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    Time for Expansion Baseball: SABR Digital Library, #61
    Time for Expansion Baseball: SABR Digital Library, #61
    Time for Expansion Baseball: SABR Digital Library, #61
    Ebook1,181 pages16 hours

    Time for Expansion Baseball: SABR Digital Library, #61

    By Society for American Baseball Research

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    The Los Angeles Angels and the "new" Washington Senators ushered in baseball's expansion in 1960, followed quickly by the Houston Colt .45s and the New York Mets. By 1998, ten additional franchises had been awarded with the Kansas City Royals, Seattle Pilots, Toronto Blue Jays, and Tampa Bay Devil Tays coming into the American League, and the Montreal Expos, San Diego Padres, Colorado Rockies, Florida Marlins, and Arizona Diamondbacks to the National League. Since then, some of those teams have relocated or changed names, but TIME FOR EXPANSION BASEBALL tells the story of how each franchise was formed, built its team, and began play. Biographies of key players from each team's early years are also included, from early Angels like Eli Grba and Duke Maas to Senator Tom Sturdivant, from Seattle Pilots Tommy Harper and Lou Piniella to Seattle Mariners Julio Cruz and Rick Jones. Featuring a foreword by Tal Smith, who has done three separate stints in the Houston front office, and the contributions of 54 SABR members, TIME FOR EXPANSION BASEBALL also includes dozens of photos from team historical archives.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherSociety for American Baseball Research
    Release dateOct 24, 2018
    ISBN9781943816880
    Time for Expansion Baseball: SABR Digital Library, #61
    Author

    Society for American Baseball Research

    The Society for American Baseball Research is a thirty-five-year-old nonprofit organization whose 7,200 members include university professors; television commentators; baseball journalists; Major League executives; great writers and historians such as Bill James, Andrew Zimbalist, John Thorn, and Alan Schwarz; and former players such as Stan Musial, Larry Dierker, and Jim Bouton. SABR publishes several annuals, including The National Pastime and the Baseball Research Journal, which Sports Illustrated called "a sort of Antioch Review for the diamond set."

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      Time for Expansion Baseball - Society for American Baseball Research

      INTRODUCTION

      By Maxwell Kates

      The title, Time for Expansion Baseball, was adapted from Vin Scully’s signature expression that began each of his broadcasts, It’s time for Dodgers baseball. Writers and analysts alike have argued that expansion was the natural conclusion to Scully’s Dodgers moving west from Brooklyn to Los Angeles.

      The major-league geographical atlas of 1951 was a virtual carbon copy of a map printed one half-century earlier. Apart from the St. Louis Browns, who relocated from Milwaukee, and the New York Yankees, who moved from Baltimore, none of the franchises had shifted locations as far back as 1903. The same way America underwent significant changes in the 1950s, so too did baseball. Inside a span of three years beginning in 1953, the Braves left Boston for Milwaukee, the Browns departed St. Louis for Baltimore, and the Athletics moved west from Philadelphia to Kansas City. Even so, Gordon Cobbledick of the Cleveland Plain Dealer had validity to describe baseball as a sectional game rather than a national one.¹ As seven of the 16 franchises were located within a 225-mile radius along the Eastern Seaboard, baseball left little appeal for fans outside the northeast and midwest.

      In 1952, the Pacific Coast League (PCL) was given an Open classification above the AAA level. The move restricted American and National League teams from drafting PCL players and was considered a step towards becoming a third major league.² Any such plans ended in 1957 when the Brooklyn Dodgers and the New York Giants relocated to the Golden State. In 1959, Branch Rickey developed a plan to introduce the Continental League as a third major league but this idea, too, had short circuited before coming to fruition. How would major-league baseball respond to the American population moving south and west in increasing numbers? The solution was expansion. Hence the title, Time for Expansion Baseball.

      The American League was the first to expand, adding the Los Angeles Angels and a new Washington Senators franchise in 1960. A year later, the National League welcomed the Houston Colt .45s and the New York Mets. Ten additional franchises were awarded before the expansion process concluded in 1998 with the Arizona Diamondbacks and the Tampa Bay Devil Rays. The full list is illustrated as follows:

      Los Angeles Angels 1961 American League

      Washington Senators 1961 American League

      Houston Colt .45s 1962 National League

      New York Mets 1962 National League

      Kansas City Royals 1969 American League

      Montreal Expos 1969 National League

      San Diego Padres 1969 National League

      Seattle Pilots 1969 American League

      Seattle Mariners 1977 American League

      Toronto Blue Jays 1977 American League

      Colorado Rockies 1993 National League

      Florida Marlins 1993 National League

      Arizona Diamondback s1998 National League

      Tampa Bay Devil Rays 1998 American League

      Notes

      1 Gaylon H. White, The Bilko Athletic Club: The Story of the 1956 Los Angeles Angels (Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield, 2014), 44.

      2 Pacific Coast Year-by-Year Standings in 2017 Pacific Coast League Sketch and Record Book (Round Rock, Texas: The Pacific Coast League, 2017), 141.

      WHICH OF THE 14 EXPANSION FRANCHISES YIELDED THE MOST SUCCESSFUL DRAFT?

      By Maxwell Kates

      Pat Gillick once observed that it should take 10 years for an expansion team to emerge into a contender.¹ The Hall of Fame executive would know; he oversaw the burgeoning of two of the 14 expansion teams. On one hand, his Astros were still a few years away from contending when he left Houston for the New York Yankees in 1973. On the other, after joining the Toronto Blue Jays on the ground floor in 1976, he watched their first pennant race in Year 7, winning the American League East two years later.

      Each of the 14 expansion teams channeled their inner Pygmalion at different waves and speeds. In hockey, yes, it is possible to clinch a Stanley Cup berth in a team’s first season, as evidenced by the St. Louis Blues and the Vegas Golden Knights. In baseball, however, the odds are stacked against the expansion teams. All 14 emerged from humble beginnings and rose to contend in their respective league or division, before retreating yet again to mediocrity. This essay will address the question of which expansion draft yielded the most successful team in its first decade of play. To illustrate the premise, the following three statistical metrics shall be used:

      How well did the teams perform on the field in their first 10 years? This question will be answered by analyzing the different won-lost records and winning percentages.

      For how long did the players selected in the expansion drafts contribute effectively to their teams? This question will be answered by examining the length of time expansion players remained on their teams as active players.

      Within the realm of expansion players, it is important to note drafted players and regeneration players. Drafted players were, quite simply, the players selected in each expansion draft. Regeneration players were the players received in trades for the drafted players. Both drafted and regeneration players are taken into account for the longevity analysis.

      For example, the Montreal Expos selected Jesus Alou, Jack Billingham, and Skip Guinn in the 1968 expansion draft. Before the 1969 season, all three were traded to the Houston Astros for Rusty Staub. Three years later, in 1972, Staub was traded to the New York Mets for Tim Foli, Mike Jorgensen, and Ken Singleton. Alou, Billingham, and Guinn were drafted players. Staub was a regeneration player and so were the three Mets.

      Of course, this part of the analysis assumes that a player on the roster after 10 years continues to display significant positive value. There is the

      argument that remaining on his team for 10 years may prove that he was not of significant enough value to be traded. The value of the drafted and regeneration players will be addressed by analyzing the statistical output of the players using wins above replacement (WAR).

      It is the author’s hypothesis that, given their relatively quick rise to contend and the length of time that they remained competitive, the Kansas City Royals shall score most points for their expansion draft, with the Toronto Blue Jays finishing second.

      PART I: WON-LOST ANALYSIS

      One of the objectives used to analyze the success of each expansion draft was the won-lost records for the first 10 years of each franchise. Both the American and National Leagues adopted 162-game seasons prior to their first expansion drafts and the length of their seasons has not changed. Therefore, it should have been easy to assign point values for won-lost records. But what about strike seasons? Due to labor stoppages, complete seasons were not played in 1972, 1981, 1985, 1994, or 1995. What is the most accurate method to account for won-lost records in the incomplete seasons? The solution was to assign points based on winning percentages rather than wins whether the season was played to completion or not:

      .500 record 1point per season

      .550 record 2 points per season

      .600 record 3 points per season

      The big winner here was the Arizona Diamondbacks with 12. Posting a record of 100-62 in 1999, only their second season, the Snakes capitalized on their success by defeating the Yankees in the World Series two years later. However, most of the key players on the 2001 Diamondbacks, including Randy Johnson, Mark Grace, and Steve Finley, were free agents, posing zero correlation with the expansion draft held four years earlier. The Kansas City Royals finished a close second with 11 points. The Royals, in an era that predated free agency, first broke the .500 barrier in 1971 in only their third season. From 1972 to 1978, the Royals posted only two losing seasons.

      At the other end of the spectrum, three teams scored no points. The Seattle Mariners did not post a winning season until 1991, their 15th year of existence, nor did the Montreal Expos until 1979, their 11th. As for the Tampa Bay Devil Rays, they perpetuated their role as the doormat of the American League East for their entire first decade, failing to register even a .440 winning percentage.

      PART II: EXPANSION PLAYERS

      As defined earlier in this essay, expansion players consist of the following two components:

      Drafted Players - Players selected in the expansion draft

      Regeneration Players - Players received in trades for players selected in the expansion draft

      Points were awarded to expansion players on the basis of five-year increments. If a drafted or regeneration player remains on his team’s roster five years into the franchise history, he is awarded two points. Any player drafted or generated by the expansion draft who remained on the roster after 10 years is awarded five points.

      Leading the way here were the Kansas City Royals with 53 points. The expansion draft generated trades for Hal McRae, Amos Otis, Fred Patek, Marty Pattin, and Kansas City native Steve Mingori. All remained active and productive on the Royals’ roster in 1978 as they won their third consecutive American League West title. The Toronto Blue Jays were not far behind with 50 points. Expansion draft picks Jim Clancy, Ernie Whitt, and Garth Iorg all contributed to the Blue Jays’ in their Drive of ‘85, as did regeneration players Damaso Garcia and Rance Mulliniks.

      On the other end of the scale, the Tampa Bay Devil Rays and Arizona Diamondbacks registered only 10 and 15 points, respectively. Only one expansion player, Brandon Lyon, remained in an Arizona uniform 10 years after the Diamondbacks joined the major leagues. No Devil Rays player can make the same claim.

      PART III: INDIVIDUAL STATISTICS

      The third and perhaps most crucial metric to understand the effectiveness of the 14 expansion drafts is to analyze the statistical output of the players. Several problems arose with this particular analysis. Which statistics should be analyzed and how best to weight these statistics? Are runs batted in more important than home runs? Since most expansion teams posted poor aggregate records, would won-lost be of any significance at all? And how do you compare players across eras? In the 1960s, the mound was higher, fences were wider, and the ball did not travel as far. Every team played on natural grass surfaces during the first round of expansion. By 1977, when the Mariners and the Blue Jays were admitted into the American League, 10 of the 26 teams played on artificial turf.

      To solve the problem, the home run, runs batted in, won-lost, and earned-run average were all shelved in favor of one all-encompassing statistic: wins above replacement (WAR). Unveiled by Bill James at the SABR convention in Milwaukee on July 13, 2001, WAR is defined as the number of wins [a player is] responsible for beyond the replacement level at the player’s position.² In other words, WAR is a statistical measure used to analyze the number of additional wins a player’s presence is expected to contribute over that of a player of average capabilities. WAR encompasses pitching, fielding, and baserunning statistics as well as batting.

      For the purpose of writing this essay, WAR is the simplest and most direct way to assess the collective output of the expansion players. This essay will adopt the Baseball Reference calculation of WAR. If a player’s WAR is valued at 1, that is equal to one point in the expansion players’ analysis. Suppose players selected in an expansion draft and others generated in trades for those players yielded 17 wins above replacement after subtracting negative from positive scores. That would be equal to 17 points in this analysis.

      Among first year teams, the 1969 Kansas City Royals scored the highest WAR with 26.6. At the other end of the scale, the 1993 Colorado Rockies as a team score a WAR of only 6.1. The Royals continued to lead their expansion brethren with an aggregate WAR of 184.8 in their first decade of American League baseball. Hal McRae (15.7), Amos Otis (37.2), Fred Patek (21.5) and Al Fitzmorris (15.5) all contributed to the Royals and their strong finish between 1969 and 1978.

      The Seattle Pilots-Milwaukee Brewers franchise also generated a high WAR of 151.1. Most of the output was the work of regeneration players. As general manager of the Brewers from 1970 to 1972, Frank Lane traded most of the roster he inherited. In return, Lane received players like Don Money (23.9 WAR with the Brewers through 1978) and Johnny Briggs (14.4) from the Phillies, George Boomer Scott (22.6) from the Red Sox, and Jim Colborn (12.5) from the Cubs. The Tampa Bay Devil Rays, meanwhile, posted an aggregate WAR of only 36.9 among their expansion players. The New York Mets were not much better with 41.8.

      THE ENVELOPE, PLEASE ...

      Now for the results of the expansion draft analysis:

      14. Tampa Bay Devil Rays 1998 to 2007 47 pts

      Not surprisingly, the Tampa Bay Devil Rays generated the lowest overall score. During their first decade in the major leagues, the Rays finished in last place every year, winning as many as 70 games only once, in 2004. Five expansion players remained on their roster in 2003, combining for a WAR of -0.1. One positive spin about the draft is that at least it yielded one good season from each of Miguel Cairo (3.2 WAR), Quinton McCracken (2.1), and Tony Saunders (3.1) in 1998.

      Aggregate WAR: 36.9

      13. New York Mets 1962 to 1971 66 pts

      A great miracle happened at Flushing Meadows when, in 1969, the New York Mets won the World Series in only their eighth season. However, most of the team’s success in 1969 was attributed to the farm system and scouting department rather than the expansion draft. Only four players (Tommie Agee, Don Cardwell, J.C. Martin, Al Weis) were generated by trades from the expansion draft. Of the four, only Agee’s WAR (5.2) was of any significance. In the seven intermediate seasons, the Mets averaged only 56 wins while producing a total WAR of 27.5 from its expansion players

      Aggregate WAR: 41.8

      12. Seattle Mariners 1977 to 1986 115 pts

      Like the Devil Rays, the Mariners did not post one winning season among their first 10 in the American League. Their record was slightly better than Tampa Bay’s; they finished in last place five times as opposed to 10. The Mariners did generate quality players, both through the expansion draft and through trades. The problem that the Mariners encountered under the ownership of Lester Smith and Danny Kaye, and, later, George Argyros, is that they could scarcely afford to keep players like Ruppert Jones, Rick Honeycutt, Floyd Bannister, and Richie Zisk. Only in 1987 did the luck of the Mariners’ trident begin to point upward when they selected Ken Griffey Jr. as the first overall pick in the June amateur draft.

      Aggregate WAR: 87.6

      11. Arizona Diamondbacks 1998 to 2007 116 pts

      The Diamondbacks rose meteorically to win 100 games in 1999, 92 games and the World Series in 2001, and 98 games in 2002. As was discussed earlier, the rapid ascent of the Diamondbacks is attributed more to their free-agent signings than the players they selected in the expansion draft. It should be emphasized that two key players in their playoff run, Luis Gonzalez (30.2 WAR) and Curt Schilling (25.9 WAR), were acquired in trades generated by the expansion draft. The Diamondbacks’ reign atop the National League West was short, as the team plummeted to a record of 51-111 in 2004.

      Aggregate WAR: 89.4

      10. Houston Colt .45s-Astros 1962 to 1971 120 pts

      In their first decade in the National League, the Houston franchise reached the break-even level only once, and that was exactly .500 (81-81) in 1969. The Colt .45s reaped immediate benefits from drafting pitchers Dick Farrell (16.7) and Bob Bruce (11.1). In addition, the draft generated a 1965 trade to the St. Louis Cardinals for Mike Cuellar (13.4). After yielding an aggregate WAR of 23.0 in 1962, expansion players yielded 16.2 wins above replacement to the Colt .45s in 1963 and 16.3 in 1964. Their contributions to the Astros after moving to the Astrodome were modest.

      Aggregate WAR: 71.5

      9. Colorado Rockies 1993 to 2002 126 points

      The Rockies and their expansion players struggled in their first two seasons, posting a WAR of 6.1 in 1993 and 6.9 in 1994. Then in 1995, after moving from Mile High Stadium to Coors Field, the Rockies won a wild-card title with a record of 77-67. Two of the most prominent Blake Street Bombers, Larry Walker and Ellis Burks, were free-agent signings. However, unlike the Arizona Diamondbacks, the Rockies’ expansion players did contribute to their quick ascent. Dante Bichette, Vinny Castilla, Darren Holmes, Curtis Leskanic, Steve Reed, Kevin Ritz, and Eric Young Jr. were responsible for 21.2 wins above replacement for the 1995 Rockies. However, the early success of the Rockies was short-lived: Colorado contended again in 1996 and 1997 before retreating to mediocrity.

      Aggregate WAR: 87.5

      8. Montreal Expos 1969 to 1984 127 pts

      The Expos were the third team who failed to reach the .500 barrier in its first decade in the major leagues, contending only in 1979 with a record of 95-65. Entering the National League with a record of 52-110 in 1969, the Expos fielded an above-average representation of quality players acquired through the expansion draft and trades. Players like Rusty Staub, Bill Stoneman, Ron Hunt, and Ron Fairly led the Expos to win an improbable 70 in ‘70 before appearing on the verge of contending as early as 1973. A global energy crisis, compounded by political uncertainty in Quebec, prompted the Expos to implement Phase Two in 1974. The most harmful trade in this austerity program sent Ken Singleton and Mike Torrez to the Baltimore Orioles for Rich Coggins and Dave McNally. Singleton and Torrez contributed a combined WAR of 48.3 before both players retired in 1984. Coggins and McNally, meanwhile, combined for a WAR of -1.0. Of the four teams celebrating their 10th anniversary in 1978, the Expos were the only one to post a losing record.

      Aggregate WAR: 96.7

      7. San Diego Padres 1969 to 1978 128 pts

      Like their expansion brethren in Montreal, the Padres posted a record of 52-110 in 1969. The Padres, however, could not escape the basement of the National League West for another six years. Most of the players drafted by the Padres were prospects and therefore, remained on the roster longer than usual for an expansion team. The prize of the expansion draft was Nate Colbert, who was responsible for 17.2 wins above replacement in six years with San Diego. Although the Padres breached the .500 barrier in 1978 with a record of 84-78, their success was short-lived; they returned to last place in 1980.

      Aggregate WAR: 89.1

      6. Florida Marlins 1993 to 2002 137 pts

      The Florida Marlins posted only one winning season in their first 10 years, a 92-70 record in 1997 on their way to winning the World Series. Many of the expansion players had already been replaced on the roster by free agents. However, the 1997 Marlins still included Jeff Conine (11.1 WAR), who was selected in the expansion draft, along with Gary Sheffield (13.0 WAR, who was acquired in a 1993 trade for Trevor Hoffman. Sheffield was traded to the Los Angeles Dodgers in 1998 for Mike Piazza, a Wayne Huizenga blockbuster that generated deals for Preston Wilson and Mike Lowell. Sheffield notwithstanding, expansion players were generally unaffected by the scorched-earth policy that dismantled the Marlins after the 1997 World Series. The 1998 Marlins plummeted in the standings to finish 54-108 and would not contend again until 2003, when they won another World Series.

      Aggregate WAR: 87.8

      5. LA-California Angels 1961 to 1970 152 pts

      As one of the two initial expansion teams, the Los Angeles Angels were not even expected to win 50 games in 1961. Instead they won 70, setting a record among first-year expansion teams that still stands. A year later, they breached the .500 barrier with a record of 86-76. The Angels were inconsistent in their first decade, posting four winning records but never two consecutively. What helped the Angels in this analysis were the wins above replacement contributed by two players. Jim Fregosi, selected in the expansion draft from Boston, provided a WAR of 45.2 between 1961 and 1970. Meanwhile, an expansion-day trade landed Dean Chance from the Washington Senators. In six seasons with the Halos, Chance posted a WAR of 20.5. The selection of Fregosi continued to pay dividends for the Angels in the 1970s. A 1971 trade sending him to the New York Mets brought Nolan Ryan to Orange County for eight seasons, from 1972 to 1979.

      Aggregate WAR: 129.3

      4. Toronto Blue Jays 1977 to 1986 167 pts

      The Blue Jays started slowly in the American League East, averaging 58 wins a season between 1977 and 1980. By 1983, they entered their first pennant race and soon became the most consistent team in baseball, averaging 91 wins through 1993. As stated earlier, expansion draft picks Jim Clancy, Garth Iorg, and Ernie Whitt all remained Blue Jays in 1986, combining for 31.8 wins above replacement for the decade. The Blue Jays under Pat Gillick became adept in the trading department, generating Roy Howell, Damaso Garcia, and Alfredo Griffin in deals for expansion draft selections. The Blue Jays probably would have ranked higher were it not for the contributions of the farm system and the Rule 5 draft that augmented the team’s success in the 1980s.

      Aggregate WAR: 116.4

      3. Seattle Pilots-Milwaukee Brewers 1969 to 1978 188 pts

      Ironically, two of the more successful drafts belonged to teams that posted only one winning season in their first 10 years. The expansion Senators perpetuated Washington’s legacy as first in war, first in peace, and last in the American League until a sudden 86-win season in 1969 under new manager Ted Williams. The Milwaukee Brewers, having moved from Seattle in 1970, remained in their divisional doldrums until 1978. That is the year general manager Harry Dalton and manager George Bamberger imported the Oriole Way from Baltimore to reinvigorate Bambi’s Bombers into a contender.

      As stated earlier, when Frank Lane was appointed general manager of the Milwaukee Brewers in 1970, he inherited a franchise in disarray. True to his reputation, Lane concocted a series of mammoth trades to overhaul the roster by 1972. The deals brought a number of talented players to Suds City, even if the Brewers’ success as a team was not felt immediately. After five years of hitting taters over the fence at County Stadium, the Brewers traded George Scott back to Boston in 1976 for Cecil Cooper. Coop starred at first base for Milwaukee well into the 1980s, rapping 44 doubles in 1979 and batting .352 in 1980. The Brewers remained contenders in the American League East through 1983, winning the pennant in 1982.

      Aggregate WAR: 151.1

      2. Washington Senators 1961 to 1970 190 points

      Both Milwaukee and Washington scored high points largely because of the acumen of their general managers in assessing the expansion players in trades. Late in the 1961 season, the Senators traded Dave Sisler to the Cincinnati Reds for Claude Osteen. The left-handed Osteen contributed nine wins above replacement before he was packaged to the Los Angeles Dodgers in 1964. Washington was able to negotiate for Frank Howard, Ken McMullen, Dick Nen, Phil Ortega, and Pete Richert in exchange for Osteen. The quintet of ex-Angelenos combined for 54.2 wins above replacement between 1965 and 1970. The Claude Osteen trade continued to generate quality players for the franchise long after it moved to Texas in 1971.

      Aggregate WAR: 149.4

      1. Kansas City Royals 1969 to 1978 249 points

      True to hypothesis, the most successful expansion draft belonged to the Kansas City Royals. It was not even close, as they finished 59 points ahead of their nearest competitor. The explanation for the Royals’ successful draft has already been analyzed. They contended as early as 1971, remained competitive for the remainder of the 1970s and all of the 1980s, while generating talented players from their draft choices who made positive contributions to the team.

      No account on the early success of the Kansas City Royals would be complete without acknowledging Ewing M. Kauffman. Mr. K was not even a baseball fan, just a billionaire pharmaceutical magnate with fierce pride in his adopted hometown of Kansas City. He knew the psychological malaise associated with the Athletics moving to Oakland in 1967. The threat of an antitrust lawsuit followed and when the Royals came to town in 1969, Mr. K was happy to finance whatever was required to build a winner for Kansas City and keep them competitive.

      Aggregate WAR: 184.8

      CONCLUSION

      Using the criteria of won-lost analysis, the longevity of the careers of the expansion players, and the wins above replacement contributed by these players, it was determined that the Kansas City Royals conducted the most successful expansion draft of any team. While the Toronto Blue Jays and Milwaukee Brewers also became perennial contenders, the Senators slipped back to last place in 1970 before abandoning Washington a year later. Economic misfortunes were a main hindrance for many of the other teams. Some were underfunded while others were tight on money. Others still had the funds but spent profligately. Even the Brewers, despite their later successes, were born out of the bankruptcy of the Seattle Pilots in 1970.

      Expansion has demonstrated to be a successful experiment for the National and American Leagues. As the nexus of gravity of American commerce and industry has shifted from the American Northeast to the Sun Belt, the Pacific Coast, and across the 49th Parallel, the population has migrated, bringing with its interest in baseball. No doubt Gordon Cobbledick would have marveled at how baseball has evolved as a truly national pastime with 30 franchises from coast to coast. It was time for expansion baseball.

      Disclaimer: All figures for wins above replacement (WAR) are based on the statistics per Baseball-Reference. These figures have been rounded for presentation purposes. The reader should be aware that if one were to look up these wins-above-replacement figures on Baseball-Reference, the actual results may vary slightly.

      Acknowledgements: Scott Crawford, Pat Gillick, Jim Kreuz, Len Levin, Barbara Mantegani, Bill Nowlin, Jacob Pomrenke, David Raglin, and Carl Riechers.

      In addition to the undernoted source, the author relied on Retrosheet.org and Baseball-Reference.com to access information for this paper.

      Opening Day program for the 1977 Seattle Mariners. Although the Mariners avoided the cellar during their first season, they finished in last place five times between 1978 and 1986. (Courtesy of David S. Eskenazi)

      Rusty Staub of the New York Mets leads off 1st base in action against Mike Jorgensen and the Montreal Expos. On April 5, 1972, the two were traded for one another as Tim Foli and Ken Singleton were also sent north to Montreal. (Courtesy of the McCord Museum, Montreal)

      A Marlins fan celebrates the first Opening Day at Joe Robbie Stadium, April 5, 1993. Despite posting a record of only 64-98, the 1993 Florida Marlins set a franchise record for attendance which still stands today. (Courtesy of the Miami Marlins)

      Full ticket to Opening Day with the Seattle Pilots, April 11, 1969. While the Pilots defeated the Chicago White Sox, their next Opening day in 1970 would be played in Milwaukee as the Brewers. (Courtesy of David S. Eskenazi)

      Young Kansas City Royals celebrate Cap Day at Municipal Stadium in 1969. They would have no idea that the Royals would emerge as the most successful of the fourteen expansion teams. (Courtesy of the Kansas City Royals)

      Notes

      1 Interview with Pat Gillick, January 20, 2018

      2 Paul Dickson and Skip McAfee, The Dickson Baseball Dictionary, 3rd edition (New York: W.W. Norton, 2011), 938.

      Rickey’s Folly: How the Continental League Forced Baseball Expansion

      By Warren Corbett

      President John F. Kennedy delivered the ceremonial first pitch in Washington’s Griffith Stadium on April 10, 1961, to inaugurate baseball’s new era. The debut of the new Washington Senators against the Chicago White Sox was the first game in the 10-team American League, marking the majors’ first expansion since 1901.

      The creation of the two AL expansion franchises, and the two new National League clubs that followed in 1962, came after more than a decade of hesitation, one step forward and two steps back, as American and National League owners struggled to cope with demands to bring big-league ball to growing metropolises outside the Northeast and Midwest. At last they capitulated under pressure from politicians and a baseball genius with wealthy backers.

      Probably no single program in baseball history, Commissioner Ford Frick wrote, created more controversy, aroused stronger fan feeling, or brought more vituperative discussion, pro and con, than the movement of clubs and the expansion of the major leagues.¹ He should know; he turned backflips for years to delay expansion on the instructions of his masters, the owners.

      Major-league baseball had been putting off expansion at least since the end of World War II, when the Pacific Coast League petitioned for big-league status. The PCL’s ambition drew the predictable response: The majors stiff-armed the Westerners. But two PCL markets were too big to ignore. By the 1950 census, Los Angeles was the fourth-largest US city in population, with San Francisco 11th. The National Football League had put a franchise in Los Angeles in 1946 and absorbed the San Francisco 49ers as part of its merger with the All-America Football Conference in 1950. Some baseball executives thought a westward move was overdue.

      In 1954 former owner Bill Veeck produced a bullish report on the booming LA market that could have been written by the chamber of commerce.² The next year an American League realignment committee headed by White Sox general manager Frank Lane released a financial analysis of a 10-team league, complete with sample schedules. Lane concluded that the existing clubs could make a profit by putting new teams in Los Angeles and San Francisco, despite increased travel costs.³

      But nothing happened. Many owners believed there were not enough big-league-quality players to stock new teams. No owner wanted to give up home dates with the Yankees or Dodgers in return for games against no-name expansion clubs with no-name players.

      Then, in the fall of 1957, Walter O’Malley seized Los Angeles. O’Malley’s bold move of his Brooklyn Dodgers, hauling Horace Stoneham’s Giants in his ample wake, was the catalyst for expansion.

      New York Mayor Robert Wagner, having lost the Dodgers and Giants and facing re-election, did what any fearful politician would do: He appointed a committee. Its chairman was William Shea, a politically connected lawyer who became the prime mover in an urgent drive to bring another big-league team to New York. I thought it was a very easy job to be accomplished, Shea recalled with Big Apple arrogance, "that all I had to do was get some people with money together and go out on a white charger and pick up a franchise somewhere in the hinterlands.

      Well, I soon found out that it wasn’t going to be done.⁴

      Commissioner Frick declared the city open territory, meaning the Yankees could not block another team from moving in.⁵ Shea targeted small-market franchises in Pittsburgh and Cincinnati, but their owners had no interest in becoming the New York Pirates or the Brooklyn Reds. Throwing more cold water, NL President Warren Giles told Shea the league had no plans to expand. Giles was reported to have said, Who needs New York?⁶

      Another politician was stung by the loss of the Dodgers. Brooklyn’s congressman, Emanuel Celler, was chairman of the House Judiciary Committee and a longtime critic of baseball’s exemption from antitrust laws. In 1958 he proposed legislation to end the exemption. Furious lobbying by the majors defeated his bill. The House voted instead to exempt all professional sports leagues from antitrust restrictions, but the Senate buried the bill, at least temporarily.

      Facing pressure from Washington and agitation from New York, the majors held their ground. The frustrated Bill Shea saw no clear path to his goal, but someone else did. Branch Rickey, the farsighted executive who had invented the farm system and brought racial integration to baseball, declared that a third major league was inevitable. In a May 1958 interview with The Sporting News, Rickey said forming a new league was preferable to expanding the existing majors and creating too many also-rans.⁷

      Rickey was soon talking to Shea, and he found an eager audience. Within six months Shea announced that he was lining up backers for a third league. Speaking to reporters at Toots Shor’s saloon, he revealed that a substantial baseball man was advising him. I’m hopeful [the majors] will give the new league cooperation, Shea said. But if they don’t take you in, you have to go on your own.⁸

      While he traveled the country rounding up partners, Shea found his most important supporter in Washington. Tennessee Senator Estes Kefauver, chairman of the antitrust and monopoly subcommittee, believed in enforcing antitrust laws and didn’t believe in monopoly. It was Kefauver who had blocked the House bill granting antitrust immunity to sports leagues. In February 1959 he introduced his own legislation to put all professional leagues, including baseball, under antitrust law. In addition, the bill limited teams to controlling just 80 players. (Some teams had more than 400 in their farm systems.)⁹ Kefauver was attacking the economic foundation of the baseball business.

      Feeling the heat, the majors adopted their first policy on expansion in May 1959. After a special owners meeting, the majors announced they would favorably consider recognizing a third league – with a big if: if the new circuit’s cities were larger than the smallest current big-league market (Kansas City, population around 450,000); if it had stadiums seating at least 25,000; and if the new teams reached a financial settlement with the minor leagues whose territory they invaded. If those and other criteria were met, the American and National Leagues might embrace a competitor.¹⁰

      On July 27 Shea formally launched his new circuit. It now had a name, the Continental League, and commitments from backers in five markets: New York, Houston, Minneapolis-St. Paul, Denver, and Toronto. Shea listed 11 other cities that were interested. Taking the majors at their word, he said, We are therefore proceeding on the basis of the complete and unqualified cooperation of the two existing major leagues.¹¹

      The next day Senator Kefauver opened hearings on his antitrust bill. Commissioner Frick testified that the majors were on the level in pledging cooperation with the upstarts: I feel deep in my heart that the new Continental Baseball League will become a reality.¹² Not all baseball men toed the company line. American League President Joe Cronin sniped, Calling a league a major league doesn’t make it a major league.¹³ Kefauver didn’t push his legislation, but he warned that he would be watching: You might say baseball is under surveillance, even under a shotgun.¹⁴

      With Kefauver’s threat of a shotgun marriage, the baseball establishment agreed to talk with the Continentals. At the first meeting of the three leagues, on August 18 in New York, Shea played his ace. Branch Rickey walked into the room as the first president of the Continental League. Although he was 77 years old, Rickey was still a formidable force in the eyes of his former rivals. His league might be a mirage, but Rickey was flesh and blood and baseball genius. It was at that moment that the owners knew we were for real and that we meant business, said one of the Houston financiers, Craig Cullinan Jr.¹⁵

      Rickey argued that it would be easier to find 200 players for eight new teams that would compete among themselves than to find 100 to stock four expansion teams capable of competing in the existing majors. He envisioned a round-robin World Series among the champions of all three leagues by 1963. The fans will devour it, he exclaimed.¹⁶

      But the majors pointed to their criteria for recognition of a new league. The Continental had only five teams, and not all had big-league-sized stadiums. They had reached no agreements to pay off the minor-league clubs that would be displaced.

      Then Washington Senators owner Calvin Griffith tossed a stink bomb into the party. Griffith, with his team losing games and money, wanted out of Washington. He was laying plans to move to Minneapolis-St. Paul. His fellow AL owners put him off, fearing a congressional backlash if they abandoned the nation’s capital. But wheels were beginning to turn. At the October league meeting, President Cronin appointed a committee to study expansion.¹⁷

      Rickey now saw that his trust had been misplaced. He told the Continental owners that the majors were undermining the new league. For the first time, he said the Continental might have to go outlaw.¹⁸ That meant raiding the majors and minors for talent and mounting a court challenge to the reserve clause, which bound players to their teams for life. But several Continental owners were leery of going to war. While publicly committed to the new venture, they wanted to stay on the majors’ good side in case the existing leagues decided to expand.

      Acquiring players was the Continental’s biggest challenge. Baseball had no pipeline of college talent as in football. The majors controlled virtually all professional players through their farm systems. Without their cooperation, Rickey confidently maintained that the player pool could be expanded by tapping Latin America and Japan, and making full use of African-American talent.

      Rickey’s plan represented a radical departure from baseball history and tradition. The Continental League would operate a central scouting bureau and a farm system controlled by the league, not individual teams, with all clubs drafting players from the pool. The teams would share local television revenue.¹⁹ The goal was to level the financial playing field so there would be no Yankee dynasty and no charity case like the St. Louis Browns. Branch Rickey, conservative Republican and fervent anti-communist, wrote a constitution for socialism in baseball.

      At the winter meeting in December 1959, the majors continued to insist that they had no plans to expand. Rickey put up a bold front, saying, The Continental League is as inevitable as tomorrow morning, if not as imminent.²⁰ Commissioner Frick declared, The Continental League can have our endorsement, too, as soon as they settle certain things.²¹

      Frick’s public expressions of support served to keep Congress at bay while pushing expansion down the road to some unspecified date in the misty future. Some saw it as a cynical ploy. New York Daily News columnist Dick Young wrote, Did you ever have the feeling that someone is being too nice to you, and it has you worried?²²

      Expansion is coming, Frick said, but it will not come by fiat, by pressure or the threat of legislation. He picked the wrong place to strike a defiant tone: at the Touchdown Club in Washington, with Senator Kefauver in the audience. Kefauver thought the commissioner had disparaged Congress.²³

      The senator struck back in February 1960 with new legislation that might have been titled the Continental League Relief Act. His bill provided that each major-league team could control no more than 40 players; the rest would be eligible to be drafted by other clubs. Shea and Rickey enthusiastically endorsed the legislation, but Commissioner Frick denounced it as vicious and discriminatory. He predicted that it would kill the minor leagues, since the majors would no longer subsidize farm clubs if they stood to lose most of the players in the draft.²⁴

      The Continental League had filled out its circuit of eight teams with the addition of Dallas-Fort Worth, Atlanta, and Buffalo, and announced that it would begin play in 1961. If the Kefauver bill failed, Shea said, the Continentals’ choice was war or quit.²⁵

      The Senate opened debate on June 28. For procedural reasons, the first vote came on an amendment that would extend baseball’s antitrust exemption to other sports leagues. When that was adopted by 45 to 41, it was obvious that Kefauver’s proposal to eliminate the exemption would fail, so sponsors pulled the bill from consideration. The majors had won, but the margin, with 41 votes against the antitrust exemption, was far too close for comfort.²⁶ Frick later admitted, Baseball was scared.²⁷

      Panicked is more like it. After dawdling for 14 years since the Pacific Coast League pushed for expansion, the owners moved faster than a speeding Ty Cobb to quash the threat to their monopoly. Within days after the Senate vote, they invited the Continental principals to meet for a discussion of how to implement expansion via Continental League or increased membership.²⁸

      The summit meeting, in Chicago on August 2, opened with fireworks. The Dodgers’ Walter O’Malley lectured the Continentals, Your having rocked the boat makes it hard for the major leagues to meet you halfway. Shea angrily replied that he had no choice but to appeal to Congress, since the majors had stonewalled him.²⁹ At one point O’Malley roared, Goddammit, then turned to the pious Continental president and said, Excuse me, Mr. Rickey.³⁰

      After both sides vented, Milwaukee owner Lou Perini offered a compromise: The majors would expand, taking in four Continental franchises immediately and the other four within a few years. The four now, four later proposal was the first concrete step toward a settlement.

      The Continental delegation retired to caucus in another room and erupted in loud cheers. Chicago writer Jerome Holtzman commented, The Continental League went phffft – and disappeared into the hot air from whence it came.³¹

      At that moment Rickey’s last shot at glory died. The jubilant Continentals ignored his warning to read the fine print. O’Malley had not said which four cities would come first or when the other four would be added.

      But the old man had served his purpose. Just by being Branch Rickey, he had forced the majors to take the league seriously. Houston’s Craig Cullinan said, It was ridiculed as a sham, but on the contrary it was an enormous success because it ran what became the biggest bluff in the history of professional sports.³² All Continental cities except Buffalo were eventually accepted into the majors, though Denver had to wait 33 years.

      Rather than savoring victory, the majors dissolved into backbiting and chaos. The pressure for expansion revealed a rift between the American and National Leagues, which were separate and highly competitive organizations. Major-league baseball had no management structure suitable for a large business, which the game had become. With the docile Frick in the commissioner’s office, the cartel lacked strong leadership. Owners O’Malley and Del Webb of the Yankees stepped into that void as the de facto leaders, two businessmen protecting their private interests rather than pursuing the greater good of the game.

      O’Malley fired the opening shot in an intramural baseball war. As chairman of the NL expansion committee, he engineered a unanimous vote on October 17 to award franchises to New York and Houston. The owners were Continental League backers: heiress Joan Whitney Payson in New York and Craig Cullinan Jr., R.E. Smith, and Judge Roy Hofheinz in Houston. The new clubs would begin play in 1962, giving them a year and a half to prepare.

      New York’s addition was a foregone conclusion. Houston was considered by many the ripest plum available for plucking by big league baseball, as Sports Illustrated’s Roy Terrell put it.³³ Both leagues had coveted the nation’s seventh-largest city. Del Webb, chairman of the AL expansion committee, fumed that the Nationals pulled a fast one on us by taking unilateral action. He added, This was O’Malley’s doing.³⁴

      O’Malley had stepped on a hornet’s nest. He had his own agenda: to keep the American League out of Los Angeles, or at least delay as long as possible. But LA was now the third-largest city, and Commissioner Frick had declared it, like New York, open territory for expansion.³⁵ The AL couldn’t pass it up. And Webb wouldn’t pass up a chance to sting O’Malley.

      Meeting in New York on October 26, the AL pulled its own fast one. The owners voted to allow Calvin Griffith to take his Senators to Minneapolis-St. Paul. To mollify Congress, they awarded Washington an expansion franchise. The second expansion team would go to Los Angeles.³⁶

      The AL’s decision blew up the agreement with the Continental League. Continental owners in Minnesota were shut out, and Los Angeles had never been part of the third league. (The Continentals had avoided challenging O’Malley, even rejecting an investor group that included Frank Sinatra.)³⁷ Bill Shea, now kibitzing from the sidelines, described the AL action as one of the lowest blows below the belt in the history of sports.³⁸

      But O’Malley wasn’t giving up without a fight. He leaned on the commissioner, and Frick about-faced, saying that O’Malley was entitled to compensation for the invasion of his territory. Hank Greenberg, the slugger turned executive who had secretly been promised the LA franchise, refused to kowtow to O’Malley and dropped his bid.³⁹ That left the American League scrambling.

      The AL, in its haste to upstage the Nationals, had voted to put expansion teams on the field in 1961. Opening Day was less than six months away. There was no turning back; the old Washington Senators were loading the truck for Minnesota and the new Washington franchise had been awarded to a syndicate led by retired Lieutenant General Pete Quesada. The league couldn’t play with nine teams. Never has the baseball picture been more muddled, millstoned or mired in uncertainty as it is today, the Associated Press’s Joe Reichler wrote.⁴⁰

      Singing cowboy Gene Autry threw his white Stetson into the ring to save the day. The AL jumped at his bid for the Los Angeles franchise. But O’Malley had the whip hand, and he used it. After three days of negotiations at an emergency meeting in St. Louis in December, Autry agreed to O’Malley’s terms. He paid the Dodgers $350,000; agreed to play one year in the city’s tiny minor-league park, Wrigley Field; and then become O’Malley’s tenant when the new Dodger Stadium was ready.⁴¹ The AL got a team in LA, and O’Malley got everything else.

      At last expansion was a fact. It was a windfall for the 16 legacy teams. Each new club paid $2.1 million for the ragtag players they drafted – crumbs from the table, Rickey called them.⁴² As Rickey had predicted, the expansion teams took up residence at the bottom of the standings. Only the Angels posted a winning record in their first seven years. The Miracle Mets won the 1969 World Series and reached the Series again four years later, but no other expansion club made it to the championship round until 1980.

      Would baseball have been better off if the Continental League had succeeded? Professional football followed that model; the American Football League was born as an outlaw in 1960 and persevered through years of heavy financial losses until it merged with the NFL to create the colossus of American sports. Baseball expanded its two leagues four more times, with stumbles at every turn, while its claim to be the national pastime became a relic of history.

      Notes

      1 Ford C. Frick, Games, Asterisks and People (New York: Crown, 1973), 119.

      2 Special Research Committee for Major League Baseball in Los Angeles, Progress Report on the Los Angeles Major League Baseball Project (1954), commonly known as the Veeck report, in the author’s files.

      3 American League Realignment Committee, Is a Ten-Club League Practicable? (the Frank Lane report), January 30, 1955, in American League Papers, BA MSS 125, Series III Box 20 Folder 4, at the National Baseball Hall of Fame library, Cooperstown, New York.

      4 Murray Polner, Branch Rickey (New York: New American Library, 1982), 252.

      5 Frick Favors New York as Open, Washington Post and Times Herald, December 7, 1957: A12.

      6 Arthur Daley, Sports of the Times, New York Times, November 18, 1958: 48.

      7 J.G. Taylor Spink, ‘Third Major Must Come Soon’ – Rickey, The Sporting News, May 21, 1958: 1.

      8 Dick Young, Third Major League Gets New York Go-Ahead, Chicago Tribune, November 14, 1958: C1.

      9 United Press International, Kefauver Offers Sport Control Bill, Chicago Tribune, February 4, 1959: B1.

      10 United Press International, Majors to Accept Bids From 3d League, Chicago Tribune, May 22, 1959: E1.

      11 Dan Daniel, 35,000 Minimum Capacity for Continental Loop Park, The Sporting News, August 5, 1959: 8.

      12 United Press International, Frick Talks Baseball Harmony, New York Times, July 30, 1959: 32.

      13 Dave Brady, Majors Told to Play Ball With Third Big League, Washington Post and Times Herald, August 1, 1959: A11.

      14 Lee Lowenfish, Branch Rickey, Baseball’s Ferocious Gentleman (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2007), 556.

      15 Clark Nealon, Robert Nottebart, Stanley Siegal, and James Tinsley, The Campaign for Major League Baseball in Houston, Houston Review (undated reprint), 22. houstonhistorymagazine.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/7.1-The-Campaign-for-Major-League-Baseball-in-Houston-Clark-Nealon-Robert-Nottebart-Stanley-Siegal-James-Tinsley.pdf, accessed November 1, 2017.

      16 Lowenfish, Branch Rickey, 564-565.

      17 Daniel, A.L. Lays Expansion Groundwork, Will Study Twin Cities’ Request, The Sporting News, October 28, 1959: 5.

      18 Michael Shapiro, Bottom of the Ninth (New York: Henry Holt, 2009), 141.

      19 Dick Gordon, Player Pool Plan Aired By B.R. in Twin-City Visit, The Sporting News, January 13, 1960: 9.

      20 Oscar Kahan, Mahatma Dares Majors to Attempt Expansion, The Sporting News, December 16, 1959: 12.

      21 Third Major Standards Set; Don’t Need Mediator – Frick, The Sporting News, January 13, 1960: 9.

      22 Dick Young Finds Love Feast ‘Too Mushy’; He’s Suspicious, The Sporting News, September 2, 1959: 16.

      23 Brady, Blast by Frick Scorches Ears on Capitol Hill, The Sporting News, January 27, 1960: 6.

      24 Brady, Frick Clears Sacks Testifying Against Kefauver Sport Bill, The Sporting News, May 25, 1960: 9.

      25 Shapiro, Bottom of the Ninth, 188.

      26 Lowenfish, Branch Rickey, 568-569, 571-572; Robert Reed, Colt .45s: A Six-Gun Salute (Houston: Lone Star Books, 1997), 31.

      27 Frick, Games, Asterisks and People, 128.

      28 Shapiro, Bottom of the Ninth, 208-209.

      29 Reed, Colt .45s, 34.

      30 Lowenfish, Branch Rickey, 573.

      31 Jerry Holtzman, Big Timers Clearing Decks for Expansion, The Sporting News, August 10, 1960: 3.

      32 Reed, Colt .45s, 34.

      33 Roy Terrell, ‘The Damnedest Mess Baseball Has Ever Seen,’ Sports Illustrated, December 19, 1960, si.com/vault/1960/12/19/585926/the-damndest-mess-baseball-has-ever-seen, accessed October 20, 2017.

      34 Shirley Povich, Griffith’s Decision Made Purely on Impulse, Washington Post and Times Herald, October 27, 1960: D1.

      35 Associated Press, Ford Frick Believes L.A. Should Be Open Territory, Los Angeles Times, August 15, 1960: IV-3.

      36 Joe King, A.L. Speeds Expansion – 10 Teams in ’61, The Sporting News, November 2, 1960: 3.

      37 Shapiro, Bottom of the Ninth, 124.

      38 League’s Action Scored by Shea, New York Times, October 27, 1960: 46.

      39 Al Wolf, Several Groups to Bid for New L.A. Franchise, Los Angeles Times, November 19, 1960: II-3.

      40 Joe Reichler, Muddled Baseball Picture May Be Cleared Up at Meetings This Week, Associated Press-Washington Post and Times Herald, November 27, 1960: C2.

      41 Frank Finch, It’s Official! Angels to Play in 1961, Los Angeles Times, December 8, 1960: IV-1; Andy McCue, Mover and Shaker: Walter O’Malley, the Dodgers, & Baseball’s Westward Expansion (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2014), 292-293.

      42 Shapiro, Bottom of the Ninth, 216.

      Mis-Management 101 – The American League Expansion of 1961

      By Andy McCue and Eric Thompson

      Responding to six decades of demographic change, the National and American leagues moved to expand as the 1960s dawned. While the National League took a measured approach to analyzing markets, identifying ownership groups and giving them time to organize, the American League followed a stumbling, reactive path. One new franchise was given merely eight days to find personnel and plan for an expansion draft. And then, to conform to a Byzantine set of rules, the league president had to secretly revise the draft with a series of mandated trades before announcing the results.

      The path to expansion for both leagues was a combination of new markets and old politics.

      By 1953, the 50-year-old lineup of American and National League cities had been left in the demographic dust. Population had moved from the northeast quadrant to the vibrant cities of the West and South. The less financially successful clubs in two-team cities were finding it increasingly difficult to compete.

      This situation was ameliorated with the moves of the Boston Braves to Milwaukee (1953), the St. Louis Browns to Baltimore (1954), and the Philadelphia Athletics to Kansas City (1955). But these shifts barely strayed from the Northeast. There was talk of further franchise shifts, or maybe expansion, but nothing actually happened. That pattern was shattered in late 1957 with the announcement that the National League’s New York Giants and Brooklyn Dodgers would move to San Francisco and Los Angeles.

      The reaction in New York was swift. Within a few weeks, the Mayor’s Baseball Committee, headed by well-connected lawyer William Shea, was created to bring National League baseball back to the city.

      The reaction in major-league baseball was slower. It wasn’t until December of 1958 that the owners formed the Major League Baseball Expansion Committee and it was here that the American League’s stumbles began.

      For its representatives, the National League owners chose two powerful owners, Walter O’Malley of the Dodgers and Philip Wrigley of the Cubs. Wrigley was a well-connected, wealthy owner, who’d played a quiet role in the westward expansion of the National League. O’Malley was particularly important because the implicit assumption behind any expansion was that if the National League wanted back into New York, the American League would have to be allowed into Los Angeles

      The American League owners chose Arnold Johnson, the man who had just moved his Athletics to the smallest market in major-league baseball, and George Medinger, a minority shareholder and a vice president of the Cleveland Indians. No Del Webb, whose Yankees were now the sole major-league team in New York. No Tom Yawkey.

      Six months later, the expansion stew was complicated by the unveiling of Branch Rickey’s plan for a third major league to be called the Continental League. Rickey promised to respect major-league baseball’s player contracts, but he was clearly eyeing their best existing and potential markets. The Continental League loomed as a bigger threat as Rickey began to put together impressive ownership groups in major cities.

      In New York, Shea was quickly won over to the Continental camp, and he brought with him Joan Payson, who’d been a minority owner of the Giants and bitterly regretted their move to San Francisco. Her brother was publisher of the New York Herald-Tribune and US Ambassador to Great Britain. Other old money quickly joined. There was Dwight Davis, Jr., whose father had funded tennis’ Davis Cup, and George Herbert Walker, a merchant banker with strong ties to the Harriman empire and the grandfather of eventual president George Herbert Walker Bush.

      In Houston, it was all new money, but there was a lot of it. Craig Cullinan was Texaco. R.E. Bob Smith and Bud Adams had extensive oil and real estate interests in the Houston area. Roy Hofheinz was Smith’s partner in many ventures and a former mayor of Houston. The Denver group was headed by Bob Howsam, owner of the minor-league Denver Bears but with powerful political connections through his father-in-law, former Colorado governor and U.S. Senator Edwin C. Johnson. In Toronto, it was media mogul Jack Kent Cooke. In Minneapolis, Rickey rounded up members of the Dayton-Hudson department stores and Hamms Brewing families, as well as George Pillsbury.

      Rickey’s Continental League would leave several legacies. It had coalesced viable ownership groups and educated them about dealing with major league baseball. And it had scared major league baseball.

      In Washington, DC, Edwin C. Johnson’s connections had brought about legislation to limit the number of players major-league teams could keep under contract, and he had aided New York Representative Emanuel Celler’s antitrust hearings on baseball. In Houston, Bud Adams had struck fear into the hearts of the owners. In addition to his baseball interests, Adams was a major player in the creation of the American Football League. In 1960, his Houston Oilers drafted the Heisman Trophy winner from LSU – Billy Cannon. The Los Angeles Rams of the National Football League had offered Cannon $10,000. Adams offered $110,000 and the idea of competing for amateur talent with that kind of money reverberated through major-league baseball.¹

      In August 1960, the two leagues met and announced each would absorb two teams from the Continental League. While the National League immediately began to examine the potential markets and to interview the possible ownership groups, the American League owners argued over internal issues, such as existing teams’ desires to move and the possibility of ownership changes. Arnold Johnson had died that spring and other teams were thought to be on the market. The American League began its reactive spasms.

      On October 10, Webb pushed the American League’s somnolent Expansion Committee into going after Houston.² The next day, O’Malley announced the Houston Continental League group had applied for membership in the National League. Six days later, President Warren Giles announced Houston and New York, with its Continental League ownership group, would join the National League for the 1962 season.³

      The 1960 census would soon show that the markets underserved by major-league baseball were New York, Los Angeles, and Houston. The National League was now in all three, the American in one. But, American League sources were sounding confident about the Dallas-Ft. Worth market, another growth area.⁴

      A few days later, the American League revealed Calvin Griffith would be allowed to move his Washington Senators to Minneapolis-St. Paul and two expansion teams would be created in cities to be named.⁵ To one-up the National League, Webb said it might add another two teams by 1964 and that its expansion teams would start play in 1961, a year before the National League. These teams had no general managers, no managers, no players, no ticket sales department and a spring training that would begin in four months. Webb glossed over the fact that these moves broke the August agreement to choose ownership groups from the Continental League, a decision Rickey characterized as the dictionary definition of perfidy.⁶ The Sporting News and other commentators suggested the Americans’ pace was too headlong.

      On November 17, 1960, American League president Joe Cronin announced that one of its expansion teams would replace the Senators in Washington and that it would petition major-league baseball to be allowed into the Los Angeles area.⁷ The promising market of Dallas-Ft. Worth fell out of the saddle. Cronin set the expansion draft for November 25. In those eight days, including a weekend and the Thanksgiving holiday, the league would have to resolve the Los Angeles situation. The Washington team would have eight days to prepare for the draft. The Los Angeles team, whose ownership group was not known, would have less.

      November 25 passed with no resolution of the Los Angeles situation and no expansion draft. On November 28, the Senators lurched into life by taking Ray Semproch and John Gabler in the minor-league draft. The Los Angeles team didn’t participate because it didn’t exist yet.

      By December 6, the AL had negotiated hastily with Walter O’Malley to get into Los Angeles and slapped together an ownership group headed by former country music star and radio/tv entrepreneur Gene Autry. Autry’s organization would have eight days to prepare for the December 14 draft and less than three months before spring training.

      For the draft, the Los Angeles team would be aided by several factors. Autry quickly hired former Braves manager Fred Haney as general manager and recently dismissed Giants manager Bill Rigney as field manager. Both were familiar with many major-league players, although more heavily in the National League. Walter O’Malley ordered his staff to turn

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