Luring The Senators To Minnesota: Expanding Met Stadium, 1958

Build it and they will come. But move the cows and corn fields first!

60 years ago yesterday, on September 2, 1958, this news hit the print and airwaves in Minnesota and the nation:

"Minneapolis, MN approves a $9 million bond issue to expand Metropolitan Stadium to 41,000 seats. City alderman Byron Nelson predicts it is a "dead cinch" that Washington will move there."

THOU SHALT NOT PISS OFF THE BASBALL LORDS 

It amounted to even more enticement: the refurbishing of the eventual new home for the Washington Senators and their owner Calvin Griffith. He had perhaps the worst kept secret in sports, as he had been courting suitors from other, major U.S. cities since the mid-Fifties to back the transplanting of his team. Declining attendance, poor, antiquated ballpark amenities, and a "loser" malaise had dogged the club for years. Now, Minneapolis was definitely in the lead, but huge hurdles loomed in the form of federal anti-trust congressional opposition, flack from his own team's stockholders,* plus another challenge errupting from within his fraternity of MLB owners. Just to name a few.
* all linked news items are from 1958 Sporting News editions

  

Tom Yawkey, the Red Sox team owner, had just moved his AAA affiliate to Bloomington and Metropolitan Stadium in 1958. Then, less than four months into the season, he ripped into Griffith during the Owners All-Star Game Meeting of 1958 in response to the behind-the-scenes maneuverings. Yawkey also had huge clout to stall any team movements with his status as a member of the Owner's realignment committee. Calvin Griffith was being diplomatic in one moment, stating no move was imminent, and then totally contradicting himself in the next. But that was Calvin merely being Calvin.


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Besides Yawkey's financial self-interest in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area, Griffith was bucking tradition - Washington had been a charter member of the American League since 1901, and as such, it was inextricably linked with a kind of warm Americana. Presidents had thrown out the first pitch at inaugural ballgames dating back to William Howard Taft in 1910. Baseball fans and the sports media, even in Minnesota, respected that tradition, and thus a built-in sentiment against team relocation was firmly in place.

THE ART OF THE DEAL

Minneapolis was following the "bait & catch" model used by the San Francisco & Los Angeles city councils to attract Major League teams, namely the New York baseball Giants and Brooklyn Dodgers, back in the mid-fifties. That was to guarantee lucrative deals including new stadiums, parking, and other revenues. Now, looking back at those transactions from the vantage point of 60-plus years, we tend to think that the relocation of those clubs, including the Twins from D.C., was preordained destiny. But overall, a goal of this post is make plain the idea that it was anything but that. Lady Luck would prove to be on Grifith and the Twins's side!

"So long, everybody!" - Herb Carneal

Two pages from September 3, 1958 Sporting News
Hint: you can zoom