![]() ![]() It was focused on the Midway District, an area west of downtown St. This led to the ironic situation of the two cities independently pursuing the ballpark strategy. Paul was the slightly older city, and was the state capital, Minneapolis had emerged as a much more vibrant commercial center, and by the 1950s was the larger of the two cities. Still, in the 1950s the long-standing animosity between Minneapolis and St. Both the Millers and the Saints played in old, entirely inadequate facilities that would not attract any major-league club. 3 So the effort to attract major-league baseball to the Twin Cities turned its focus toward creating a suitable ballpark. By the early 1950s, what got the attention of those most serious about this was that both Milwaukee and Baltimore had succeeded in attracting major-league clubs because they had major-league-caliber ballparks to offer. Paul area should have a major-league baseball team. But that gets us a bit ahead of our story.Īfter World War II there were those in the Twin Cities who felt that the Minneapolis-St. 2 Later in the decade, of course, the major change in baseball took place when in 1957 the Brooklyn Dodgers and New York Giants moved to the West Coast for the 1958 season. The A’s and the Browns did sound out the Twin Cities option, but looked elsewhere when it was clear that there was no adequate ballpark for their teams to play in. In the fall of 1954, the Philadelphia Athletics announced they were moving to Kansas City for the 1955 season. Louis Browns moved to Baltimore and became the Orioles for the 1954 season. The Boston Braves gave up competing with the Red Sox and moved to Milwaukee in the spring of 1953. In reaction to the demographics, the stability of the 16-team baseball pantheon began at long last to change. 1 The Twin Cities had the Minneapolis Lakers, to be sure, but the NBA in the 1950s was still a backwater league, as were the NFL and the NHL. The Twin Cities were now seen as one of the major population centers, but were noticeably without a major-league team, along with Los Angeles, San Francisco, Baltimore, and Buffalo, all in the top 15 in population. Paul, including its growing suburbs, was over a million. In the 1950 Census for the first time the combined population of Minneapolis and St. Several things happened in the 1950s that gave the Twin Cities hope. The major leagues had a decidedly Northeastern slant. Louis, Cleveland, Detroit, Boston, and Washington - with four of these having two teams and New York having three. In the early 1950s, it seemed that this might be a permanent situation, as the 16 major-league teams were located in just 10 cities - New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, St. Paul Saints were Triple-A mainstays, and each had a long and distinguished history, being the two teams with the most wins since the founding of the American Association in 1902. The Minnesota Twins have called Target Field home since 2010. ![]()
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