First, in 1941 MLB owners reconsidered plans that had them moving the St. Louis Browns to Los Angeles. Since that didn't happen it took until 1958 when the Dodgers moved there. Had the Browns moved to L.A., where would the Dodgers have gone - Dallas, Houston, Colorado, Kansas City, San Diego, Seattle?
In 1980 the first big trade of the winter meetings was a good one. Rollie Fingers and Terry Kennedy were the headliners of an 11-player trade. Fingers and Gene Tenace were the main players heading to the Cardinals. Terry Kennedy and Steve Swisher were the main guys sent to San Diego. I add Swisher as a main player in the deal because he was one of my favorite Cubs.
Wait, I don't have any recollection of Rollie Fingers being a Cardinal. A quick check of baseballreference.com (baseballreference.com) confirms what I suspected - Fingers was traded by the Cardinals four days later. In a future post maybe I can see if there are other Hall of Famers who were traded before playing for the team that traded them.
This trade certainly doesn't look good for St. Louis. They sent Fingers, Ted Simmons and Pete Vuckovich to the Brewers for David Green, Dave LaPoint, Sixto Lezcano and Lary Sorenson.
The Brewers received the 1981 AL MVP and Cy Young Award Winner (Fingers) and the 1982 AL Cy Young Award winner (Vuckovich).
Another obstacle teams who thought of moving to L.A. during the 1940s would have faced was P.K. Wrigley, owner of the Cubs. He also owned the L.A. Angels who were in the PCL. He could block any moves to L.A. by MLB teams.
ReplyDeletehttp://articles.latimes.com/1987-06-20/sports/sp-8357_1_browns
Daniel
Daniel
Wrigley sold the Angels to Walter O'Malley in 1957. O'Malley was given the rights to operate a MLB teamn in Los Angeles. The move to L.A. could now happen for the Dodgers.
ReplyDelete1957 was the last season for the Angels in Los Angeles. The team was relocated to Spokane, Washington.