There are some good ones today. Like Lou Gehrig's first major league home run in 1923 and Phil Niekro's last major league appearance. But, today's highlighted entry is about the end of a franchise.
1953
The St. Louis Browns play both their last game in Sportsman's Park and the last game in the franchise's 52-year history. Fittingly, they lose 2-1 to Billy Pierce and the Chicago White Sox in 10 innings for their 100th defeat of the season. Reserve 1B Ed Mickelson drives in Johnny Groth in the 4th inning for the last run of the Browns franchise.
Ah, the Browns. The team that became the Baltimore Orioles. The team that gave us Eddie Gaedel, Pete Gray, and gave the Yankees countless AL Pennants.
Here are a few tidbits from the BaseballLibrary.com entry about the Browns.
The old expression about the St. Louis Browns was, "First in shoes, first in booze, and last in the American League." In their 52-year history, the Browns finished in the cellar 14 times, and seventh 12 times. They made only a dozen appearances in the first division. Once, in 1944, they treated their fans to a pennant.
After the 1901 season, the Milwaukee Brewers, charter members of the American League, moved to St. Louis and became the Browns.
The 1922 Browns excited their owner by almost beating the Yankees to a pennant. The club was boasting the best players in franchise history, including future Hall of Famer George Sisler, and an outfield trio - Ken Williams, Baby Doll Jacobson, and Jack Tobin - that batted .300 or better in 1919-23 and in 1925. [Owner Phillip] Ball confidently predicted that there would be a World Series in Sportsman's Park by 1926. In anticipation, he increased the capacity of his ballpark from 18,000 to 30,000. There was a World Series in Sportsman's Park in 1926 - with the Cardinals upsetting the Yankees. St. Louis had been considered a "Browns' town" until then.
If the Cardinals blow the NL Central this year, it could be a Browns' town again.
SportsEncyclopedia.com has a nice entry on the Browns broken down year-by-year. I found the 1952 section very interesting:
With the Browns still struggling, Bill Veeck attempts to move the team to Los Angeles. However, since no other American League team played on the west coast travel would have been too much for the other teams to handle. In addition owners hated Veeck so any decision made buy allowing him to move his team had a tinge of spite to it, as the Browns finished in 7th Place with a 64-90 record.
If the owners liked Veeck, there would have been an LA Browns? Also at SportsEncyclopedia.com is this about how the final move to Baltimore happened.
This time AL Owners could not use the excuse of excessive travel to reject the move. Instead owners flat out demanded the only way the move be allowed is for Veeck to sell his interest in the team. Veeck relented and the team was sold.
Boy, they really didn't like Bill Veeck.
Maybe it was the change of the logo from this:
To this:
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