St. Louis Cardinals: Cardinals could have been in Houston or Milwaukee?!
Sixty-five years ago today, an appeal filed on behalf of the St. Louis Cardinals over back taxes hit the news. What could have changed if the Cardinals would have left St. Louis?
In 1953, there were plenty of things going on around the St. Louis Cardinals that showed just how fragile the organization’s hold in the city of St. Louis truly was. A filing of an appeal on this day, 65 years ago, to back taxes requested by the United States government gives a bit of insight into what was a pretty incredible case!
Many enjoy the daily reminder of the game’s history on Baseball-Reference. Today’s listing had a single line that led down a rabbit hole:
The St. Louis Cardinals appeal the U.S. claim for $215,025 in back taxes from 1947-1949
That single line led down a rabbit hole that led to the name Fred Saigh, the owner of the St. Louis Cardinals from 1948-1953. Saigh was a lawyer in the St. Louis area that purchased and owned multiple buildings in downtown St. Louis before purchasing the St. Louis Cardinals from Sam Breadon.
In 1952 when tax evasion came after Saigh, he forced himself to sell his team, taking serious offers from Houston and Milwaukee.
Why would he move the team from St. Louis?
The Cardinals were in a tough spot at the time. Major League Baseball saw it had a problem with its locations. The league had 16 teams in just 10 cities, with none west of St. Louis.
To get that coverage west of the Mississippi, the league intended to split up some of the multiple-team cities. With the Browns and Cardinals both in St. Louis, the Cardinals were certainly one of the teams up for movement.
The Cardinals were also in a fairly tenuous position within the city. With Saigh’s ownership change and the fact that the Cardinals did not own their stadium (the Browns owned Sportsman’s Park and rented it out to the Cardinals), the Cardinals had the least foothold in the city at the time.
Where could the St. Louis Cardinals go?
There are two lines of thinking, depending on where you read. Most places list two minor league towns at the time, Houston and Milwaukee, as the finalists.
Most believe that Saigh had no intention of ever letting the team leave St. Louis, but according to rumors from both groups, their final offers were significantly more than what the final offer that Saigh ended up getting from Anheuser-Busch.
Houston had a team in the Texas League by the name of the Buffaloes at the time. With the way minor league and major league rights worked at the time, Houston (and Milwaukee) owned the rights to their market. If their stadium could be made major league ready, Houston was seen as a prime option.
Milwaukee’s market was dedicated to the minor league Milwaukee Brewers at the time, owned by Boston Braves owner Lou Perini. The crazy part of the Milwaukee bid is that Frederick C. Miller, of Miller Brewing Company, was the principal behind the Milwaukee group.
This is most ironic because the eventual purchase was done by the Auggie Busch, Anheuser-Busch group. The deal was for $3.7 million, which was significantly less than the $4 million-plus offers from both Houston and Milwaukee.
In the end, Saigh was able to make part of the deal with Busch a share in his company, allowing him to be part of the ownership group of his former club. Saigh passed away in 2000 with a worth of over $500 million from his businesses, though he was routinely critical of the way Busch managed the organization.
So what if the St. Louis Cardinals had left?
If the Cardinals had gone elsewhere, the backlash could have been significant around the game. A purchase by the group from Milwaukee could have led to plenty of backlash, simply because of Perini’s presence in the market. He likely would have blocked any other team into the area, and the move of his own major league team into the Milwaukee market came for the 1953 season.
The Cardinals remaining in town meant that the Browns left town, eventually becoming the Baltimore Orioles after the 1953 season when the Cardinals purchased away their stadium, laying claim to the city.
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The Houston market would pick up their first major league team in 1962. The second two-team town would be split up when the Philadelphia Athletics left town after 1954 for Kansas City, becoming the first team to move west of St. Louis.
The A’s would be followed a few years later by both the Giants and Dodgers, who moved after the 1957 season was complete, interestingly a season that one of the teams affected by the sale of the Cardinals to Busch, the now-Milwaukee Brewers, won the World Series. Both teams moved to the West Coast in California.
The St. Louis Cardinals were coming off an 88-win season in 1952, a win total that they would not reach again until a decade later, in 1963. The St. Louis Cardinals won the World Series in 1964, their first since 1946, two seasons before Saigh purchased the team.
Next. Cardinals 40th round pick wins GCL MVP. dark
In the end, Saigh served prison time for his personal tax fraud and paid over $260,000 for the back taxes of the St. Louis Cardinals. He made sure the Cardinals stayed in St. Louis, and Cardinals fans certainly thank him for that.