There has been a lot of talk about the shadiness of the Oakland A’s move to Las Vegas and rightfully so. But if you take a step back and look at the big picture of MLB team relocations, a major trend is evident. Namely, they are a stupid waste of time.
Not because they involve greedy owners taking away franchises people love. Sure, that sucks. However, something even more ridiculous emerges when you look at MLB team relocations since 1950. Baseball almost always ends up returning to the single-team markets it vacates.
Time and time again, MLB has let an owner walk away from a city only to turn up there again down the road, usually to avoid political battles. Every scenario is slightly different, but the trend is very real.
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New York City
Brooklyn Dodgers / New York Giants (1957) – New York Mets (1962)
New York City went from having three teams to just the Yankees with one proverbial swing of the bat when both of the Big Apple’s National League clubs headed west. The Mets took the Dodgers and Giants colors (blue and orange) and joined the NL less than a decade later giving the market two franchises.
Washington D.C.
Washington Senators (1960) – Washington Senators (1961)
Washington Senators (1971) – Washington Nationals (2005)
Washington D.C. has been given more chances to make professional baseball work than any other city in the world. Twice they lost their team, first to Minnesota and then to Texas. The District then poached the beloved Montreal Expos in 2004; more on them later.
Politicians drove the 1961 MLB expansion in Washington D.C. with several threatening to pull the league’s anti-trust exemption, something that we are hearing rumblings about with the Oakland A’s current move to Las Vegas.
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Milwaukee
Milwaukee Braves (1965) – Milwaukee Brewers (1970)
After escaping the shadow of the Red Sox in Boston, the Braves spent a little more than a decade in Milwaukee. They played in the brand-new Milwaukee County Stadium and had some success early on. Several mediocre seasons saw attendance decline before a dodgy businessman bought the franchise. He then promptly moved it to Atlanta which had an even newer stadium.
Milwaukee would not be without baseball for long as some prick named Bug Selig purchased the Seattle Pilots out of bankruptcy and moved them to the city.
Kansas City
Kansas City A’s (1967) – Kansas City Royals (1969)
There were always rumors that the A’s move from Philadelphia to Kansas City was a pit stop before heading to the west coast. Before that could happen, the Dodgers and Giants beat them to the punch and stole California’s two biggest markets.
Then Charlie Finley purchased the franchise and all hell broke loose. Eventually, he would move the A’s to Oakland despite the fact that Kansas City agreed to build the team a new stadium. Politicians got involved and demanded KC be granted an expansion franchise shortly thereafter. The entire ordeal was baseball ownership at its worst.
It also highlights just how utterly pointless MLB team relocations are. Just keep the original franchise in the city it’s already located in and then expand to a new market. If the owner really wants to move, they can sell the team and bid on the new one.
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Seattle
Seattle Pilots (1969) – Seattle Mariners (1977)
Seattle ended up getting screwed by all the drama in Kansas City. Originally, expansion teams in the Emerald City and KC were slated to begin play in 1971. That wasn’t good enough for politicians in Missouri who demanded entrance in 1969.
Unfortunately, the city didn’t have a stadium ready at that time and the Pilots’ season was a total disaster. Seattle would move to Milwaukee after one season, replacing another team that had relocated. Meanwhile, politicians in the state of Washington would sue to crap out of Major League Baseball who would grant them another expansion franchise in exchange for dropping the lawsuit.
Montreal (2004)
The only single-team market that hasn’t seen its club replaced is Montreal. The Tampa Bay Rays have already kicked the tires on a possible arrangement. The one thing working against the Canadian city is that it happens to be north of the border. With no politicians to threaten and cajole MLB, the league hasn’t dealt with any credible threats.
Who knows if the Montreal Expos will return? It would certainly be awesome to see but doesn’t seem to be on the cards.
Other MLB team relocations
The only other teams to have relocated and not be replaced are the second clubs in Boston, St. Louis and Philadelphia. While these clubs all had fans, they were also riddled with other issues and in cities that didn’t need two franchises.
Beyond that, the takeaway here is that MLB team relocations are a waste of time. At least if the ballclub is located in America. Both cities historically find themselves with teams anyway. The real question ends up being this:
Is it better to have an expansion team or an existing franchise coming in with a ton of baggage?
If you are Las Vegas, and the timeline for a new stadium is still years away, do you really want John Fisher when it’s just as likely that you’ll get your own expansion club and local ownership? And, at this point, if you’re Oakland, let the loser leave, keep the branding and history and pile on the political pressure. It worked on every other occasion an MLB side has relocated.
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