Major League Baseball
Franchises:
Historical overview of cities,
stadiums, and owners

Main historical phases

To see the geographical distribution of franchises from one era to the next, just move the mouse cursor over the appropriate period.

Dawn of 20th Century ~ Golden Era ~ The Late Fifties ~ The Early Sixties ~ The Late Sixties ~ The Late Seventies ~ The Late Nineties ~ Contemporary

Introduction / overview

From the beginning to the end of the 20th century, the number of Major League franchises nearly doubled, from 16 (eight in each league) to 30 franchises (14 in the AL, 16 in the NL). This growth has been accompanied by a greater dispersion in terms of region, and in terms of numbers of cities. There are only four multiple-team cities now (if you count Anaheim as part of Los Angeles and Oakland as part of San Francisco), and 22 single-team cities. As a result, a much larger proportion of the U.S. population is now able to see Major League games on a fairly regular basis.

Early 20th Century

At the outset of the 20th century, there were 16 Major League franchises, eight in each league. Until the 1950s, most of those teams (11) shared their home city with another team or teams. After the Milwaukee Brewers moved and became the St. Louis Browns in 1902, there were five multiple-team cities and five single-team cities, heavily concentrated in the northeastern quandrant of the country.

Golden Era (1903-1952)

For almost the entire first half of the 20th century, when all seemed right with the world (at least in THIS hemisphere), the geographical distribution of major league baseball teams remained absolutely static. No expansion, no contraction, no relocation. In retrospect, this seems strange because five cities had more than one major league baseball team: New York had three (counting Brooklyn), and Boston, Philadelphia, Chicago, and St. Louis had two each. It is hard to believe that a medium-size city such as St. Louis could ever have supported two teams, and indeed, the perennially lousy attendance figures of the Browns make one wonder why they didn't relocate many years earlier. These five cities accounted for 11 of the 16 major league franchises, leaving the rest to five other cities. There were solid reasons for this concentration of sports entertainment in the northeast quadrant of the country -- namely, the difficulty of long-distance transportation and the backward economic status of the South -- but this situation could not last forever.

The Fifties

After World War II, it became clear that the nation was changing rapidly, with rapidly growing use of automobiles and passenger airliners. This was also the beginning of a long, historic demographic shift to the south and west, while several older cities in the north were stagnating, and some team owners realized that their home cities could no longer support two teams. The pent-up disequilibrium finally erupted in 1953 when the Boston Braves announced just a few weeks before spring training that they were moving to Milwaukee. Going against prevailing trends, the St. Louis Browns moved EAST and became the Baltimore Orioles in 1954. A year later the Philadelphia Athletics moved to Kansas City. This mass migration culminated in 1958 when the New York Giants and Brooklyn Dodgers loaded up their trucks and headed out to California. For the next four years New York City had only one baseball team: The Yankees!

The Early Sixties

After the five franchise relocations of the 1950s, several other medium-size cities began to demand their own major league franchises. Washington Senators owners Clark Griffith moved his team to Minnesota in 1961, and they became known as the Twins. To compensate the Nation's Capital, a new Senators team was created while a new stadium was being built there. That same year, Los Angeles received an American League franchise known as the Angels. In 1962 two new national league teams were created, the Houston Colt 45s and the New York Mets. Note that two of these five changes were replacements for franchises that left town. For most of the 1960s there were an even 20 major league teams, ten in each league.

The Late Sixties

Given the exhuberant, "go-getter" atmosphere and booming economy of the 1960s, further relocations and expansions were inevitable. In 1965 the Colt 45s changed their name to the Astros as they moved into the space-age Astrodome. In 1966 the Braves moved from Milwaukee to Atlanta, and in 1968 the Athletics -- who were by this time nearly always called the A's -- moved from Kansas City to Oakland at the behest of their flamboyant owner Charlie Finley. (Who had ever heard of Oakland before that?) In 1969 new National League teams were created in San Diego (the Padres) and Montreal (the Expos), the first time the major leagues invaded foreign territory. Also that year, new American League teams were created in Kansas City (the Royals) and Seattle (the Pilots).

The Seventies

The 1970s were a time of economic recession and disillusion in America. The Seattle Pilots went bankrupt after failing to draw sufficient crowds in their debut year of 1969, and after only one year moved to Milwaukee and became the Brewers. In 1972 the (second) Washington Senators team left D.C. and moved to Arlington, Texas (midway between Dallas and Fort Worth) and became the Rangers. Striving to rectify the embarrassment of losing their franchise so quickly in 1970, Seattle built the rain-proof Kingdome to house the new Mariners team in 1977. Also that year, Toronto became the second Canadian city to get a major league baseball team, as the Blue Jays were hatched. From the late 1970s through the early 1980s baseball generally stagnated, both in terms of number of franchises and overall popularity. With all the financial woe caused by the previous frantic moving from hither to yon, a tacit moratorium was placed on relocations, thus leaving Washington, D.C. out in the cold while the nearby Baltimore Orioles prospered.

The Nineties

The sports-crazy city of Denver had long wished for a baseball team, and in 1993 their dreams came true when the Colorado Rockies began playing. Miami got a franchise as well, the Florida Marlins. In both cases the new teams played in football stadiums that were converted to baseball use. Long-standing disputes between owners and playes resulted in a strike in August 1994, forcing the cancellation of the championships and ruining the season. This turned off many fans for years. In 1998 the Arizona Diamondbacks began playing in Phoenix and the Tampa Bay Devil Rays (now just the "Rays") began playing in St. Petersburg. The fact that all these teams are identified by state or region, as opposed to the city where they actually play, is a symptom of the growing trend toward public financing of stadiums, which usually necessitates some kind of regional sales or luxury tax. In order to maintain a balanced schedule within each league, with no "left-out" teams, the Milwaukee Brewers switched to the National League in 1998. As a result, the NL Central Division now has six teams, one more than normal, and the AL West Division has only four teams.

The 21st Century

As the new century dawned, marking one hundred years of the two rival major leagues, franchise values rose steadily thanks in part to the implicit subsidy from new stadiums built mainly with public funds. Baseball was as popular as ever. Meanwhile, pressure built for rectifying a major historical injustice: the absence of baseball from Our Nation's Capital for three decades. After years of negotations, it was announced in September 2004 that the Montreal Expos, which was owned by MLB itself, would relocate to D.C., and thus the Washington Nationals were born (or re-born) in 2005. In 2013, the Houston Astros moved to the American League, thus returning to parity between the two leagues: 15 teams each. As of the 2022 season, the Cleveland Indians changed their name to the Cleveland Guardians.

Franchise owners

Few subjects in the world of sports business are murkier than the question of who really owns the team? Everyone knows the names of George Steinbrenner and Ted Turner (who became less involved with the Braves after the AOL-Time Warner merger), but for other baseball franchises it is very hard to get solid information. Of course, baseball's exemption from anti-trust statutes insulates teams from normal accounting scrutiny, which is one major reason why cities routinely get blackmailed into bogus stadium subsidies, because it is hard to challenge the franchise owners' claims that they are losing money. Anyway, this table represents a first stab at nailing down the ownership status of each team. It probably contains a few errors, and will be revised and updated in the future. It may be useful to note that former MLB Commissioner Bud Selig had a financial interest in the Milwaukee Brewers, which he formally transferred to his daughter when he became the permanent commissioner a few years ago. The Seligs sold the franchise in early 2005.

One must not forget that major league baseball is a business enterprise, and in a capitalist system such as ours, franchise owners are entitled to seek higher profits if they so desire. The difference between normal businesses and baseball franchises is that much, if not most, of the team's total value consists of "goodwill," which is the accountant's term for the nebulous but very real factor that generates ticket sales. Time and time again in baseball history, short-sighted and/or tight-fisted owners have shot themselves in the foot by the mistaken application of business principles to sports. Their myopic focus on the bottom line not only detracts from the quality of the entertainment they provide, it erodes their long-term profitability.

National League franchises

The National League was founded in 1876 as the first true professional baseball league, hence the term "Senior Circuit." (See 19th Century Leagues.) During the early 1900s, the eight NL franchises generally lagged behind the American League in building new stadiums, and two of them (the Phillies and the Cardinals) ended up as tenants in the ballparks owned by the new AL teams across town. During the 1950s the National League "pioneered" in moving westward (Braves, Giants, Dodgers), and it became dominant in southern and southwestern markets in the expansion waves of the 1960s and 1990s. In 1998 the Milwaukee Brewers switched from the AL to the NL, and in 2005 the Montreal Expos relocated and became the Washington Nationals. In 2012, the Florida Marlins became known as the Miami Marlins, coinciding with the opening of Marlins Park. After 51 years in the National League, the Houston Astros moved to the American League in 2013.

American League franchises

The American League was founded in 1901, with three outcast former National League franchises (Baltimore, Cleveland, and Washington) and five new teams. Two of those teams relocated in the first two years, amidst great uncertainty, but the victory of the Boston Red Sox in the first-ever World Series confirmed the status of the AL as a true major league. Seven of those "upstart" franchises built new stadiums for themselves between 1909 and 1912; the AL team last to do so was the New York Yankees, in 1923. Ironically, the St. Louis Browns and Philadelphia Athletics, which became "landlords" of the Cardinals and Phillies in the 1920s and 1930s, gradually lost fan support and relocated elsewhere in the 1950s. The expansions and relocations of the 1960s and 1970s tended to accentuate the AL's northern geographical orientation. From 1977 until 1993, the AL had two more teams than the NL (14 vs. 12), but after the Milwaukee Brewers transfered to the NL in 1998, the AL had two fewer teams (14 vs. 16). In 2013, the Houston Astros moved to the American League, thereby restoring parity, with 15 teams in each league.

The Federal League, 1914-1915

The Federal League was a bold venture in the days when baseball's future (and that of the nation as a whole) seemed limitless. Several entrepreneurs took advantage of resentment toward the restrictions on players imposed by the reserve clause, and many American League and National League players signed up with the new league. In two cases, Pittsburgh and Brooklyn, stadiums had recently become available after major league teams vacated them in favor of newer facilities that were part of the 1910s stadium construction boom. Pittsburgh's Exposition Park III was greatly expanded, from 6,500 seats to 16,000, while in Brooklyn, an entirely new stadium made of concrete and steel (Washington Park IV) replaced the one that had been built in 1898. In Baltimore, meanwhile, a new stadium made of wood (Terrapin Park) was built across the street from the one that had become vacant when the Orioles relocated to New York in 1903. (They changed their name to the "Highlanders" and later became the Yankees.) Half of the eight franchises were located in cities that already had major league teams, and the established leagues viewed the upstarts as a dire threat to their existence. The Indianapolis franchise moved to Newark in 1915.

Failing to draw big enough crowds in a saturated sports market, the Federal League folded after two seasons. Nevertheless, it did leave an enduring legacy: the Chicago Whales owner Mr. Weeghman purchased the Cubs as part of the deal with the two established major leagues, and he moved his new team into Weeghman Park, which thereafter became known as Cubs Park and eventually (as of 1926) Wrigley Field -- one of the last true shrines to the national pastime.

The Negro Leagues

The Negro Leagues had their origins in the Negro National League, founded in 1920. Rival leagues soon formed, but they didn't last very long. Frequent franchise changes and relocations from one city to another created a confusing situation. Finally, the Negro American League was founded in 1937 and folded at the end of 1950. In 2020, Major League Baseball decided to treat the Negro Leagues as equivalent to the major leagues for statistical purposes. For more information, see the Negro Leagues page.

The Continental League (aborted in 1960)

In response to the relocation of the New York Giants and Brooklyn Dodgers to the West Coast in 1958, New York lawyer William Shea joined with businessmen in several cities to found a third major league: the "Continental League." It was to include teams in New York, Houston, Toronto, Denver, and Minneapolis-St. Paul, and play was supposed to begin in 1960. However, the American and National Leagues quickly foiled the initiative by pledging to expand their rosters to ten teams each, and the whole concept quickly died.

Relocated franchises

Since the early 20th century, Major League franchises have relocated to different cities a total of 13 times, but in three of those cases, the team had only been in existence for one or two years, so it wasn't such a big deal. Three of the franchises moved twice (the Brewers/Browns/Orioles, the Braves, and the Athletics), but the latter two kept the same name all along. In contrast, five of the eight franchises that relocated only one time changed their name, and thus their team's very identity, including both incarnations of the Senators. Two cities gained teams via relocation and subsequently lost them: Milwaukee and Kansas City. Two cities lost teams because of relocation twice: Milwaukee and Washington.

Every instance of relocation after 1950 involved either a commitment by the new host city to help build a new stadium, or else an existing stadium that was already built or renovated -- often "on speculation." In three cases, the teams played in old stadiums on a temporary basis while the new stadiums were built.

Expansion franchises

From the 1960s through the 1990s, the Major Leagues expanded from 16 to 30 teams, bringing baseballl to new regions of the U.S.A. and to Canada. Four of the ten expansion franchises that were awarded during the 1960s and 1970s were meant as a consolation to cities that had recently lost franchises due to relocation. Three of the 14 expansion franchises ended up failing (after only one year for the Pilots, after ten years for the second Senators, and after 35 years fot the Expos) and relocated elsewhere.

In most cases of expansion, the new team played in an old stadium on a temporary basis, with the understanding that a new stadium was to be built. In some cases, however, that took many years. Four new teams started with a new (or unused) ballpark on Day One.