Bill Shea & the Proposed Continental League that Led to MLB Expansion

After the 1957 season, National League baseball ended in New York City as the Giants & Dodgers moved west to California, starting a whole new era.

Needless to say, millions of fans were heartbroken as their beloved teams abandon them. There was a big hole in New York sports for the coming years.

There had been a huge fan base for the two departed teams & now they were hungry for a baseball team to root for. There was no way they were not about to switch to American League baseball or cheer for the hated team in the Bronx.

A New York attorney named Bill Shea was appointed by NYC Mayor Rober Wagner to try to get an MLB team to relocate to New York. 

When that plan failed, Shea headed an effort with other financial backers from Houston, Dallas/Fort Worth, Minneapolis/St. Paul, Denver, Toronto, Buffalo & Atlanta for a new baseball league to be added into Major League Baseball. Thet called it the Continental League.

The team recruited Branch Rickey to do the collective bidding. This included business plans for player pools, TV revenue sharing, pension plans & area zoning. It would take a few years, but Rickey had planned this third MLB league to be as competitive as the NL & AL by the mid-sixties. 

The franchise owners would need $2.5 million to enter, not including stadium costs with seating capable to hold at least 35,000 fans. 

At that time there were only 16 MLB teams & the owners of those teams carried a lot of power over the MLB Commissioner. Financially they were not happy about a third league being added to the mix.

It was determined in New York the franchise was to play in the borough of Queens near the site of the upcoming 1964 World’s Fair. The location had first been proposed to the Brooklyn Dodgers & their owner Walter O'Malley by NYC Parks commissioner Robert Moses. O'Malley had the vision of a domed Stadium in downtown Brookyln, way ahead of its time.

With Continental League being a threat to the MLB & its structure at that time. The owners voted to expand the existing National & American Leagues in U.S. cities that didn’t have MLB baseball. As soon as that happened the Continental League was dead.

In 1961 the American League got two teams: in Minnesota, the Twin Cities of Minneapolis & St. Paul got the Twins, (they were the relocated Washington Senators) Meanwhile, Washington D.C. got a new Senators franchise. In the Los Angeles area of Anaheim, the American League got their first west coast as well as first California team, the Los Angeles Angels.

In 1962 the National League saw two new franchises, in Texas, the Houston Colt 45’s entered the league. The name was chosen from a contest, the Colt 45 pistol was a vital image of the Texas frontier & was known as the gun that won the west. 

By 1966 they would change their name to the Astros. Astros was short for astronauts, with Houston being home to NASA it made all the sense during the 1960's space age. They would play in the world's first domed stadium almost a decade after O'Malley's Brooklyn proposal, in the Astrodome.

In New York, thanks to the efforts of Bill Shea, a much-needed National League franchise was born, officially named the Metropolitans, the team would become known as the Mets. 

The Mets would start playing in the old home of the New York Giants, the Polo Grounds in Washington Heights. In 1964 after construction was completed, the Mets would move into a new state of the art stadium at the Queens location of Flushing Meadows next door to the World Fair. 

The stadium would be named Shea Stadium in honor of the man who led the effort to
bring National League baseball back to New York, Bill Shea.

Shea must also be recognized for helping in MLB's overall expansion at that time.

With the Continental League gone, the other cities who were not awarded a franchise in expansion had to wait. Four years later, Atlanta would get the relocated Braves from Milwaukee. 

The Dallas/ Fort Worth area would have to wait a decade until 1972 when the Senators franchise would relocate from D.C to become the Rangers. 

Outside of the United States, Montreal would be part of the next expansion in 1969 as the Expos joined the National League. That year the San Diego Padres also joined the NL & it's California teams. 

The American League saw the Kansas City Athletics owner Charley Finley move his team to Oakland in the Bay Area of San Francisco. Kansas City got a new franchise in the Royals. 

Also, that year Seattle Waashington got a team, the Seattle Pilots but after one season they moved on to a baseball starved Milwaukee replacing the Braves who had departed in 1966.The Brewers effort to move to Wisconsin was headed by future MLB Commissioner Bud Selig.

Also up north, Toronto once in the mix for the Continental League, would have to wait 15 years until 1977 when the American League expanded again to get the Blue Jays. That year Seattle was awarded another franchise in the Mariners. 

In Colorado, Denver waited a full thirty years until the Rockies were born in 1993.