The Houston Cardinals?

[Bill_McCurdy]

Believe it or not, it could have happened. Back in 1953, the St. Louis Cardinals were really struggling under the weight of owner Fred Saigh's conviction for federal income tax evasion and 3rd-year St. Louis Browns owner Bill Veeck was also under the gun to either defeat the Cardinals at the gate, once and for all, or to abandon the Browns to relocation. Veeck already had made one failed attempt to move the Browns to Milwuakee for the 1953 season, but other club owners blocked him. Boston Braves owner Lou Perrini, who already owned the minor league territorial rights to Milwaukee, quickly jumped into the moveable feast or famine act and hustled his own club to the Wisconsin city just prior to the '53 season. Milwaukee would no longer be a possible solution to the St. Louis baseball blues.

Before August Busch stepped in and decided almost all issues pertaining to the future of baseball in St. Louis by purchasing the Cardinals from Fred Saigh and Sportsman's Park from the Browns, a teaser story spread that the Cardinals might be moving to Houston, where they owned the minor league territorial rights vis-à-vis their ownership of the Houston Buffaloes, or Buffs, of the AA Texas League. The story was all over the Houston papers, as I recall, where this avid 14-year old reader gobbled it up as the news harbinger of major league baseball coming to his hometown.

I can't tell you how disappointed I was when the Cardinals’ sale to August Busch was announced. As happy as it made St. Louisans, the sadder it made a lot of us in Houston.. My resolution as a Browns fan over the Cardinals was only reenforced as another result.

Interestingly, it had been my local Buffs' growing ability to outdraw the St. Louis Browns that had significantly and seriously tilted Fred Saigh's thoughts to either moving the club to Houston, or to selling out to Houston investors.

Fred Saigh may have been dishonest, but he wasn’t dumb. Houston's growth rate and it's post World War II support of minor league baseball already had only pointed out that the day was coming soon when Houston would have its own big league club. It simply had to wait another nine years for the expansion club Houston Colt .45's to put our southeast Texas city on the major league map.

I did a little across-the-top study this afternoon of how the Texas League based, Cardinals-owned Houston Buffs' season attendance compared to that of the St. Louis Browns from 1928 through 1953. I started with 1928 because that was the year that the Cardinals built and opened beautiful Buffalo (Buff) Stadium in Houston. Cardinal GM Branch Rickey even brought Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis with him to Houston to be on hand for Buff Stadium's opening on April 11, 1928. - Judge Landis anointed the new 11,000 seating capacity Buffalo Stadium to the press as the finest minor league ballpark in America.

From 1928 through 1953, the Buffs played in Houston in a minor league ballpark with less than half the seating capacity available to the Browns in St. Louis at venerable Sportsman's Park. Since the Texas League shut down for three years during World War II (1943-45), comparative attendance figures are available for only 23 of those 26 seasons.

The major league Browns outdrew the minor league Buffs in only 15 of those seasons. The Buffs outdrew the Browns in 8 seasons, garnering their first attendance victory in 1930. In the eight seasons (1946-53) of post WWII baseball played prior to the departure of the Browns for Baltimore, the Buffs and Browns split 4-4 as season attendance leaders.

The followng is a chart of attendance per season for both clubs from 1928-53, with the season leader in each of the 23 competitive years indicated by bold type:

Year: Houston Buffs / St. Louis Browns
1928: 186,469 / 339,497
1929: 110,015 / 280,697
1930: 166,993 / 152,088

1931: 229,540 / 179,126
1932: 112,341 / 112,558
1933: 96,675 / 88,113

1934: 61,180 / 115,305
1935: 66,295 / 80,922
1936: 75,057 / 93,267

1937: 77,801 / 123,121
1938: 98,889 / 130,417
1939: 125,364 / 109,159

1940: 90,872 / 239,591
1941: 60,800 / 176,240
1942: 52,692 / 255,617

1943: Did Not Play. / 214,392
1944: Did Not Play. / 508,644
1945: Did Not Play. / 482,986

1946: 161,421 / 526,435
1947: 382,275 / 320,474
1948: 401,383 / 335,564

1949: 263,965 / 270,936
1950: 255,809 / 247,131
1951: 333,201 / 293,790

1952: 195,246 / 518,796
1953: 203,543 / 297,238

Attendance figures were taken from those made available in "The Encyclopedia of Minor League Baseball, 2nd Edition, Edited by Lloyd Johnson & Miles Wolff, Published by Baseball Merica, Inc., Durham, NC (1997).

[soberdennis]

Right after WW1, John Robison wanted to move the Cards to -Baltimore:laugh :) :rolleyes:

[ACrank]

Fascinating stuff (thats why i love this board) - but didnt Veeck also try and move the Browns to Los Angeles?

[Bill_McCurdy]

Fascinating stuff (thats why i love this board) - but didnt Veeck also try and move the Browns to Los Angeles?

By the time Veeck arrived on the scene as owner of the Browns in 1951, all serious attempts to move the Browns to LA had ceased, although I understand that the idea was not totally abandoned by previous ownership until sometime in 1949 due to a variety of legal and economic obstacles. Veeck's alleged goal was to capture the St. Louis market from the Cardinals or, failing that, to move the club. Denied his first choice of Milwaukee by the Boston Braves' owner Lou Perini, who owned and used his territorial rights to the Wisconsin city in 1953 to move the Braves there, Veeck's eyes turned to Baltimore, but that plan was thwarted by the other club owners, who had grown to despise Veeck because of his uncoventional showmanship. The transfer of the Browns to Baltimore was only approved when Bill Veeck agreed to sell his interests to a syndicate of buyers from the Maryland city. There were some who believed all along that Veeck's intention from the start was to buy the Browns and move them elsewhere, asap. My belief (with no proof) is that Bill Veeck came to St. Louis knowing that capturing the market from the Cardinals would be a tough proposition, but also believing in his ability to pull it off, if anyone could.

What Bill Veeck hadn't counted on in 1951 was August Busch buying the Cardinals in 1953 - and MLB owners then forcing him to sell his interests before the Browns would be allowed to relocate. In the end, Veeck had no realistic alternative, but to sell his interests in the franchise.

[BaseballHistorian]

My belief (with no proof) is that Bill Veeck came to St. Louis knowing that capturing the market from the Cardinals would be a tough proposition, but also believing in his ability to pull it off, if anyone could.

What Bill Veeck hadn't counted on in 1951 was August Busch buying the Cardinals in 1953 - and MLB owners then forcing him to sell his interests before the Browns would be allowed to relocate. In the end, Veeck had no realistic alternative, but to sell his interests in the franchise.

I also tend to believe this is the case.

I think the 1953 A-B/Cardinals union was what made an end of Veeck's dreams of conquest. He certainly indicated as much in his autobiography.

While he perceived Fred Saigh to be something of a "patsy" who could be trapped and overcome by superior showmanship, Busch had the brewery's financial clout at his disposal. That "foamy bankroll" was not something Veeck could ever hope to overcome, especially while being on the outs with other AL owners over his various shenanigans and the television issue.

[Dave]

I was told that in the '20's or '30's, apparently due to lack of support in Detroit, the Tigers were interested in moving to Houston.

[Brownie31]

Fascinating stuff (thats why i love this board) - but didnt Veeck also try and move the Browns to Los Angeles?

It was a previous Browns owner, Donald Barnes, who wanted to
move the team to Los Angeles in 1941. Pearl Harbor killed that
idea.

Brownie31