The History of the NABL 

Ch. 2

Following the end of World War II, attendance at major league and minor league ballparks exploded. The tremendous upswing at the gate across the Pacific Coast League prompted League President, Clarence ‘Pants’ Rowland, to petition the American and National Leagues to recognize the Coast League as a 3^rd major league. At the time the main thrust of this request was to permit the PCL, already the most independent of all minor leagues (only L.A. was owned by a major league club) to be free from the major league draft and to be able to option Coast League players to the other AAA circuits without losing title to them. At the December, 1945 Winter Meetings Rowland formally asked the American and National leagues to grant them ‘major-league’ status, but major league owners denied the request, although they did promise to reconsider the proposal in the future. Rowland responded to the denial, “the men who control major league baseball are merely postponing the inevitable. Millions of baseball-minded people in the States of California, Washington, and Oregon want better than minor league baseball.”

Officials in the Pacific Coast League continued to refine the idea, shaping a plan for a 5-year period as an independent circuit, during which time PCL stadiums would be expanded to major league standards. After the 5 years, the officials felt the PCL should be recognized as a 3^rd major league.

PCL president, Clarence ‘Pants’ Rowland, continued to present his case of the PCL becoming a 3^rd major league each year at the winter meetings through the late 1940’s. In 1947 alone, the combined attendance from just 2 PCL franchises, Los Angeles and Hollywood, exceeded 1,100,000 and Rowland felt the numbers were ample evidence to further support his case.

One of the leading advocates for the PCL’s 5-year plan was wealthy San Francisco owner, Paul I. Fagan. Fagan went to great expense to transform Seals stadium up to major league standards. He set the Seals minimum salary to $5,000, which was the major league minimum at the time, and paid his stars and managers more than they could possibly earn in the majors. The Seals clubhouse was sumptuously outfitted, hotels and restaurants were 1^st class on road trips, the team took spring training in Hawaii, and the Seals became the first minor league team to travel regularly by plane. Fagan urged fellow PCL owners to follow his example, but most men lacked his wealth and other clubs were unable to maintain Major League standards and San Francisco’s independence. These factors in the future would prove fatal to the attempt for the PCL to become a 3^rd major league.

Fagan was one of the most vocal owners in the PCL and usually embroiled in controversy. He probably created a slew of enemies from the ranks of major league ownership when he criticized baseball’s reserve clause that tied players to one team until they were traded or released and characterized it as both ‘illegal’ and ‘un-American’.

Despite dropping attendance across the league, San Francisco owner, Paul Fagan, frustrated that his efforts to elevate the PCL to major league status had been virtually ignored by big league executives, warned that the circuit might pull out of Organized Baseball and operate independently. Other representatives of the league also reiterated the threat.

The Major Leagues felt especially vulnerable at this time because Congressional hearings were being held on baseball’s exemption from anti-trust laws and the situation involving the PCL was receiving special focus. Major League owners dispatched Commissioner Happy Chandler to meet with Fagan and the PCL officials to reassure them that the Major Leagues would address the concerns of the Coast League. Hoping to mollify the PCL, the Major Leagues announced that they were conferring a new ‘AAAA’ classification, or ‘Open Classification’ on the PCL, still one step short of major league status. The PCL was the only minor league to ever attain this unique status and retained it until 1958.

When the majors reluctantly granted the PCL ‘Open Classification’ status, players drafted by the majors were accorded the option of waiving the draft and remaining with their respective PCL teams and were often rewarded for doing so. The pay could be more generous and the opportunities for stardom could be greater than that which was available in the majors, moreover, the pacific coast was home to many of its players.

The decade of the 1950s was not a good one for the PCL. The advent of television brought an end to the prosperity of the 1940s and all clubs struggled at the gate. Fans were becoming more conscious of Major League baseball and when the Braves moved from Boston to Milwaukee in 1953, it became evident that eventually a major league team would locate on the Pacific Coast.

As events were unfolding in the early 1950’s in the Pacific Coast League, establishment-ruffler, Bill Veeck was re-emerging on the Major League scene. Bill Veeck had previously owned the Cleveland Indians and had brought a World Series Championship to the city. After selling his shares in the Indians for a huge profit, in order to settle his obligations from an expensive divorce, Veeck re-emerged in 1951 to purchase the St. Louis Browns, a franchise barely on life support.

Veeck bought the Browns with the expressed purpose of driving the Cardinals out of St. Louis. Veeck attempted to annoy Cardinal’s owner, Fred Saigh, by hiring former Cardinals’ stars, Rogers Hornsby and Marty Marion as managers, as well as Dizzy Dean as an announcer. He also decorated Sportsman’s Park with Browns memorabilia. Veeck continued to pull out all the stops in an effort to raise the attendance for the Browns. One of his next moves was to sign the great Negro League pitcher, Satchel Paige. However, a month into Veeck’s ownership there were no signs of improvement so Veeck decided to find a unique way to bring his team notoriety. 

On August 18^th, in the 2^nd game of a double-header against the Detroit Tigers, Veeck put in Eddie Gaedel as a pinch-hitter in the 1^st inning. Wearing uniform number 1/8, Gaedel strode to the plate at a height of 3’7”, and a weight of 65 pounds. Gaedel, a midget signed by Veeck to draw press attention to his team, was snuck on the roster without anyone noticing. When the Tigers protested on the field, Browns manager, Zack Taylor, furnished to the umpires a valid contact with a proper date stamp. Tiger pitcher Bob Cain was unable to find the strike zone and Gaedel walked on 4 pitches. Gaedel was then lifted for a pinch runner and the game resumed as normal.

5 days later Veeck introduced “Grandstand Manager’s Day”. With himself, former Philadelphia A’s manager, Connie Mack, and thousands of fans holding placards that said yes on one side and no on the other, publicity director, Bob Fischel held up cards with proposed moves- steal, bunt, change pitchers, - to which the grandstand managers flashed their opinions. While manager, Zack Taylor puffed a pipe and relaxed in a rocking chair, the fans called an excellent game. The Browns won 5-3 to stop a 4-game losing streak.

The beginnings of the end for the Browns began after the 1952 season with a Veeck suggestion that American League clubs share radio and television revenue with visiting clubs. Voted down 7-1, he refused to allow broadcasts of games when the Browns were on the road. The rest of the league retaliated by eliminating lucrative Friday night games in St. Louis.

Although Veeck was able to double the Browns attendance in 1952 to over 500,000 he was still losing money. By the time beer magnate, August A. Busch purchased the Cardinals in February of 1953; Veeck was already trying to move the Browns to Los Angeles, Milwaukee, Baltimore, or Florida.

Veeck’s first attempt to move the team, to Los Angeles, was met with disapproval from the other owners. Since there was no other American League team playing on the West Coast, travel costs would have been too high for the other teams to bear. In addition, the owners hated Veeck so much that they went out of their way to try and drive him out of baseball, by bankruptcy if necessary.

Since a transfer to Los Angeles was denied him, Bill Veeck came up with another plan, despite the opposition of his 3 partners. By a March, 1953 league meeting, Veeck expected to secure approval for a move to Baltimore. He sold Sportsman’s Park to Busch for $800,000, with an additional $300,000 payment if Veeck moved the Browns out of town. He hoped to raise additional monies by selling shares to the public in Baltimore. Believing he had 7 votes lined up, he put it to the league. He lost 5-3.

The owners offered up reasons for their refusal; too many debts, not enough money, too little time before the season was to open. They claimed Veeck had failed to confer with the president of the International League over the Baltimore territory and had not contacted Washington and Philadelphia officials personally. Veeck railed, “I am the victim of duplicity by a lot of lying so and sos. Every reason they give for voting me down is either silly or malicious and I prefer to think they were malicious.”

The rejection, spearheaded by Washington owner, Clark Griffith, was designed to force Veeck out of the American League. Bill Veeck finally won approval from the league to allow the Browns to move to Baltimore after the 1953 season but only on the condition that he sell the team. With no viable options left Bill Veeck agreed to sell his 80% ownership stake in the Browns.

As all of this was taking place, the National League was weighing the offer by the Boston Braves to move to Milwaukee. One day after Bill Veeck sold his interest in the Browns, the Boston Braves became the Milwaukee Braves, resulting in the 1^st franchise shift since 1903.

The fans in Milwaukee greeted their new team by setting a National League attendance record of 1,826,397. This was a spectacular demonstration of the possibilities of transferring a Major League franchise into a new area and many Major League owners re-examined the possibilities of potential moves.

The final nail in the inevitable coffin for the PCL’s Major League aspirations occurred during the early stages of 1957. Brooklyn Dodgers owner, Walter O’Malley, long dissatisfied with the seating and parking limitations of Ebbets Field, found it impossible to persuade Brooklyn officials to build a suitable stadium. In February, 1957,

he purchased Wrigley Field and the Angels franchise from the Cubs for $3,000,000. Although O’Malley reassured PCL directors that the Angels would continue as a part of the Coast League, it was obvious that a Dodgers move to the West Coast now could be readily accomplished and L.A. officials enthusiastically began to make plans to build a major league stadium.

At the same time, Horace Stoneham of the N.Y. Giants, dissatisfied with the Polo Grounds, had begun the maneuvers that would bring his National League club to San Francisco, where voters had approved a $5,000,000 stadium bond back in 1954.

On May 28, 1957, the National League granted permission to both the Dodgers and the Giants to move from New York.

By the fall of 1957, it was certain that the Dodgers and Giants would be in Los Angeles and San Francisco by 1958. The impact on the PCL would be profound. Los Angeles and San Francisco had always been the key cities of the Coast League. Now a major regrouping would have to occur. On December 2, 1957, PCL directors re-arranged the league. The Dodgers would move the Angels franchise to Spokane and the Giants would place the Seals franchise in Phoenix. Longtime Hollywood President, Bob Cobb, bowed to the inevitable and reluctantly sold the Stars to Salt Lake City interests.

By 1958, when Los Angeles and San Francisco acquired National League teams, the fundamental structure of the Pacific Coast league was destroyed and all the hopes and dreams of attaining Major League status were buried. The league dropped back to ‘AAA’ classification and reduced the schedule to the standard 154 games. PCL purists insist that the history of the ‘real’ Coast League ended in 1957.

The PCL could have evolved into a 3^rd league, but the opposition from the established Major League owners, who saw the potential for expansion or relocation to the West Coast long before the Dodgers or Giants moved there, was too great to overcome.