Quote:
Originally Posted by kq76
Imagine the Angels being in LA longer than the Dodgers. I always felt they played second fiddle to the Dodgers, but if that had happened the Dodgers might never have left Brooklyn.
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A Browns-to-Los-Angeles move in 1941 - a full 17 years before the Dodgers & Giants moved to California - likely would've set in motion a series of events of which we can only speculate. Assuming Browns owner Don Barnes would've found financial success in LA, it's likely that at least one other team would've moved to California shortly thereafter - both for financial reasons and for scheduling considerations (teams could make one trip west and play series' against two teams). And who knows from where that second team would come, and to where they would relocate? (SF, SD, and LA-area would be the obvious choices.) And if the AL then would've had two teams on the west coast by the mid-40's it's certainly possible that a couple of NL teams would've moved west years before the Dodgers and Giants actually did it. Whichever teams - in either league - that were in the worst financial shape by the mid-40's would've been the obvious candidates. (Based opon ownership history and issues, it seems the 40's Phillies, Pirates, Cards, A's, Braves, and Indians would've been among the likely candidates to relocate.)
Consider also that within just fourteen years of the Dodgers & Giants moving to the west coast there were seven additional teams located (via expansion or relocation) west of the Mississippi. So it's not inconceivable that the westward migration of MLB would've begun much earlier, and taken on a different form...
As for the Dodgers, perhaps with the leverage of the (presumed) existing success of other teams already out west, O'Malley would've been able to get a new ballpark in the New York area, maybe even several years prior to 1958.
Finally, whatever change in form and scope that a 1940's westward migration would've taken could've either hastened or delayed the eventual expansion that began in the early 1960's.