MLB History: The Threat of Contraction Begins

The last thing that any fan wants to hear is that their favorite team may be no more. However, on this day in 2001, MLB put that proposition in motion with the first talks regarding contraction.

The last time contraction came to the MLB was back in 1899. Following that season, the original Baltimore Orioles and Washington Senators were contracted, as were the Louisville Colonels and the Cleveland Spiders. From that point, another league was added, and the eight National League teams grew to 30 total across Major League Baseball.

However, on this day in 2001, the spectre of contraction reared its head once more. Bud Selig announced that the MLB would look to eliminate two teams by the start of the 2002 season. The Montreal Expos, owned by Major League Baseball, would be one of those two franchises. The other would either be the Florida Marlins or the Minnesota Twins.

Eventually, it was decided that the Twins would be the other team to get the axe. While the Expos demise was inevitable after being taken over by the league, the same could not be said for Minnesota. One of the original American League teams, as the second Washington Senators franchise, they had quite the proud history. It was not as though they had recently come into existence, like the Marlins or even the Tampa Bay Rays.

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In the end, those plans would not come to be. Twins fans loudly protested against the idea of losing their beloved team. Meanwhile, Minnesota lawmakers decided to sue Major League Baseball is the Twins were contracted, in order to force them to honor their lease.

Faced with far more opposition than they expected, the MLB relented. While the Expos would end up moving to Washington DC in the fourth attempt at placing a franchise in the Nation’s capital, the Twins would remain in place. In the end, it turns out that the lawmakers and the fans had a better sense for the team’s chances going forward than Major League Baseball did.

From 2002 through 2004, in what was essentially a giant middle finger to the powers that be in MLB, the Twins won the American League Central. While they never made it to the World Series during that run of success, the Twins did make the postseason six times in total from 2002 through 2010. The Nationals, as the Expos became, shook off their dismal track record and have made the playoffs in three of the past five years.

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The idea of contraction, after over a century, appeared once again in the MLB. This time, the Minnesota Twins and the eventual Washington Nationals overcame the spectre of being nothing more than a chapter in the history of the game.