Continental League Branch Rickey video

[redsmetz]

I know folks have spoken about this here before, but I came across an item on Youtube from What's My Line that featured Branch Rickey, then the president of the proposed Continental League which was looking to expand ML baseball following the exit of the Dodgers and Giants. This is from an episode in 1959.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rPV-O_caBrs

BTW, the guest panelist that week was actor and former ballplayer, Chuck Conners, who was signed to the Dodgers by Rickey.

Here is a bit about the league and how it never came to actually play as baseball did ultimately expand into all but one of the proposed cities (Buffalo).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continental_League

I know WOY and others have talked about this before, but thought folks might find it interesting.

[redsmetz]

I thought I'd drag Doug's response to the question about expansion over to this thread because I think it's an interesting question. The response I began making to Doug is below

Expansion didn't dilute anything. People that say that make my head hurt. Population is up by incredible amounts and we are bringing in players on a world wide scale. The pitching is better than its ever been. So is the hitting..

I would suggest that some of the expansion was absolutely called for. I posted this story about the Continental League and I think that Rickey and others were recognizing that expansion could be supported. At this point, there had been four moves almost all westward: The Browns moving east to Baltimore and the Braves moving to Milwaukee, I believe both in 1954. Then after 1957, the Dodgers and Giants to the West Coast for the 1958 season.

In 1961, the year of the first expansion brought the Senators to Minnesota and an expansion club coming to DC. The Los Angeles Angels were the other AL expansion team. In the NL, baseball returned a second team to NY and also expanded to Houston. The Twin Cities and Houston were both to be members of the Continental League.

I always felt the 1961 expansion basically recognized the plethora of African American players. Likewise the nation was experiencing a considerable southern and western flow of population. I know some of the historians on here have talked about the geographic breakdown of the early configuration of the major league. I think that continues to be true and Doug mentions it here. There are players from more places coming to play ball here and new places continue to provide players.

I think the later expansions continued to recognize the growth of cities throughout the U.S. and in Canada, Toronto in particular, although I wonder whether baseball didn't blow it in Montreal, but I think that's an agrument for another day. Now the only planned Continental League city that doesn't have ML is Buffalo. Today, there are a good number of the top 50 cities that do not have teams that probably could support them.

I think the last two expanses went fairly well because baseball followed a suggestion made by Whitey Herzog, I believe. He had suggested allowing the clubs to begin stocking minor league clubs a few years before the major league clubs began.

I have to run now, but perhaps this can begin this conversation.

[BCubb2003]

It seems like baseball grew into cities for fanbase purposes, not necessarilu because that's where the growth of baseball talent was. There was nothing stopping California and Texas ballplayers from becoming big leaguers before franchises began there, although having a big-league team nearby would certainly boost the kids' interest. We still don't have Mexico City or San Juan teams. I wonder if putting a team in Portland would be an acknowledgment of the rise of European baseball in the macro sense.

As far as adding teams now, there are certainly cities that could compete with cities like Kansas City and Pittsburgh, but would that mean baseball is just creating more Kansas Cities and Pittsburghs? I guess it would be a way of saying, "There's no such thing as a small market. If Tampa Bay can beat the Yankees, then quit complaining, Cincinnati, or Nashville will get to the World Series before you do."

The assumption about expansion always is that at any given moment, there's a collection of players with the talent to be in the major leagues, plus the players who aren't quite good enough. With expansion, there's a slice of the players who aren't quite good enough who are now in the majors. Certainly there are minor league prospects who have more talent, however unfinished, than the 24th and 25th men on most teams, but are the minors bursting with them?

I guess in the wider view, expansion works because a more populous world creates more major-league baseball players, but a proportionate amount are probably undiscovered in Africa and China.

[redsmetz]

I agree completely that baseball grew based on fan's desire to have major league baseball. I certainly didn't intend to suggest baseball went where players were. Clearly players were coming from all over the U.S. and other places as well. At this point, I think any further expansion will be a ways off and, as others have suggested, it will very likely mean some more international teams. But again, that's in the distant future. We have an worldwide economic downturn to overcome, plus some political hotspots need to settle down a little bit.

I don't know that baseball has always done expansion right. Some of the earlier expansion clubs took a while to show some competitive baseball. And even an Arizona model of buying the players proved to be a big problem financiallly with the team nearly insolvent.

One of the things that has really impacted baseball here in the states though, hasn't been expansion but rather the diminishment of the game itself. Most folks my age remember playing ball all the time. I remember one reporter going around the area just looking for pick up games. I think it was Lonnie Wheeler about ten years ago maybe and in the entire Tri-state area, he only found a handful of games, and I might be being generous there.

[BCubb2003]

One of the things that has really impacted baseball here in the states though, hasn't been expansion but rather the diminishment of the game itself. Most folks my age remember playing ball all the time. I remember one reporter going around the area just looking for pick up games. I think it was Lonnie Wheeler about ten years ago maybe and in the entire Tri-state area, he only found a handful of games, and I might be being generous there.

Yes, I agree that the social competition for the attention of young athletes is the big factor. Baseball takes a certain amount of organization, even at the sandlot level. And when was the last time you saw a sandlot, or kids playing in one? Spread-out suburbs, where nobody walks anywhere, have something to do with it. I have nothing against soccer, but it takes less organization and nuanced skills than baseball does. And it takes the space that used to be set aside for baseball.