The Senators move to Minnesota was before my time, but was motivated by awful, racist ideals. Griffith was a nut in a dog turd. If MLB wants to keep profiting off of Jackie Robinson's legacy, it needs to acknowledge its eff up with that move. I don't think much of current ownership, but I don't think they have a racist bone in their bodies. They've shown equal treatment of White players, Black players, Latin or Asian players, and the guy in the Screech costume when it comes to not wanting to pay anyone for anything.
I sufferted through that move, and hated the expansion team. The "Old Senators", as we called them, had an all-around solid team, and more good players on the way through the minors. We knew that "city fathers" in Minneapolis-St Paul had promised Calvin Griffith 40,000 season tickets. We didn't know, until later, that Calvin had told the"city fathers" that "when I saw only white faces" at a Rotary Club (or similar) meeting "I knew this was the place for my team". That's when Rod Carew said "Im not working on that man's plantation any more". Tom Boswell wrote, a few years ago, that he had met Calvin Griffith in the late '70s, and found Calvin a disgusting racist who deserved to be out of baseball.
Calvin, a guy we disliked even before he moved our team, would have made a fortune in Washington with that good 1960s team. In 1971, Crazy George Allen announced, for no reason that we could see, that the Redskins would go to the playoffs to makeup for MLB's having insulted the Capital. The Skins had not been that good since about 1945, so nobody believed him. Then the 1971 Skins went to the playoffs at the wild-card team, and the Redskins owned The District. Could have been Calvin, racist dog or not.
Put a good team in DC and fans will make money for the Lerners. Scrimp on the team, win 60 games, and fans will find something else to do.
And another thing. Washington is no more transient than anyplace else. Congressmen come and go, but there is a soiid care of Washingtonians who work for the Federal government. The GS-whatever folks are protected by Civil Service laws. They stay. Since about 1960, many companies grew up to add services to the government. My old company, GE Information Service, re-located from Phoenix, AZ, to Rockville about 1970 because the boss found that there were more computer people in the Washington area than anyplace else.
Together, that made Washington more stable and wealthy after about 1960. The area is recession-proof.
Maybe, JCA, this leads to another thread, to be called something like "Washington is a great market for a baseball team, and the Lerners just need to give us a respectable team". Ted Lerner knew that, along with having a true Washingtonians appreciation of Washington baseball. The Lerner kids are leaving money on the table.
