MLB 2022: The Long and Winding Thread

Giants-Twins.

 

Rays-Padres feels like it should never happen.

 

Ironically, the only reason the Twins even exist is because the Giants changed their minds about moving to MSP, their original destination, and went to SFO instead.

 

If the Giants went to Minneapolis where would the Senators have ended up? San Francisco would have been an option with AL expansion to Los Angeles.

 

Wherever the original Senators ended up, I think the AL would have been obligated to put another team in DC. MLB was quite worried about losing its anti-trust exemption in the early 1960s, when there was heat on them to end the foot-dragging on expansion.

 

A fun one is suppose the St. Louis Browns were allowed to move to L.A. on December 8, 1941.

The AL owners were all set to approve it.

 

Yes who knows how that one would have impacted the future. Maybe O'Malley would have gone to SF.

Had the AL approved the sale of the A's to a local, well-heeled group in Philadelphia in 1954, they would have stayed and I think the Phillies would have been headed elsewhere before too much longer.

 

I believe we've discussed it here before. Somewhere there a great article laying out all the potential scenarios if Pearl Harbor didn't happen and the Browns moved to LA.

 

Found it St. Louis Browns almost move to L.A. in 1941 | MLB.com

Supposes the NL LA Angels, the Dallas Dodgers and Atlanta Senators.

 

The season Kyle Schwarber is having is truly strange.

He entered today at .212. He has 34 home runs.

He hit home runs at a 72-HR pace in June. And he hit home runs at a 64-HR pace in July.

And he's been batting leadoff all year.

 

Not sure Atlanta was ready for MLB in 1961. But Calvin Griffith would have felt at home there, that's for sure.

 

Around the same time, legend has it, the Cubs were going to install lights at Wrigley Field.

The Giants' top farm was in Minneapolis for years, of course. The Giants' series at Target Field is their first trip there since interleague play began, a trip in 2020 being wiped out during the covid season.