Interesting What If

[Dark Horse]

i ran across an interesting article (https://www.mlb.com/news/featured/th...seball-forever) that spun off an incredible number of what ifs.

It begins with the St. Louis Browns moving to Los Angeles in 1941. And ended up with the MLB looking like this:

[joefromchicago]

Good article. It could form the basis for a very interesting "what if?" OOTP sim.

That said, I think the article makes it seem like the Browns' move to the west coast in 1941 was a sure thing until World War II interrupted those plans. I'm not convinced. In particular, I don't think the logistics could have worked at that time. Commercial air travel was still in its infancy, and most cross-country travel was still done by train. In 1938, a train leaving Chicago (which would have been the AL's western-most outpost apart from the Browns) at 6:15 p.m. on Monday would arrive in LA at 8:00 a.m. on Wednesday. So a team travelling to the west coast would lose at least a day going out and another day coming back.

In those days, a team would typically make three road trips to each opponent. The AL would probably have needed to cut that down to two trips to LA in order to make it work. That, then, would have had ripple effects throughout the rest of the league. It's easy to see, then, why the NL wanted to have two teams move to the west coast in tandem in 1957 - having just one team out there would have posed a lot of problems.

Also, the article suggests that there would have been no problem moving the PCL Los Angeles Angels out of the city to accommodate the Browns. I'm not so sure about that. At the time, the PCL was mulling the possibility of jumping to major-league status. I doubt that many of the other team owners would have been happy with the prospect of losing one of the league's strongest teams in the league's biggest city. Also, there was another team in the city - the Hollywood Stars - which the article doesn't even mention. I don't know what territorial rights were like at that time, but I'd guess that the Stars would have to be compensated somehow before the Browns would be allowed to move in next door.

[thehef]

I had wondered about some of these things ^^^, too. However, the sabr article (that's linked in the article referenced in the OP) on the Browns' ownership history actually answers pretty much all of this stuff. (Highlights are in bold for those who may not want to read the whole clip):

Over the years Barnes persistently wooed potential investors to the Browns. One, Harry Arthur, was the head of Fanchot and Marco Amusement Company, a Southern California entertainment company. Arthur, who divided his time between Los Angeles and St. Louis, and was fully aware of the Browns’ financial woes, approached Barnes and, as Barnes recalled, urged that “something be done to revive interest in the Browns, such as transferring the club’s franchise to Los Angeles.” Barnes initially demurred, thinking Arthur was just bragging on his California connections. Over time, however, as the Browns situation did not improve, Barnes decided to take Arthur’s idea more seriously.174

This, on its face, was a daunting challenge. No franchise had moved since the Orioles went from Baltimore to New York for the 1903 season. And no team then played west of St. Louis. Creation of a cross-country schedule presented challenges. Rail and bus were the chosen mode of transportation. Cross-country air travel was in its infancy, and not until the 1950s would it become a functional form of transportation for sports teams.

As Barnes subsequently shared in one of several interviews given years later in TSN, he asked Arthur to explore investment opportunities in Southern California. Arthur almost immediately advised that A.P. Giannini, co-founder of the Bank of America, was willing to give considerable financial backing to a Los Angeles-based major-league team. The Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce guaranteed a minimum season attendance of 500,000 for the first five years, offering to underwrite the difference if the guarantee was not met.

Barnes was sold on exploring the opportunity. He flew to Los Angeles at Arthur’s suggestion to meet with potential investors. The endeavor proved a complicated process. Not only did Barnes have to gain approval of American League owners, but because he was moving into Pacific Coast League territory, Barnes had to deal with Los Angeles’s then resident team, the Angels, owned by Phil Wrigley, also owner of the Chicago Cubs.

Wrigley offered to sell the team and Los Angeles’s Wrigley Field to Barnes for approximately $1 million, based on a down payment of $250,000 with annual installments of $30,000 over the next 25 years.175 Assurances were gained that a street bordering Wrigley Field would be condemned, allowing enlargement of the ballpark, double-decking it, and enlarging the bleachers to increase attendance capacity from 21,000 to 30,000 seats.

Upon completion of the transaction, Barnes would transfer the Angels to Long Beach, Arthur having gained assurances from civic leaders in the city that this was acceptable. All was contingent on gaining major-league approval for shifting the Browns to California.

In reviewing minor-league considerations as part of the deal, Barnes noted that at that time a major-league team could move into a minor-league territory and pay the league $5,000 plus damages to the club. As the Browns would take over the Angels, these costs would be avoided. A further complexity involved the Hollywood Stars. Discussions with the Stars involved arranging the schedule to avoid playing date conflicts. Incursion into their territory was not an issue as the Stars were then operating under a 20-year arrangement with the Angels, who had full territorial rights.

Having set plans in motion to secure rights to play in Los Angeles, Barnes sought concurrence for the move from his fellow club owners. While eager to improve revenue by moving from the perpetual money hole in St. Louis, they were concerned over whether a viable schedule could be created. Particular worries were raised about the safety of air travel.

This was resolved by arranging to have two of the then existing three East-West swings made by rail and one by air. Fears concerning air travel were further minimized by having players take different flights. Plans called for Chicago to be set up as the Eastern hub because of multiple daily flights. This satisfied safety concerns, and judicious use of open dates allowed creation of a workable schedule. Resolution of this and the possibility for more lucrative opportunities gained Barnes preliminary approval to shift the Browns.

Another factor at play involved the Cardinals. Eager to have St. Louis to himself, Cardinals owner Sam Breadon committed to giving Barnes $250,000 for the Browns to depart. In all of the components of this pending transaction Commissioner Landis was kept informed. While sympathetic to the Browns’ financial situation, he did not get directly involved, telling Barnes, “That is a matter you boys (club executives) must settle among yourselves.”

Ongoing negotiations were conducted with the utmost secrecy. Barnes was referred to as MISTER X in all documented meetings. DeWitt and Browns manager Luke Sewell were two of the very limited number of Browns employees who knew of these developments.

The myriad details for the transfer were settled. Barnes had received tacit approval of his fellow club owners and the minor-league teams in the Los Angeles area, secured the monetary incentive from the Cardinals and created a workable schedule. All Barnes needed was formal approval at a meeting of American League team owners set to take place at the Palmer House in Chicago — on December 8, 1941.

Barnes, DeWitt and Sewell arrived in Chicago on December 7 and were attending a Chicago Cardinals football game when they heard over the public-address system that the Japanese had attacked Pearl Harbor. With war imminent and an invasion of the West Coast regarded as possible, Barnes realized that all plans were off. The next day, as President Franklin Roosevelt asked Congress to declare war on Japan, Barnes asked his fellow AL club owners to drop consideration of the proposed move. With Barnes joining in, the motion to shelve the motion received unanimous approval.


Mentioned in another of the links (to a Sporting News article) is that the Browns had come up with three schedule proposals:

"One schedule would have had the Browns opening the season two weeks earlier than the rest of the league, and playing the teams that were training in the West (Philadelphia and Chicago)... The second schedule would have required all clubs to make three trips to California. The third would have required three trips to the coast, and four trips to all cities east of the Mississippi."

The Sporting News link is definitely worth a full read... (It only shows the first page of the article, though. I wonder if the rest of the article can be read somewhere...)

The only thing that puzzles me about the schedule is why the first option wouldn't have simply been two trips to L.A. for all other teams, or at least the eastern-most teams: One a 5-game swing and the other a 6-gamer. That would seem to have been the least-expensive and most time-efficient way to get the 11 road games in. (And I believe around this time 5 and 6-game series' were common in the PCL.)

[joefromchicago]

Outstanding stuff! Thanks!