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. |