Expansion class of 1961-1962
Three of the four choices succeeded, but the Senators definitely did not
Major League Baseball should have expanded decades ago.
Consider the math. There were 16 big-league clubs as long ago as 1901, when the joint population of the United States and Canada amounted to just 83 million. That’s the equivalent of one team for every 5.2 million persons.
The number of MLB clubs inched up to 30 by 1998. It remains at that level today, even though the population of the two countries has exploded to 374 million. That translates to one team for every 12.5 million residents.
If we applied 1901’s ratio today, the North American landscape would be dotted with 72 big-league teams. Way too many, of course. But it’s easy to see that there should be more than 30. Perhaps the number should be 32 or 36 or even 40.
Critics would argue, as they always do, that expansion would confuse fans, dilute MLB’s quality, and/or disturb the inner workings of the universe. Those points are easily dealt with, and I’ll address them at a later date.
My intention now is to look back at the five previous rounds of expansion. Did they add prosperous new clubs to the MLB family? Or were their successes outweighed by their failures?
The picture, as you can imagine, is a mixed one. If and when baseball grows again, it would be wise to avoid some of its most egregious expansion mistakes.
We’ll begin our review below with the four franchises that were added in the initial expansion round of 1961-1962.
Rankings of fan support are based on my annual fan support index (FSI), which tracks the relationship between a team’s attendance and its victory total.
FSI is calculated in three steps: (1) A team’s home attendance for a given season is divided by its number of victories, both home and road. (2) The subsequent figure is divided by the average attendance per victory for all big-league teams that year. (3) The result is multiplied by 100.
A score of 100 indicates support that is commensurate with a team’s quality on the field. A higher number suggests box-office strength that exceeds expectations, while a two-digit FSI is a sign of lethargy. Each club’s annual indexes have been averaged below.
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Los Angeles Angels
Span: 1961-2022
Regular-season record: 4,885 wins, 4,927 losses (.498)
Postseason record: 10 playoff qualifiers, 1 American League pennant, 1 World Series title
Fan support: Average FSI of 110.1 (10.1% above expectations)
Strange but true: The Angels played four of their first five seasons as tenants of the Dodgers, though they refused to call Dodger Stadium by its given name. The ballpark was dubbed Chavez Ravine whenever the Angels were at home. The team shifted to nearby Anaheim in 1966.
Verdict: Success, though more at the gate than on the field. The Angels have sold more than 3 million tickets in 17 different seasons.
Washington Senators
Span: 1961-1971
Regular-season record: 740 wins, 1,032 losses (.418)
Postseason record: none
Fan support: Average FSI of 70.5 (29.5% below expectations)
Strange but true: The Senators replaced a club that had exactly the same name. The team’s previous incarnation played in Washington from 1901 to 1960 before fleeing to Minnesota. The replacement Senators were created to appease powerful congressmen who wanted baseball to remain in the nation’s capital.
Verdict: Failure. The Senators were a flop on the field (four last-place finishes) and at the box office (never drawing more than 918,000 fans in a season). They moved to Dallas-Fort Worth and became the Texas Rangers in 1972.
Houston Colt .45s
Span: 1962-2022
Regular-season record: 4,831 wins, 4,820 losses (.501)
Postseason record: 16 playoff qualifiers, 4 American League pennants, 1 National League pennant, 2 World Series titles
Fan support: Average FSI of 99.4 (0.6% below expectations)
Strange but true: Houston’s new franchise was courting the Colt Firearms Company as a sponsor in 1962. What better ploy than to name the team after Colt’s iconic gun? The strategy was abandoned after three years, with the team opting for a modern name, Astros, in 1965.
Verdict: Success. The Astros have never been a true powerhouse at the box office. Last year’s world champion, for instance, ranked only sixth out of 30 MLB clubs in attendance. But the franchise has definitely established itself as a winner on the field.
New York Mets
Span: 1962-2022
Regular-season record: 4,652 wins, 4,988 losses (.483)
Postseason record: 10 playoff qualifiers, 5 National League pennants, 2 World Series titles
Fan support: Average FSI of 121.7 (21.7% above expectations)
Strange but true: Fans were invited to suggest nicknames for New York’s new team, and they submitted 644 different possibilities. Owner Joan Whitney Payson especially liked Meadowlarks or Continentals. But she finally settled on the prosaic option of Metropolitans, Mets for short.
Verdict: Success. The Mets were simply awful in their early years, yet they quickly won New York’s heart. That was clear as early as 1964, when the crosstown Yankees took yet another American League title. The 109-loss Mets still outdrew the Yankees by 425,000 fans.