time. MLB should remember that.
Always enjoy a baseball history episode. Thank you.
You're right Brodie.. the Pilots lasted one season in Seattle before Bud Selig bought them and moved them to Milwaukee.
In retrospect, I wish Seattle had resurrected the Pilots name in 1977.
@@PGar58Nah, one season of failure, start a new franchise with a new identity
Good video with the historical perspective of the A's in Kansas City. I knew Charlie Finley wanted to move the team to Louisville, but didn't remember all those other places. He was the prototype for all those jerks who've owned sports franchises since. Kansas City did indeed benefit but only for as long Ewing Kaufman owned the Royals.
There are so moving parts here and just one thing being different would have resulted in a very different baseball map.
If Kansas City had announced they would build the stadium that eventually the Royals would use, and still use to this day, the Athletics might still be in KC today. There would be no Royals.
Because of this and the city of Kansas City demanding a team right away, it affected two of the four new franchises, and nearly affected three of them. The original plan for the 1969 expansion was to be for 1971. The announcement of the four new teams was in May 1968, less than 11 months before they were to begin play. This affected the Seattle Pilots as they simply were not ready. They stayed in Seattle for just one season before becoming the Milwaukee Brewers. The Montreal Expos also were time-pressed and they almost lost their franchise to Buffalo as they had trouble finding a place to play, eventually settling on their first home at Jarry Park. The Padres came so close to moving to Washington in 1973 that Topps had their players' baseball cards say Washington. Ray Kroc saved that franchise, yep, the owner of McDonalds. The Athletics moving to Oakland may have been good for KC who basically bullied MLB but not so much for some other cities, although in the same kind of way Seattle did get its team eventually.
If the league had allowed the A's to move to Seattle, there would be no Mariners today. Any of those other proposed moves, Atlanta, Milwaukee, New Orleans, San Diego, imagine how different the baseball map would be today. Some of the same cities we have today but not known by their current nicknames. Imagine if it were New Orleans and hurricane Katrina in 2004 might have affected a team there the same way Milton has affected the Rays.
I doubt history will repeat itself. The A's situation doesn't seem resolved, other than them playing in Sacramento for the next few years and Las Vegas seems iffy right now. The Rays likely not playing anywhere near Tampa in a few years. So I predict at least these two teams relocating soon, it's just unclear where for both. After this, it's hard to see expansion happening. MLB will expand of course simply because of the money but it could be a bad move, not for the league but those teams which could affect current teams.
Also remember that twice, because of the presence of the A's, the inability of the Bay Area to support two teams, and their own lousy stadium situation, the Giants were twice on the verge of moving, once to Toronto, later to Tampa. The Toronto move was especially a close call because it was all but assumed they were gone and were only saved at the very last minute by a franchise sale to local owners. When that happened the American League jumped in and "stole" Toronto from the NL, which had the NL crying to MLB Commissioner Bowie Kuhn that the AL was playing dirty but Kuhn refused to get involved in a "league matter". At the same time the AL added the Seattle team to settle a long standing lawsuit with the city of Seattle caused by the move of the Pilots to Milwaukee.
The baseball map could have been even more different. The Giants should be the Toronto Giants. With the Giants gone, the A's would obviously still be in the Bay Area, but probably in the new stadium built for the Giants and would be known as the San Francisco A's, or maybe by a regional name like the NBA Warriors. Golden State A's? Oakland would still be out and unlike KC, Oakland is NEVER getting another team. It would also have meant another city would have gotten the second 1977 AL expansion team, since Toronto would have been taken. We could only guess where that team would have gone. Possibly Denver, but if it had been New Orleans, which was also in the rumor mill at the time, that team probably would have moved out years before Katrina because NO is not a Major League city.
It also had a big on field effect. For many years the American League played with 14 teams while the NL played with 12. This meant the AL was drafting two more players in every round of every entry draft for almost 20 years. Working with a bigger player pool they were able to reverse the dominance the NL had enjoyed since the 1950's, getting more good players through the draft and just having 50 more players in their league every year. The leagues were already evening out by the mid 70's after the NL totally dominated from the mid 50's to the mid 60's, but the addition of two new teams and the NL's refusal to expand, speeded up and exaggerated the reversal of on-field fortunes for the two leagues. And the American League has been the dominant league ever since.
@@RRaquello Toronto got the Blue Jays because when the Giants deal fell through, it made sense for Toronto to get an expansion team because they had all the people already in place. They just thought the Giants were coming, not get an expansion team. The other team of course was the Mariners as compensation of having lost the Pilots in 1970.
Would the A's still be in the Bay Area? Not so sure. Agree that maybe Denver would likely have gotten that second expansion team. For that matter, would it have been the Toronto Giants? Doesn't sound right.
Also, if Buffalo had the Expos (with a different name of course), would we have gotten the expansion into Toronto in 77? It could be argued that Montreal's failure would mean that Canada was not ready for baseball... and with a team in Buffalo, that area would already be represented. Not sure how many Canadians would cross the border for Buffalo Baseball, but savvy marketers would cross the border to get people interested...
@@RRaquello Not sure how the A's would have been regionally named unless they were the Bay Area A's (and BAA would look pretty bad as a three letter abbreviation) or as mentioned SF A's since we had the California Angels at the time. I would argue that "Golden State" is too infringing on "California" in MLB (we all know California is the Golden State) versus in the NBA where only the Lakers could lay any claim and they were always LA.
@@pierrelevasseur2701 As I remember it, the AL wasn't planning to expand THAT year but when the Giants dropped out of their Toronto deal, the AL jumped on it and grabbed Toronto. It was a big surprise and the NL was most surprised of anyone. They made a big stink about it. I may be remembering it wrong because it's a long time ago and I was just a teenager at the time. I actually was in Toronto that summer on a family vacation and we went to the Hockey Hall of Fame which, at that time, was in Exhibition Park, and we saw them doing the renovation work on Exhibition Stadium to get it ready for the Blue Jays. That was in the summer of 1976.
I think the A's would be in the Bay Area because there'd have to be a team there once the Giants left. The A's would have eventually left Oakland and gotten the new stadium SF built for the Giants.
I could argue that the relocation of the Dodgers and Giants was a good relocation in spite of what it did to Brooklynites (and NL fans in New York more broadly) because the Giants really had no choice but to move, and a second team probably had to go west with them. As beloved as the Dodgers were in Brooklyn, having them move with the Giants worked out well because it preserved their historic rivalry from their time together in New York, only on the West Coast. (I know Horace Stoneham initially planned to move the Giants to Minneapolis, but it was Walter O'Malley that convinced him to look into San Francisco as he was weighing his options for the Dodgers in both Brooklyn and LA. And in any case, O'Malley only moved the Dodgers because Robert Moses wouldn't give him the deal he wanted in Brooklyn and Robert F. Wagner Jr., the mayor of NYC at the time, couldn't promise him anything more than the ballpark Moses wanted to build in Queens).
Also the Dodgers and Giants relocation to California forced MLB to expand, which resulted in the formation of the Mets and several other teams, and the Mets won the World Series only 11 years after the Dodgers and Giants departures.
Agreed. O'Malley saw the $$$'s the Braves were earning in Milwaukee, and was open & willing to finding a more renumeration stadium in the NYC area. Robert Moses didn't approve of a few possible locations and LA beckoned.
Actually the Giants moving along with the Dodgers was idiotic--for the Giants. With the Dodgers leaving the Giants could have had all of NY for themselves, as far as the National League goes. Giants owner Horace Stoneham was no business man. Bill Veeck made a comment that he had to be the stupidest man in baseball not to be able to make money in the biggest market in the country with the most exciting player in the sport (Willie Mays) and Veeck wasn't far wrong. Stoneham was led around by the nose by O'Malley and while O'Malley got the gold mine with his brand new stadium in LA on a sweetheart deal, Stoneham got stuck with the worst ballpark in Major League history at Candlestick Park and never made money with the team in SF, even with the very good teams he had in the 60s, while the Mets, with a historically bad last place team at Shea Stadium in NY, were outdrawing the Giants.
@@RRaquello Giants' attendance in their last two years in New York was atrocious, averaging less than 650,000 per season. Polo Grounds was a very substandard facility and needed to be replaced, and was in Harlem which is a neighborhood most people in New York did not want to go, particularly at night.
@@HighpointerGeocacher Yet the Mets, with a team losing 110+ games their two years in the Polo Grounds, drew close to and then over a million fans.
The Giants didn't promote at all. They just expected people to show up at the ball park. Bill Veeck talked about this in his books and how he managed, when he bought the White Sox, to draw fans to Comiskey Park which was older than the Polo Grounds and in a neighborhood just as bad. The Giants made no effort.
Stoneham knew baseball but he was a terrible businessman. My father, who was an old NY Giants fan from childhood, used to say that all Stoneham did was sit in his office in the Polo Grounds and get drunk. I don't know if this was true but it's what the fans thought and that didn't help sell tickets. The Flushing Meadows Stadium which became Shea Stadium, was already on the drawing board and waiting to be built and the city was waiting for a firm commitment from one of the NL teams. They wanted it to be the Dodgers because at that time it was assumed the Giants were moving (to Minneapolis). If Stoneham had half a brain he would have let the Dodgers move and had NY all to himself with the new stadium. Instead he was suckered into being O'Malley's dupe and moved to San Francisco.
One question is whether Dodger fans would have become Giants fans if the Giants were the only NL team in NY. In that way maybe it was better starting with a new team in the Mets that both Giant and Dodger fans could switch to.
Just remember: Want a major league baseball club? Sue the American League!
Good point. Seattle was only granted the Mariners in 1976 after six years of litigation.
Knew of some of the back story, not all of this. Thanks for sharing.
Also, I didn’t know Brodie cursed! 😉 Darn A’s doing that to you.
Throughout his entire ownership of the A's, Finley was a stone in everyone's shoe. As a avid pre-teen baseball fan in the late 1970's, I distinctly remember that Finley tried to relocate out of Oakland as well. I don't remember the chronology, but at one point or another I remember watching sports reports on how the A's were allegedly moving again: to New Orleans, to Louisville, to Memphis. Sometime around 1980'ish, Finley was going through a divorce and his soon to be ex-wife played harder ball than the A's of that era. His last maneuver was to try and sell the team to megamogul Marvin Davis, who was going to relocate the A's to Denver. At that point, the American League finally stepped in, blocking that sale and forcing Finley to sell to ownership that would keep the team where they were.
Fisher never tried to get a ballpark, and every time it got close, he moved the goalposts.
Las Vegas is just a better place for a sports franchise.
Oakland is broke and MLB knows its
face it the MLB is business and this was a business move.
It was like in 1974. The San Diego Padres were about to move to Washington D.C. But Ray Kroc saved the team from moving to Washington. I guess they were about to be named the Washington Stars?
Walter O'Malley stopped it by recruiting Kroc.
Wasn't Washington going to be the original choice for the franchise that was given to San Diego. Seems like I remember some Topps Baseball Cards being printed showing a Washington National League team.
A name was never chosen for a possible move to Washington, as it turned out, it wasn't needed
@@michaelleroy9281 Stars
Walter O'Malley insisted on Sn Diego, and he was the most powerful owner in the NL.
The only reason he couldn't stop the Angels was that when he threatened to do so, the Yankees said, then we'll stop the NL from coming back to New York.
Charlie Finley was the prototype for the jackass who screwed St. Louis, Stan Kroenke.
For those unfamiliar with the area, Peculiar, MO is a small town in Cass County, due south of KCMO.
Rams should have stayed in LA in the first place, wasn't that one of Brodie ' s worst franchise moves?
@@michaelleroy9281 I feel bad for St. Louis, but it was such a bizarre move in the first place. I wonder if we'd ever see something similar again. A main franchise in a top 3 media market moving to a market that wasn't even in the top 10.
Seattle Pilots to Milwaukee, becoming the Brewers
Random fact: the A’s never had a winning season in Kansas City. The Philadelphia Athletics had a winning season in 1952, and would not have another until 1968, their first season in Oakland.
Symington also said “Oakland is the luckiest city since Hiroshima” on the floor of the US Senate in a speech deriding Finley and the move.
It should be remembered that Symington wasn't just a senator. He was one of the most powerful politicians in the country, at the head of the Democratic party, and closely tied in with the Kennedys and ex-President Harry Truman, who was still alive at the time and still a person of great influence.
@RRaquello Truth. He was a strong contender for the Democratic nomination in 1960, and just the IDEA that he would introduce legislation to void MLB’s antitrust exemption brought them to heel.
I forget the year, but it was during the 80's that Charlie Finley agreed to sell the A's to Denver oilman Marvin Davis who would bring the A's to Denver. The deal fell through, though, when Barbara
Davis, Marvin's wife, said that the first thing to go would be those "God awful green and yellow uniforms" worn by the A's. Charlie's Irish heritage wouldn't allow that, so the A's sale and move to Denver never happened.
It was in 1979-80. At the same time, Oakland was about to lose the Raiders (for the first time) to LA, and the city leaders didn't want to lose both their teams at once. So they convinced Finley to sell to local buyers instead (he eventually sold them to Walter Haas' group), and the team stayed in Oakland.. with Billy Martin as their new manager.
1977 is when Charlie Finley tried to sell to Marvin Davis at first
@@johnpat3622 It goes to show what a dump the Oakland Coliseum was from the beginning. Davis (and Finley) were trying to get out of the stadium when it was less than 15 years old. Finley wouldn't even live in Oakland while he had the team there, running it from Chicago.
He best and most successful franchise moves in baseball history are (1) Dodgers moving to Los Angeles from Brooklyn ( 2 ) the Giants moving to San Francisco from New York (3) the Braves moving to Milwaukee then Atlanta from Boston ..
Are you sure about that? I doubt Wisconsin thought that last Braves move was good for Milwaukee… not only did they hustle to get the Pilots but later Bud fought to get the Brewers in the NL because they were still hurting over the loss of the Braves decades later…
@@MichaelRegan Yeah and Selig sure has had a lot of success with the Brewers. One pennant, no WS wins in 50+ years. And he wanted to be in the same National League that screwed Milwaukee over in the first place. The guy's a shithead.
The move was great for Kansas City because that meant that they no longer had to deal with Finley, but because Missouri Senator Stuart Symington threatened to go after MLB's anti-trust exemption the American League was forced to expand two years earlier than planned, which led to the one year disaster that was the Seattle Pilots.
Kansas City had to do without baseball for one season however, 1968
@@michaelleroy9281 The Royals, as an also ran, were outdrawing the A's when the A's were winning three straight World Series.
Good conclusion. Finley was looking to leave Oakland too a few years in. The Bay Area wasn’t ready to support two teams when the A’s went to Oakland though, as one of the A’s or the Giants had a foot out the door for the next 30 years. I agree that it worked well for Kansas City, but forced unstable ownership sitatuins in Seattle and then San Diego, and bad stadium situations on Seattle and Montreal.
I think that Finley wanted to swap franchises with the White Sox and Bill Veeck.
In 1968 on the home opener at the Coliseum (Wednesday, Apr 17), the A's hosted the Baltimore Orioles with an attendance of 50,164. The following night, attendance was 5,014. They ended the season with a home attendance of 837,466 (second worst in the AL that season), despite having a winning record. This was marginally better than their last season in KC (726,639), despite all the turmoil there. Their first two years in KC (1955-1956), they drew over 1 million each season, despite being a horrible team (63 wins and 52 wins, respectively). They did not draw over 1 million fans in Oakland until the 1973 season, despite a consistent winning record, a pennant in 1971, and a World Series win in 1972. Finley knew he had made a mistake, and continued shopping the team to other cities, as a previous commenter mentioned. Charlie Finley was a cancer to baseball.
Still out-drew the giants until pac bell park opened in 99
@@gordongross6311 True, but not by much. From 1968 to 1999 (Pac Bell park opened in 2000), the Athletics drew 42.7 million, vs. the Giants 41.8 million over that time span.
Finley never put money into marketing. There were small ads in the Chronicle and Tribune for some of the promotions and half price Mondays which actually drew big crowds. The Haas ownership has plenty of TV commercials, billboards and newspaper ads. First class owner, downhill since.
Don’t forget they had a losing record every year they were in KC. Under Arnold Johnson every talented player was traded to NYY, most notably Roger Maris when NYY had used up their “bonus baby” roster space. Finley was even worse, arguably the first instance of tanking ahead of the first MLB draft in 65. The Swingin’ A’s were a direct result.
Well, Finley also wanted orange baseballs.
Finley was apparently quite the character. Though I was not born yet / too young to follow Finley's antics, he and, later on, Steinbrenner, appeared to be two colorful MLB owners who kept themselves and their team in the news with their stunts / behavior regardless of how well their teams were playing. Smart as it likely captured the attention and interest of sports fans in those cities whether they followed baseball or not.
Vida Blue called Finley a mixture of “PT Barnum, Al Davis, George Steinbrenner and Donald Trump” in one person lol.
The Twins franchise started in KC as the Blues, before moving to DC to become the Senators. Therefore, the Royals would technically be the 3rd team to play in KC.
Wrong I just Googled it, the Twins have never played in Kansas City, the team began as a charter member of the American League in 1901, as of course the Washington Senators
The Blues left KC in 1954 when the As arrived, moving west to Denver to become the Bears. The Bears left Denver when the Rockies arrive in 1993 and moved to New Orleans as the Zephyrs…
Google Minnesota Twins and Kansas City blues. The Blues were a member in 1900, but then moved in 1901 to become the Senators. A new Blues team later came into existence, although it sometimes went by cowboys instead.
Brodie, your commentary on this subject is accurate, but some facts were left out. As someone who lived in Kansas City at that time and attended several A's games as a young boy, I can tell you about some of the talk that I heard at that time. Mayor H. Roe Bartle lured the Dallas Texans of the American Football League to Kansas City and offered them free rent at KC's Municipal Stadium for 5-seasons beginning in 1963, in order to get Lamar Hunt (Chiefs owner and AFL founder) to move his team from Dallas to KC. The Chiefs began play at Municipal Stadium in the 1963 season. Mr Finley spoke to Bartle and the Kansas City City council and asked for the same lease as the Chiefs but was denied. That factor was at the root of his displeasure for the city. In following seasons, Finley attempted to market the A's in a number of creative ways but his efforts were seen by many as whacky, strange, out of character with the norm for promoting baseball. So that became an issue with some Kansas City sports fans. Then, when he spoke out against the city publicly in a number of ways, many in the citizenry simply took the attitude of: 'sell the team or if you don't like it, leave!' I felt Mr Finley was creative and made games fun to attend. He had a mule named Charlie-O up in a pen behind the seats down the 3rd base line. We as kids used to go over and pet Charlie-O, The mule was ridden onto the field at times as well. Mr Finley was a promoter. He was also a brilliant executive in some ways, stating that baseball would save millions of dollars if EVERY contract was of 1-year in duration. That way players who played well could earn raises and players who played poorly would get the same contract or no contract at all. The A's moved to Oakland in 1968, then won 3-straight World Series titles from 1970 to 72. We had to wait on the Royals until 1985 for their 1st championship. Mr Finley didn't get a completely fair shake in Kansas City, but his approach rubbed some on the City Council the wrong way.
Appreciate the greater context! Crazy how this story seemed to haunt the A’s every relocation they’ve had. I doubt we’re going to get another MLB franchise in Oakland for a very long time if ever. This all sucks, but glad things worked out for your city, baseball and football.
I appreciate your firsthand experience and input, thank you.
If every contract was 1 year in duration it certainly would make the owners super rich and then players would have a lot more injuries/ruined careers as they would either try too hard or play injured. In other words, TOTAL INSANITY.
not to nitpick Oakland won their 3 WS from 72-74.
You’re giving Finley too much credit, he was a carnival barker not a businessman. The Swingin’ A’s were a direct result of their top draft picks in 65-67 which Finley lucked into by fielding the worst team in baseball while in KC
In 1975, Charles Finley wanted to move his at-that-time Athletics to Chicago, to become the NEW Chicago White Sox, contingent upon the at-that-time CURRENT White Sox heading to Seattle. That was also the same year the SF Giants were contemplating a move to the Toronto. Imagine MLB with NO team in the SF Bay Area.
He wanted to move the A's to Chicago so that they would be closer to his home in La Porte, Indiana.
@@johnpat3622Why not, at the time there were more Oakland A's fans in Chicago then there were in Oakland
The original plan was that previous KC A's owner, famous Yankee toady Arnold Johnson, was to be pretty much caretaker of the team and Kansas CIty was always supposed to be a temporary stop. Yankee owner Del Webb had plans to sell the Yankees and take over the Athletics and move them to Seattle and at the same time work a deal with Seattle to get the contract to build a new municipally owned stadium in Seattle (or Seattle don't get the team). He was a building contractor whose company is still a big name in the business.
This plan was kiboshed when Johnson died unexpectedly around 1960 before Webb was ready to sell the Yankees, so Finley moved in. He was a crackpot but not a Yankee toady and even 15 years later was tweaking the Yankees by not allowing them to hire Dick Williams as manager when Williams quit the A's.
Webb pretty much ran the American League and, along with Walter O'Malley, Major League Baseball, AL President Joe Cronin & Commissioner Ford Frick being mere stooges. Webb did get a consolation prize when he picked Gene Autry to be owner of the AL's new Los Angeles franchise with the quid pro quo that Webb would get the contract to build the Autry's new stadium in Anaheim and Autry would sign a lucrative (for Webb's buddy O'Malley) lease to play in Dodger Stadium while his stadium was being built, turning all but ticket revenues over (meaning souvenirs, parking, concessions, etc.) to friend O'Malley to pay the mortgage on O'Malley's new baseball palace. Autry got hosed on the deal, but he knew going in that he would. He wanted the Angels for his radio & TV stations in Southern California and was willing to pay the graft.
Honestly, it was bad for KC. Those 3 consecutive World Series should've been at the Truman Sports Complex.
Charlie Finley couldn't wait until 1973 for then Royals Stadium to open up
Dallas I knew about, Louisville is news to me....if Seattle had won out, we wouldn't have been treated to the Seattle Pilots......and Symington from Missouri was JFK's 1st choice for VP in his 1960 bid
The A's relocation to Oakland is a *great* thing, speaking as a Mariners fan! They, the Toronto Blue Jays, the Milwaukee Brewers, and the Kansas City Royals wouldn't exist but for this move.
Absolutely need to envoke some anti trust lawsuit again after this debacle, especially with how clearly the A's never negotiated in good faith with the city of Oakland.
MLB WS forced to give Seattle another team after the Pilots left after 1 year and Seattle sued MLB. So for Milwaukee, the Pilots relocation was a good thing.
So in a roundabout way, Milwaukee has Charlie Finley to thank for having the Brew Crew 😂😂😂😂
With the exception of Ewing Kauffman, MLB in Kansas City have had an unfortunate list of scumbag owners.
The key words in Finley's original statement were "intentions" and "intention". He's not promising to stay. Like every smart pro sports team owner before and after him who wants something from one or more levels of government, he used those words to convey (at best) that he'd like to stay in KC and work with the city on a solution, but things could change at some point if they can't come to an agreement.
The Raiders moved out of Oakland TWICE. The Warriors were in SF then at the Oracle Arena. Now back at SF. The Athletics came to Oakland in 1968. Tried to move out in the middle of their dynasty years. This was a preexisting condition for Oakland. Fans love teams, teams not loyal to fans. City officials tried to keep them but failed.
The Warriors played 2 games of the 1975 final at the Cow Palace
Dodgers went from back east to west coast, I think it was in the 1958. That one worked
In retrospective, its crazy to move with a brand new baseball only stadium to go to a multipurpose stadium 😆
Correct me if I’m wrong, didn’t Finley say something to the effect after the first game there, that we made a big mistake in moving to Oakland?
@curtiseverett6044 I don't know, but I wouldn't be surprised, lol
They were able to get expansion so quickly in KC in part because of that bond vote. Where's that in Oakland?
What bond, the one where Symington threatened to remove MLB's antitrust exemption?😂😂😂😂
They don't have the funds since their city leaders made crime legal so no tax dollars can be collected.
@@MrBlazemaster525 the bond that Brodie mentioned at the 6:06 mark. Did you watch the whole video?
@@MrBlazemaster525 The bonds Jackson County voted for to build the present duo stadiums in Kansas City... Even Lamar Hunt was threatening to leave Kansa City at that time as well... Even today if Clark Hunt doesn't get a new stadium San Antonio beckons with the Alamodome... Clark Hunt is a Texan and knows how large South Central Texas has grown, the combined metros of San Antonio and Austin is nearly as large as the DFW and Houston metros... Some will say the Alamodome isn't great enough for the NFL, well San Antonio will either upgrade the Alamodome or build a new stadium if necessary to LAND a NFL team...
Calvin Griffith promised never to move the Senators, saying they'd move "over my dead body."
Then sportswriter Shirley Povich quipped when they moved to Minnesota, "Calvin Griffith died today."
Bob Short was worse. I grew up a Senators fan. Then we moved to Baltimore and I got Irsay(ed). I was a Baltimore Colts season ticket holder. Then, I moved to the Bay Area 39 years ago and became a diehard A's fan. 1971, 1984, 2024.
@@stevekassel3301
I agree with you on your opinion of Bob Short!
He previously owned the Minneapolis Lakers, and moved them to LA
Calvin Griffith, Clark Griffith died in 1955 5 years before the Senators renamed Twins moved to Minnesota
@@stevekassel3301 Do you know who the Senators' General Counsel was?
The bad thing though initially for KC is that the A's left town and 4 years later, the A's win 3 World Series Championships in a row. That could have been KC and how joyous and spectacular it would have been with all of those losing years in KC with the A's.
Charlie Finley couldn't wait until 1973 for the new ballpark to open up, that's it
@@michaelleroy9281 I agree Michael. Thanks.
Findlay also drove the seals into the ground of the NHL
Don’t forget the Memphis Tams of the ABA…
😢
Finley, there is no Findlay
At the time it was probably good for Kansas but these days I wouldn’t be so sure as the Royals can’t get a ballpark deal going!!!
Also is this the first time I’ve heard you swear!!!
Colorado avalanche comes to mind they won a couple cups also Dallas has been a success
Will be similar to the Super Sonics soon.
Remove the anti trust exemption, they shouldn’t be exempt from laws the rest of us have to abide by.
Doubt if MLB cares much about the anti-trust exemption anymore.
@@darryljorden9177unless somebody starts the XLB 😂
@@VianoMusicAcademy Vince McMahon should run it - probably be as successful as the XFL was.
If Milwaukee was ever considered it would be after 1966 when the Braves moved to Atlanta.
And in 1970, Milwaukee got the Brewers. The team they got was the previous Seattle PILOTS (not the Mariners). The team only played one season because they were ill-prepared (stadium-wise and financially-wise) when they entered MLB one year earlier. The powers that be in Seattle were hoping to start in 1971, but the 1969 entry of the Royals forced Seattle' to play their hand earlier.
I think the Dodgers and Giants were a good move to the west coast and New York got the Mets. Seattle Pilots were forced to move to Milwaukee because of their crappy stadium after 1 year of existence. Both versions of the Washington Senators moved to Minneapolis and Dallas respectively. St. Louis Browns became the Baltimore Orioles. People from Oakland need to stop complaining about the A's leaving since for almost all their existence they never supported the A's there.
Pilots to Milwaukee
Both the Padres and Expos began play in 1969 along with KC and Seattle Pilots. MLB expanded by for teams at once, not two at a time.
Baseball was not a hit in San Diego early on
Brody, didn't Oakland vote in a new Mayor this past election and if so is that new Mayor wanting to try and get a new stadium deal for the A's. As a kid growing up in Rancho Cordova and being a Giants fan, the A's were always my 2nd team I rooted for. I remember watching those world series wins with Dave Stewart, Carney Lansford and Dennis Eckersley. The A's dont need to be in Vegas, if not Oakland then maybe Sacramento permanently.
I don’t think that CA has the power in congress to really threaten anything right now, but I also think there is a sense that one team is enough for the Bay Area.
I’m of the opinion that the Bay Area really ought to be much more populated, if they had enough housing to lower rents to reasonable levels that would be millions more fans, like you see in Los Angeles or New York. So perhaps what killled baseball in Oakland is as much NIMBYism as anything else.
Uhhh… I think the Lakers relocation worked out pretty good…
The point of the vid was it was good for both the team leaving and the market being left
Considering it took what almost 40 years for Minneapolis to get the Timberwolves and they've been mid-to-ass for almost 30....?
According to Atlanta lore, the old Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium's construction was started because the Mayor had a handshake deal to get the A's.
Atlanta A's perfect 😂
💐
honestly when it comes to expanding anything I believe its at a saturation point for pretty much all major leagues. Would they honestly be financially viable? You might say yes but reality likely says no. There is only so much disposable cash for people to spend and that has shrunk majorly over the last 4 years. And with a major debt crisis inbound its only going to get worse no matter what the next US admin attempts to try and fix, the damage is already done, and honestly the only fix is to let the entire thing crash and burn and then rebuild fresh.
I almost certain Seattle and Vegas will both be successful NBA franchises, along with two new NHL teams if they are granted to Houston and Atlanta (I think third time will be the charm).
@@michaelmarkowski204
With some good owners this time around.
Some relocations obviously are necessary. For example, do you think it would be appropriate for St. Louis to maintain two major league teams, as it had prior to 1954?
I'm from Kansas City and as you can see it's very important to have a champion to go to bat for you(haha) in situations like this. In our case it was a powerful senator Stuart Symington.
Now, Kansas City is about to bulldoze Kauffman stadium but we've had a much better run(six decades!) than we did with that obnoxious clown Charlie O. Finley.
I can’t help but have a sense of schadenfreude about the situation. Also, didn’t the Royals have better attendance numbers than the A’s for many years?
@@curtiseverett6044 Finley did have his A's winning 3 straight world series but his old ways of being cheap and petty caught up with him and the A's attendance dropped into the gutter. By 75 the Royals had put together a great team and the attendance was over 2 million each year for many years. There's an infamous Royals at A's game(77) where the Royals radio announcers couldn't tell whether the A's had a couple of fans in the nosebleeds of the Coliseum and it turned out they didn't, they were just 2 chairs with faded paint.
The Peculiar A’s would have been cool because the fans could be called the PeculiArities. (That sounded funnier in my head.)
MLB owners would never approve such a move not even in 1964 who the hell is anyone kidding
The whalers and Atlanta flames moves were good relocations.
The MLB has become more frugal in awarding franchises nowadays. The musical chairs of the A's and Rays (maybe Arizona) needs to stop before anything changes. They are risking the possibility of net or negative fan growth in some cases.
Not only in MLB, but all of professional sports. How many times have owners threatened to move if they didn’t get a new facility, or remodel the old one, or just enrich them somehow? Perhaps, they should pay some sort of gift tax on these “presents.” There is a growing change of attitude among taxpayers. Let the owners pay for their playpens.
Teams 31 & 32 should go to Oakland & Montreal.
Teams 31 and 32 should move to cities that have a ballpark ready to go
@@michaelleroy9281 Why are so many people obsessed to putting an MLB team in Montreal, a French-speaking city in a foreign country where the per capita income is lower than any state in the USA, and there are USA metropolitan areas like Charlotte, Raleigh, Nashville, Austin, San Antonio, and Salt Lake City that are more prosperous and growing at far faster rates of growth than Montreal? Consider that the combined population of North and South Carolina is over 16 million which is greater than the population of California in 1958. Texas has over 30 million people so it can definitely support a third major league team.
A good relocation to consider, which wouldn't be a far move, would be the White Sox to Indianapolis. They can get out of the shadow of the Cubs and have the whole state of Indiana to dominate. I don't understand why that relocation isn't being considered, especially given the fact that the politics in Indiana are more favorable than Illinois and Indiana is growing in population, unlike Illinois which is declining in population.
@@HighpointerGeocacher Because Montreal loved its team and almost all cities do even better the second time. What happened to them was not fair -- and I'm glad the team came to DC -- and it should be rectified before it's been 33 years like DC.
The thing about baseball and why they don’t award franchises as much has to do a lot with the state that Selig put baseball in along with how Florida/Miami, Tampa Bay and Arizona to an extent have never put up the attendance numbers to make the 90’s expansion teams look successful, the Marlins have a legitimate excuse and show potential while the Rays, and Diamondbacks post 2003 ish haven’t hit the highs that they did in the late 90’s.
Selig also oversaw the sport fall from its position and he was the worse possible individual to take over as commissioner, his early moves etc proved that, you had Fay Vincent who at least had a vision and on the other hand you had Selig with a vendetta against the Players Association.
Also the late 90’s expansion didn’t work out because MLB’s hand was forced into awarding Tampa Bay a team, if it wasn’t for litigation that team may have went to Buffalo or they would’ve pushed Charlotte, Buffalo has a die hard sports market which would’ve also fit well with rivals in Toronto, Boston and NYC hell maybe even Cleveland. That and Tampa Bay not drawing over 2 million after 1998 really put a cramp in the outlook by MLB on expansion.
MLB owners need to be more socialistic like their NFL brethren.
Brooklyn dodgers to la
The Athletics stayed longer in Oakland than they did in Philadelphia.
Yeah, but that was only the last iteration of the Philadelphia Athletics. There were previous versions dating back to the 1860s!
MLB is not going to expand until the A's the Rays situations get sorted out along with a long-term solution / agreement re. the White Sox (either a new stadium or new owner who commits to stay at Guaranteed Rate Field). IMO, relocation is more likely near-term, with SLC being the first destination for any team that wants to relocate anytime MLB makes it official (Smith's Ballpark while an MLB one is built) provided the owner will sell the team to the Miller group.
125 year old franchise shouldn't be moving at all
@@michaelleroy9281 To date, Reinsdorf has apparently only stated that, after he dies, he wants his family to keep the Bulls and sell the White Sox. He's 88 years old. The lease on Guaranteed Rate Field expires in 2029.
NHL has a few that turned out better.
Atlanta to Calgary
Atlanta to Winnipeg (2nd time)
Quebec to Denver
Phoenix to Salt Lake
NBA, NFL and MLB had a few also but that is going way back and not always for the better.
The last NBA relocation that arguably worked out was what, the Warriors to SanFo?😂😂😂
I thought the point of this video was that the relocation worked out for both the team and the city it left behind…?
Are you saying that Atlanta & Phoenix are better off with no teams and no hopes of one?
I think you missed Brodie’s point here
Also Colorado to New Jersey in the NHL
It’s a bit early to say if the transfer of assets from AZ to Utah will work out for the better
Where is a Stuart Symington now that we need him?
But then 2024 is not the same as 1967 different era
No team should relocate
Mac Dre should have never gone to Kansas City…thought they were a sister city :(
😅
Keep the A's in Oakland.
That train 🚆🚂🚆🚂 left the station on September 26, 2024
@@michaelleroy9281 There is a way.
I’m still placing my bet that after nothing happens in LV that the As end up leaving SacTown for Portlandia. Come back to find this post in 2028!
I do hope legislation is introduced to remove the antitrust exemption, but in the interest of all fans of baseball, I hope MLB doesn’t respond at all, and loses their exemption. If the best-case scenario occurs, the MLB would be forced to either split up in some way, or lose a lot of money, and force the league to start caring about the fans.
And Bud Selig screwed Seattle in all that process in 1969/1970
Not really, they were moved to Milwaukee County Stadium in 1970 a real ballpark, not the one they left
The trouble now is that KC doesn't know where their new stadium is going to be placed and the 3/8% tax to go toward the Royals and Chiefs was rejected as well. It wouldn't surprise me to hear of a relocation plan for KC in a year or two when someone like Salt Lake comes along and says "we have all of this money and we'll give you a stadium deal, so please come to us." So they may not be all that much better than Oakland was in the end. Time will tell on that one.
They will move to KCK before any where else
What exactly is wrong with the current stadiums, except that the owners don’t feel they are getting enough revenue from them?
Objectively speaking the structures are at a point where renovation costs are too much vis-a-vis earning potential
Still doesn't justify shaking down local government for stadia truly@@curtiseverett6044
@@curtiseverett6044 Specific to Kauffman: it's over 50 years old, in a bad location, and incapable of bringing in more income for the area or the team. They need to be Downtown.
@@curtiseverett6044 I'm from KC I think over time the area around the current Chiefs/Royals stadiums has decayed drastically over the last 25 years. At the same time, the Kansas side is newer, more modern, and probably a lot more money. In other words it's the nicest part of the KC area.
Hope something like this happens for the Rays. Get a new team and get rid of our crap owner
Les Expos wanted Royals, Montreal's minor-league name, but KC beat them to it.
That's because the 2 American League expansion franchises were awarded in 1967 the 2 National League franchises were awarded in 1968
The A's have a history of cheapskate owners going back to Philadelphia. The A's are a franchise that could of have almost as many world series titles as the Yankees, if they kept their players for many more years. The Seattle Pilots have Topps baseball cards in 69 & 70 before relocating to Milwaukee to become the Brewers in 1970. The 2nd edition of the Senators have baseball cards upto 1970 when they relocated to become the Texas Rangers.
The only reason the A's ended up in KC is because Connie Mack's son betrayed his family and fans and reneged on a deal to keep the city in Philly
To be fair, the A's were consistently bad, and playing second fiddle to the Phillies there. The last two seasons in Philly, they had a total attendance under 400,000 per season, a little less than half of what the Phillies were able to draw.
@GizzardGary Fair. But the A's got turned into a Yankee farm team for several years. What's crazy to me is that the A's were, literally until a year or two before they moved, the more popular team. Can't say that about the Braves in Boston or Browns in STL
@@kjorlaug1the A's didn't get turned into a Yankee 4A team until the KC move
The problem with their tail end times in Philly was Connie Sr was a senile coot and his son & bastard son butted heads
@@kjorlaug1 More or less true. Looking at the numbers, thru the 1930's and 1940's, the Athletics had far better attendance figures; however, from 1950 on, the Phillies were consistently outdrawing them. Not being from the Philadelphia area, I'm not sure if that was due to a demographics or population shift at the time. And you are totally right about the A's being turned into a Yankee farm team. That was more or less a joke at the time, watch the KC Athletics to see the Yankees of the future. Once Finley started shopping the A's to other markets, he pretty much alienated the KC fanbase, and the attendance suffered. The Royals under David Glass were largely the same for several years, they would get a good player, and after his contract was up, he was shopped to another market.
Charlie Finley said moving out of Kansas City was a mistake.