Kauffman Stadium
(Royals Stadium)

Home of the
Kansas City Royals
To be honest, Kansas City always did very poorly at the gate, especially in the 1960's when they were usually hovering well below the 1,000,000 mark. Heck, they never even reached 900,000 after 1959... but that wasn't just Kansas City. Washington D.C. was struggling as was the Cleveland Indians, the California Angels and the St. Louis Browns and even the Cincinnati Reds and Chicago Cubs were drawing well under a million per season. The Athletics were not alone and much of it had to do with baseball losing ground to television as the #1 source of entertainment in the mid 1950's. The recovery process was a very long one. Charles Finley however had a way with Major League Baseball and despite just signing a new deal to keep the A's in K.C. for many decades to come.... and getting a brand new stadium to boot... he ran off like a "thief in the night". Finley knew what he really wanted... California living. Just when it seemed like the A's were signed, sealed and delivered to Kansas City, they were off to Oakland California where they made their new home at Oakland-Almedia Stadium.  This of course caused an up-roar that rang out throughout the entire mid-west. Missouri was not about to lose a Major League Baseball team, with contract already signed and millions already invested into building a brand new ballpark for a team which now had just fled the state. Senator Stuart Symington began shouting from the rooftops that baseball's anti-trust exemption had been taken too far and needed to be revoked. The Anti-Trust exemption is a rule that allows Major League Baseball operate outside of the rules that keep businesses from forming a monopoly. This allows the MLB quite a few liberties that other entities wouldn't ever experience.  All this Anti-Trust sentiment was of course making the MLB very nervous. They already battled William A. Shea only a few years earlier who threatened to form a new Major League called the Continental League (see Shea Stadium gallery for full details) with Branch Rickey. The braintrust at MLB had to make a deal with Shea and Branch Rickey which resulted in 4 new teams entering into the Major Leagues... the Houston Colt 45's, the New York Mets, the California Angels and the Washington Senators (version II to replace the team which just moved to Minnesota). Presumably, a similar deal would have to be struck to keep the anti-trust sentiment quiet.