An alternate MLB history

[WestwayKid]

Humor me, my fellow MLB fans, as I create an alternate MLB franchise history. It's cold outside and I've been in my head too much as of late, so I'm looking for something fun to think about and discuss.

I'm starting my alternate history in 1957. MLB looks like this:

American League
New York Yankees
Chicago White Sox
Boston Red Sox
Detroit Tigers
Baltimore Orioles (in my alternate reality there is still no way the Browns survive in St. Louis)
Cleveland Indians
Kansas City Athletics (again, I don't see a clear path for the Athletics to have remained in Philadelphia)
Washington Senators

National League
Milwaukee Braves (for the third time, I don't really see how the Braves could have remained in Boston)
St. Louis Cardinals
Brooklyn Dodgers
Cincinnati Redlegs
Philadelphia Phillies
New York Giants
Pittsburgh Pirates
Chicago Cubs

In reality, the Giants and the Dodgers left New York following the 1957 season. I'm offering this alternate reality: Robert Moses is deposed from his position of power in NYC and Walter O'Malley gets his land deal to build a domed stadium in the Atlantic Yards section of Brooklyn. This puts the financially strapped Giants in a difficult position. They don't have the funds to build a replacement for the crumbling Polo Grounds, so they eke out a few more seasons in Upper Manhattan before agree to a move to Minneapolis. The club keeps the Giants name for the 1960 season, playing at the new Metropolitan Stadium.

The Washington Senators are another team that limps into the 1960s. In real life they moved to Minneapolis in 1961, but with the Giants already there, they instead relocate to Los Angeles, adopting the Los Angeles Angels name for 1961.

The American League then adds 2 expansion teams for the 1961 season (which they really did). The first expansion team is the San Francisco Seals (named after the area's long standing Pacific Coast League team). The second expansion team is a reborn Washington Senators. This happened, of course, in real life and I think the political pressure to keep a team in Washington would have been too much.


Here is how things would look for the 1961 season:
American League
New York Yankees (Yankee Stadium)
Chicago White Sox (Comiskey Park)
Boston Red Sox (Fenway Park)
Detroit Tigers (Tiger Stadium)
Baltimore Orioles (Memorial Stadium)
Cleveland Indians (Cleveland Stadium)
Kansas City Athletics (Municipal Stadium)
Los Angeles Angels (former Washington Senators) (Wrigley Field - LA Version)
San Francisco Seals (Seals Stadium - while Candlestick Stadium is built)
Washington Senators II (Griffith Stadium)

National League
Milwaukee Braves (County Stadium)
St. Louis Cardinals (Sportsmans Park)
Brooklyn Dodgers (Brooklyn Stadium - new domed stadium, opened in 1960)
Cincinnati Redlegs (Crosley Field)
Philadelphia Phillies (Shibe Park)
Minneapolis Giants (Metropolitan Stadium)
Pittsburgh Pirates (Forbes Field)
Chicago Cubs (Wrigley Field)

Next up, the National League will expand in 1962...

[Dr. Medulla]

This seems an elaborate way of erasing the Mets from history. Is this an insult or a comfort for weller?

[Flex]

This seems an elaborate way of erasing the Mets from history. Is this an insult or a comfort for weller?

I'm holding my applause until we see how the Yankees and dodgers get disbanded.

Addendum: and a very interesting exercise, WWK. I look forward to seeing how it goes.

[revbob]

This seems an elaborate way of erasing the Mets from history. Is this an insult or a comfort for weller?

I'm holding my applause until we see how the Yankees and dodgers get disbanded.

Addendum: and a very interesting exercise, WWK. I look forward to seeing how it goes.

Hmm this is starting to sound a lot like those southern fantasies where they successfully secede and form a separate country that keeps slavery going into the modern age. Or alternatively if you like where Nazi Germany doesnt lose in WW2.

Either way it makes sense that it comes from a Sox fan.

[Dr. Medulla]

This seems an elaborate way of erasing the Mets from history. Is this an insult or a comfort for weller?

I'm holding my applause until we see how the Yankees and dodgers get disbanded.

Addendum: and a very interesting exercise, WWK. I look forward to seeing how it goes.

The Boise Yankees are still looking for their first winning season since relocating in 1965.

[Dr. Medulla]

This seems an elaborate way of erasing the Mets from history. Is this an insult or a comfort for weller?

I'm holding my applause until we see how the Yankees and dodgers get disbanded.

Addendum: and a very interesting exercise, WWK. I look forward to seeing how it goes.

Hmm this is starting to sound a lot like those southern fantasies where they successfully secede and form a separate country that keeps slavery going into the modern age. Or alternatively if you like where Nazi Germany doesnt lose in WW2.

Either way it makes sense that it comes from a Sox fan.

When Pinky Higgins' body failed him, his brain was kept alive and in a cyborg body that continues to run the Red Sox. The team remains uncontaminated by championships and impure blood alike.

[weller259]

the Mets were born in 1962 along with the Houston Colt 45's.
Naming your team after a handgun ... or a malt liquor ....
Oh wait that's not alternative reality at all.
Never mind.

[Dr. Medulla]

the Mets were born in 1962 along with the Houston Colt 45's.
Naming your team after a handgun ... or a malt liquor ....
Oh wait that's not alternative reality at all.
Never mind.

Texas, man, Texas.

[WestwayKid]

More to come. I'm figuring out how to play Out of the Park Baseball so I can run simulations on my fictional seasons.

[tepista]

Walter O'Malley gets his land deal to build a domed stadium in the Atlantic Yards section of Brooklyn.

an thousands of Mexicans don't get dragged from their homes in Chazez Revine kicking and screaming.

[Dr. Medulla]

Walter O'Malley gets his land deal to build a domed stadium in the Atlantic Yards section of Brooklyn.

an thousands of Mexicans don't get dragged from their homes in Chazez Revine kicking and screaming.

They also got Fernandomania, so you're welcome.

[tepista]

Walter O'Malley gets his land deal to build a domed stadium in the Atlantic Yards section of Brooklyn.

an thousands of Mexicans don't get dragged from their homes in Chazez Revine kicking and screaming.

They also got Fernandomania, so you're welcome.

[WestwayKid]

I pulled out Out of the Park Baseball, which is the most detailed baseball simulator around. The level of detail is headache inducing. You can literally set concession stand prices at your Single A affiliate if you want that level of control. I'm going to use it to simulate my alternate MLB history. I'm going to let the computer figure out how everything goes: games, transactions, and so on. I'm going to control the structure of the league: when do teams move, when do the leagues expand, when do new ballparks open. The ballpark factor is huge. The parks are rendered in great detail in the sim so there will be a difference in how games play out. For instance, if I keep the Dodgers in Ebbets for 1958 instead of the LA Coliseum, it likely will impact the Dodgers' season.

The point where my timeline will diverge from reality is when Walter O'Malley decides to stay in Brooklyn. O'Malley had been shopping for a replacement for the aging Ebbets Field for a while. It was too small, too old, and there wasn't enough parking. O'Malley had his eyes on a parcel of land in the Prospect Heights section of Brooklyn called Atlantic Yards. The site was a crumbling former railroad yard. O'Malley would privately fund the new stadium, but was asking for a deal on the land. His proposal was that New York City would seize the land using eminent domain and then sell to him at a reduced rate. City Parks Commissioner Robert Moses vetoed the idea, however. On one hand, he already had his own plans for the site: a large parking garage. On the other hand, he already had a plot of land earmarked for a new stadium. That site was in Flushing, Queens (the eventual site of Shea Stadium). Moses wanted to build a stadium that would house not only the Dodgers, but the Giants and Yankees, as well. O'Malley and Moses went back and forth for months, but when it became clear that he wasn't going to get the land in Brooklyn, O'Malley took a deal to move the club to Los Angeles.

In my alternate reality, Moses is unable (or unwilling) to block O'Malley's move and O'Malley is able to acquire the Atlantic Yards land. He begins work on a domed stadium that will open for the 1960 season, ensuring that the Dodgers will remain a Brooklyn fixture for decades to come.

Meanwhile, everything is not okay in Upper Manhattan where the Sick Man of the National League Giants are struggling to remain in operation. Giants owner Horace Stoneham is facing an entirely different reality than Walter O'Malley. The Giants are not winning on the field. The Polo Grounds is falling apart and Stoneham doesn't have the money to renovate the park. In fact, Stoneham is perpetually short of cash. His only hope is the new stadium being proposed by Robert Moses in Queens, but when that falls apart, Stoneham is faced with an uncertain future. It's at this point that he's approached by officials from Minneapolis/St. Paul. They have just built a new stadium (Metropolitan Stadium) and they're looking for a major league tenant. The Giants' top farm club already calls the Twin Cities home, so the Giants already have the rights to field a major league team in the area. A deal is signed and the Giants will relocated to the Twin Cities as the Minnesota Giants for the 1959 season.

This means that Los Angeles doesn't get major league baseball in 1958. They will have to wait, though likely not long, as the American League is already eyeing expansion.

The Polo Grounds will linger on for a few more seasons (just as in real life). New York City agrees to build a football only stadium in Flushing Meadows for the New York Football Giants. They will continue to play at Yankee Stadium until the new stadium is built. New York will also get an AFL franchise (yes, the Jets will exists in my alternate history) and just like in real life, they will play at the ancient Polo Grounds until the new stadium is built.

[Dr. Medulla]

The perhaps complicating element in this story is how much MLB wanted to exploit the west coast market. O'Malley and Stoneham may indeed have wanted to leave (or felt they had to given conditions in the city), but how much did MLB encourage the idea? Which is to say, does MLB let Stoneham go to Minnesota when the west coast is just waiting there? The postwar period is when California is regarded as the future, a place for freedom and getting rich and all that horseshit. So my curiosity is the input of the league w/r/t relocation.

edit: Sorry, it was rude of me not to express how impressed I am with your work on this alternate timeline. I sometimes offer students a time machine question where they get to change some aspect of history and explain the results. It's fun but it's meant to see how they treat the mechanics of historical development. What you did above is superb stuff.

[WestwayKid]

The perhaps complicating element in this story is how much MLB wanted to exploit the west coast market. O'Malley and Stoneham may indeed have wanted to leave (or felt they had to given conditions in the city), but how much did MLB encourage the idea? Which is to say, does MLB let Stoneham go to Minnesota when the west coast is just waiting there? The postwar period is when California is regarded as the future, a place for freedom and getting rich and all that horseshit. So my curiosity is the input of the league w/r/t relocation.

edit: Sorry, it was rude of me not to express how impressed I am with your work on this alternate timeline. I sometimes offer students a time machine question where they get to change some aspect of history and explain the results. It's fun but it's meant to see how they treat the mechanics of historical development. What you did above is superb stuff.

Good question. The Pacific Coast League was granted open status in 1952. This meant that they were a step above a minor league, while not quite at the major league level, but it gave them rights regarding players that other minor leagues did not have. I've read that MLB did this to feel out the prospect of elevating the PCL as a third major league to tap into the West Coast market. The timing was off, however, as the rise of nationally televised major league games ate into minor league attendance across the nation and the final bell rang for the PCL's major league aspirations when the Dodgers and Giants moved west.

The Giants were very close to moving to Minnesota before O'Malley got things moving in Los Angeles. My hunch is that they would have gone there if the Dodgers had not moved to Los Angeles. They already owned the major league rights to the market and the Twin Cities had a brand new stadium (which is something Los Angeles did not have in 1958).

Horace Stoneham had reportedly started eyeing up Minnesota as early as 1951, purchasing a large parcel of land for a the building of a future stadium and had been in active negotiations to shift the franchise, but when O'Malley signed on the dotted line to move the Dodgers it made the Giants move inevitable. The National League wouldn't approve the Dodgers shift without another team moving to the West Coast to make the travel implications worthwhile.

Los Angeles would have gotten a team sooner than later. I have an idea how this would have happened. Stay tuned ...