Rays owner reported to be in talks that would move team to Montreal

[tomterp]

I wonder what Phil Wood would do if I sent him that Calvin Griffith statue outside of Target Field.

 

[Ali the Baseball Cat]

Right they might go spend their entertainment dollars on something else, and go join the 6 TB Lightning fans.

Gotta save face in front of their six fans.  Wouldn't want to alienate them.

[JCA-CrystalCity]

Right they might go spend their entertainment dollars on something else, and go join the 6 TB Lightning fans.

or perhaps go to the Golden Corral for the early bird.

[OldChelsea]

Welch - I do have to wonder if this "not a baseball town" stuff has more to do with the Allen team becoming good at a time when there was nothing else.  No Caps, the Bullets were in Baltimore, I don't think the Diplomats existed even.[...]

Diplomats v1.0 arrived in 1974 and stayed through 1980 when parent MSG wound them up; a Diplomats v2.0 (formerly Detroit Express) stayed here one season (1981) before folding. Before that there were the Whips (1968) and the Darts (1970-71); after the Dips came the unsuccessful Team America experiment (1983).

[welch]

Welch - I do have to wonder if this "not a baseball town" stuff has more to do with the Allen team becoming good at a time when there was nothing else.  No Caps, the Bullets were in Baltimore, I don't think the Diplomats existed even.  They prospered in a vaccuum, then when the others came in, they started from behind.  Add in the extended down years for the Bullets after the late 70s, and the Gibbs era, I can see how the area got a rep for not supporting anything other than football.  Every other team has to fight for attention while the NFL team had it all to themselves at the right time. Obviously, the AL thought this was a good enough baseball town to put a team right back in here when the Griffiths moved out to whiter new digs, so it is really the Short and immediate post Short era that led to the whole "Washington is not a baseball town" mentality.

Agreed. George Allen promised that the 1971 Redskins would make the playoffs. That seemed fantasy, and was just one more "crazy George" story -- the mass trade with the Rams, trading other future picks for Billy Kilmer, Roy Jefferson, Verlon Biggs. The 1971 team was the NFC wild-card, even though Jurgensen was out with a broken arm and Taylor out with a broken leg. Allen had a good team, always competitive.

The other teams were new: Diplomats were a curiosity; Capitals, when they arrived, were awful for almost ten years; Bullets faded after the championship. The Redskins had loyal fans: many (my parents generation) remembered when the team arrived in 1937.

[eddiejc1]

I hate to say good things about Calvin Griffith, but I think that we Washington fans are wrong to equate Calvin Griffith and Bob Short. Racism was a factor in why Griffith moved, and also WHERE he moved, but in the end I am convinced that the number one reason Griffith moved was that he was losing money in DC and wanted to move somewhere to better provide for his family. Once the Senators became the Twins, he built up the Twin Cities into a baseball town(s). He also provided for former members of the Senators which is why some of the great players of the 20's or 30's are buried in Minnesota. He only sold the team once he stupidly made openly racist comments that turned public opinion in Minnesota against him.

Robert Short, on the other hand had as much long-term designs of baseball in Washington as he did in Dallas---none. I am convinced that his intention in buying the Senators was to move it to another city and then make a profit by selling the team at a higher price to a local bidder, because this is exactly what he did with the Minneapolis Lakers. Ironically, if Short had managed to put in the hard work and effort that subsequent owners like Jack Kent Cooke and Dr. Jerry Buss, he wouldn't have needed to buy/move/sell the Senators because he'd be making money hands over fist in La-La land. I have great respect for what SUBSEQUENT owners of the Rangers done in building up baseball interest in Dallas/Fort Worth but I have none for Short. If the American League had agreed to sell the Senators to Edward Bennett Williams instead, I'm convinced the team would never have moved and baseball history in this city would be significantly different.

[JCA-CrystalCity]

eddiejc1 - interesting. My go to guys on local baseball history are Welch first and foremost and also others like OC.  There seems to be animosity to EBW because he was behind marketing the Os as an area team.  I forget if he was the one who conceived of Camden Yards, but that was definitely built to make the Os more able to appeal to the Washington area.  I did not know he was a potential alternative owner to Short.  If you view him charitably, then maybe he figured "well, we aren't getting a team in DC, so the next best thing is to make the Os accessible to DC."  Didn't he own the NFL team at one time, too?  I'd put him in a different class of devil than Angelos in terms of hostility to local baseball.

[mitlen]

eddiejc1 - interesting. My go to guys on local baseball history are Welch first and foremost and also others like OC.  There seems to be animosity to EBW because he was behind marketing the Os as an area team.  I forget if he was the one who conceived of Camden Yards, but that was definitely built to make the Os more able to appeal to the Washington area.  I did not know he was a potential alternative owner to Short.  If you view him charitably, then maybe he figured "well, we aren't getting a team in DC, so the next best thing is to make the Os accessible to DC."  Didn't he own the NFL team at one time, too?  I'd put him in a different class of devil than Angelos in terms of hostility to local baseball.

EBW was a distant second fiddle to Cooke in the 'skins' pecking order, i.e. he had no power.    As far as his thinking "we'll, we aren't getting a team in DC, so the next best thing is to make the Os accessible to D.C."     IMHO, Williams was as big a snake as Angelos is.    Williams was always an insider and about the money.

From Wiki  ...  I guess Wiki doesn't list pro bono work:

"He represented many high profile clients, including John Hinckley, Jr., Frank Sinatra, financier Robert Vesco, Playboy publisher Hugh Hefner, spy Igor Melekh, Jimmy Hoffa, organized crime figure Frank Costello, U.S. Senator Joseph McCarthy, corporate raider Victor Posner, Michael Milken, the Washington Post newspaper and the Reverend Sun Myung Moon."

[OldChelsea]

...and that is why the name of Edward Bennett Williams MUST be taken down from the Washington Hall of Stars at Nationals Park - the man who did more than anyone except Robert Short to keep baseball out of Washington must not in any way be honoured at Washington's baseball park. As far as his involvement with the Redskins is concerned, that is now sufficiently recognised at the Skins' home ground, FedEx Field, and does not require any further recognition at Nats Park.

[welch]

I hate to say good things about Calvin Griffith, but I think that we Washington fans are wrong to equate Calvin Griffith and Bob Short. Racism was a factor in why Griffith moved, and also WHERE he moved, but in the end I am convinced that the number one reason Griffith moved was that he was losing money in DC and wanted to move somewhere to better provide for his family. Once the Senators became the Twins, he built up the Twin Cities into a baseball town(s). He also provided for former members of the Senators which is why some of the great players of the 20's or 30's are buried in Minnesota. He only sold the team once he stupidly made openly racist comments that turned public opinion in Minnesota against him.

Robert Short, on the other hand had as much long-term designs of baseball in Washington as he did in Dallas---none. I am convinced that his intention in buying the Senators was to move it to another city and then make a profit by selling the team at a higher price to a local bidder, because this is exactly what he did with the Minneapolis Lakers. Ironically, if Short had managed to put in the hard work and effort that subsequent owners like Jack Kent Cooke and Dr. Jerry Buss, he wouldn't have needed to buy/move/sell the Senators because he'd be making money hands over fist in La-La land. I have great respect for what SUBSEQUENT owners of the Rangers done in building up baseball interest in Dallas/Fort Worth but I have none for Short. If the American League had agreed to sell the Senators to Edward Bennett Williams instead, I'm convinced the team would never have moved and baseball history in this city would be significantly different.

I can't think of a Washington player from the '20s or '30s who is buried in Minnesota. Clark Griffith is buried in Lincoln Cemetery, which is, best I remember from long ago, is on the Anacostia. I assume Addie Griffith (wife of himself) is buried beside him. Even Calvin is buried there.

Many of those players settled in and around Washington. Walter Johnson bought a farm in Montgomery County...I think the house is still in the family. Joe Judge was baseball coach at Georgetown. Sam Rice owned a farm somewhere around Charles County (have to look that up). Bucky Harris is buried in Bethesda. Nick Altrock died in Washington but is buried in Ohio, where he grew up. Did some hunting: only player I found who is buried in Minnesota is Ossie Bluege, who might have been working for the team when Calvin moved them.

Could the Old Senators have made money in Washington? I think so. They drew well in 1960, with a 5th place team in a ballpark that had about 15,000 unobstructed seats. Maybe a few more if you add the bleachers. Bob Addie (or Shirley Povich) believed that the team would have drawn over a million in 1960 with a bigger stadium...something like DC Stadium. The Senators took a strong core of players to Minneapolis (Killebrew, Lemon, Allison, Mincher, Battey, Versalles, Pascual, Kaat...offhand) and DC would have gone nuts for the '65 pennant winners and the '67 contenders.