[Dakota]

The original Washington Senators date back to 1901. They were the Washington Senators from 1901 until 1960, when they became the Minnesota Twins beginning in the 1961 season. The league approved an expansion franchise for Washington, which began play in the 1961 season as the Washington Senators. This second Senators team subsequently moved to Arlington, TX in 1972. This was the last move by a MLB team.

The MLB team moves are (years are the year the team began plan in the new city):

1972 Washington (expansion) Senators to Texas Rangers
1970 Seattle Pilots to Milwaukee Brewers
1968 Kansas City Athletics to Oakland Athletics
1966 Milwaukee Braves to Atlanta Braves
1961 Washington Senators to Minnesota Twins
1958 Brooklyn Dodgers to Los Angeles Dodgers
1958 New York Giants to San Francisco Giants
1955 Philadelphia Athletics to Kansas City Athletics
1954 St. Louis Browns to Baltimore Orioles
1953 Boston Braves to Milwaukee Braves
1901 Milwaukee Brewers to St. Louis Browns

Show me a single move that was unequivocally bad for baseball. I’m not talking about local Twin Cities or San Francisco fans being bummed, but bad for baseball as a whole. Many of the premiere money-making franchises today are the result of moves from less profitable circumstances (e.g. Braves, Rangers) & the others are no worse off than they were before.

The problem of economic viability of the lower half of the teams is an ever-changing equation, driven by the amount of money being made by the top 5 or 6 teams. Until this issue is addressed, the Twins, and teams like them, will remain league basket cases.

If the NY, Atlanta, Dallas-Ft Worth, etc. mega metro teams actually had local competition from another MLB team or teams, they would no longer be able to afford the mega-salaries. I say remove the anti-trust exemption from MLB, prohibit cities/states/localities from pouring taxpayer money into stadiums, allow teams to move, and let the marketplace work it out.