History of Baseball in The United States - The Major Leagues Move West

The Major Leagues Move West

Further information: Major League Baseball relocation of 1950s-1960s

Baseball had been in the West for almost as long as the National League and the American League had been around. It evolved into the Pacific Coast League, which included the Hollywood Stars, Los Angeles Angels, Oakland Oaks, Portland Beavers, Sacramento Solons, San Francisco Seals, San Diego Padres, Seattle Rainiers.

The PCL was huge in the West. A member of the National Association of Professional Baseball Leagues, it kept losing great players to the National and the American leagues for less than $8,000 a player.

The PCL was far more independent than the other "minor" leagues, and rebelled continuously against their Eastern masters. Clarence Pants Rowland, the President of the PCL, took on baseball commissioners Kenesaw Mountain Landis and Happy Chandler at first to get better equity from the major leagues, then to form a third major league. His efforts were rebuffed by both commissioners. Chandler and several of the owners, who saw the value of the markets in the West, started to plot the extermination of the PCL. They had one thing that Rowland did not: The financial power of the Eastern major league baseball establishment.

No one was going to back a PCL club building a major-league size stadium if the National or the American League was going to build one too, and potentially put the investment in the PCL ballpark into jeopardy.

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