September 27, 1953: The End of the St. Louis Browns

September 27, 1953: The Chicago White Sox beat the St. Louis Browns, 2-1 at the original Busch Stadium, known as Sportsman's Park until this season, in St. Louis. Minnie Miñoso doubled home the winning run in the top of the 11th inning. Attendance: Only 3,174. It was the last game the Browns ever played: The next season, they were sold, and moved to become the Baltimore Orioles.

Although they were the landlords at Sportsman’s Park, and the Cardinals were their tenants, the Cards were always more successful. Even in the one and only season in which the Browns won an American League Pennant, 1944 – the year they desegregated the stands at the ballpark, including for Cardinals’ games, over that team’s objections – the Cards beat them in the World Series.

Bill Veeck, who formerly owned the Cleveland Indians and the minor-league version of the Milwaukee Braves, bought the Browns in 1951, and, knowing that Cardinals owner Fred Saigh was in financial difficulty, thought he could force the Cards to move, and have the St. Louis market all to himself. It was necessary: St. Louis was big enough to support one major league baseball team, but not two.

It almost worked: Saigh, was imprisoned for tax evasion, and, according to Major League Baseball's rules, this meant that he had to sell the team. He came very close to selling the Cards to a group that was going to move them to Milwaukee for 1953.

But August Anheuser Busch Jr. stepped in. The grandson of Adolphus Busch and the great-grandson of Eberhard Anheuser, founders of the St. Louis-based brewing company that bears their names, wasn't a baseball fan at first. But he liked being a bigshot, which sports team owners are. And he wanted to sell lots and lots of beer, under the brand he'd been selling it under, Budweiser, named for the Budweis region of Austria, from which his grandfather Adolphus had come.

Someone told him that the Cardinals were for sale, and that their radio network, which reached all over the Midwest and into the South, could be used to sell Budweiser. That was all Gussie needed to hear: He bought the Cardinals from Saigh, and then bought Sportsman's Park, from Veeck, ending the odd status of the legendary loser Browns being the landlords, and the far more successful Cardinals (who had won 13 Pennants and 5 World Series, including beating the Browns in '44), being the tenants.

From that day onward, the Browns were doomed, because Gussie was rich as hell, and, like Tom Yawkey of the Boston Red Sox, and later George Steinbrenner of the New York Yankees and Earvin "Magic" Johnson of the Los Angeles Dodgers, he wasn't afraid to spend big if he thought it would get him big results.

Veeck knew the game was up. He applied to the AL to move the Browns to Baltimore for 1954. But the other AL team owners hated his guts, and they voted to let the move happen, but only on the condition that Veeck sell the team to a Baltimore-based group. Ironically, it was a brewery that bought them: Gunther Brewing Company, led by Jerry Hoffberger. (In the 1950s, Baltimore was every bit a brewing town as St. Louis and Milwaukee.)

The Browns weren't just unable to win Pennants, they were always broke, so they were usually terrible. Just as the Washington Senators were "First in war, first in peace, and last in the American League," St. Louis, because of its influence in the American leather and brewing industries, were said to be "First in shoes, first in booze, and last in the American League." They did have a sharp logo, showing St. Louis' namesake, Louis IX, the "Crusader King" of France.

In contrast, in their 1st 30 seasons in Baltimore, the franchise won 6 Pennants – although they haven’t won one in the 40 years since.

The end of the Browns had one other consequence, although it wasn't realized for a full year. Yankee catcher Lawrence "Yogi" Berra was from St. Louis, and when the Yankees made roadtrips to play the Browns, he would bring teammates over for Sunday dinner. The Yankees won the Pennant in 1947, just missed it in 1948, then won again in 1949, '50, '51, '52 and '53.

But with the Browns having moved, there was no trip to St. Louis -- like St. Louis, Baltimore had a large Italian community, and still does, but the Berras didn't live there -- and the Yankees didn't win the Pennant in 1954: They won 103 games, the most the franchise would win between 1942 and 1963, but finished 8 games behind the Cleveland Indians.

Pitcher Whitey Ford later said, "You know, we didn't win the Pennant in 1954, even though we had one of our best teams. And after the season, when we were fishing around for a reason why we didn't win, some of us would say it was because we didn't get to eat at the Berras' house."

UPDATE: Billy Hunter became the last living former St. Louis Brown, living until July 3, 2025. He was their only All-Star in their final season, and played shortstop in that last game, as well as for the Orioles in their 1st game.

Browns players George Sisler, Bobby Wallace, Rogers Hornsby (more for what he did with the Cardinals), Don Gutteridge, Ned Garver, Roy Sievers and Satchel Paige have been elected to the St. Louis Sports Hall of Fame. So has team owner Bill Veeck and general manager Bill DeWitt Sr., whose son Bill Jr. had been the team batboy, and who lent his "Number 1/8th" uniform to Eddie Gaedel, the little person that Veeck sent up to pinch-hit in 1951.

Sievers, Gutteridge and Satchel Paige (more for what he did with the Negro Leagues' Kansas City Monarchs) have been elected to the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame.

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September 27, 1953 was a Sunday. Italian soccer star Claudio Gentile was born on this day.

These other major league baseball games were played:

* The New York Yankees lost to the Boston Red Sox, 2-1 at Yankee Stadium. Bill Henry outpitched Whitey Ford, allowing only 2 hits, a double by Billy Martin and an RBI triple by Yogi Berra. Mickey Mantle went 0-for-3 with a walk. Ted Williams went 1-for-3 before leaving for a defensive replacement. It didn't matter: The Yankees had won the American League Pennant, with the Cleveland Indians the closest team, 8 1/2 games behind.

* The Brooklyn Dodgers beat the Philadelphia Phillies, 8-2 at Connie Mack Stadium in Philadelphia. Russ Meyer started, but only lasted 3 innings against his former team, thus not qualifying as the winning pitcher, who turned out to be Billy Loes. Robin Roberts fell to 23-16 on the season for the Phils. Jackie Robinson went 0-for-4, but drew a walk, and had an RBI on a sacrifice fly.

The Dodgers won 105 games, taking the National League Pennant by 13 games over the Milwaukee Braves, and might have had their most powerful lineup in franchise history. But they didn't yet have Don Newcombe back from the Korean War, while the Yankees had Whitey Ford back from it, and that helped make the difference, as the Yankees won the World Series in 6 games.

* The New York Giants lost to the Pittsburgh Pirates, 6-4 at Forbes Field in Pittsburgh. In the kind of odd move that sometimes happens in season finales, Alvin Dark, the Giants' Captain and usual shortstop, was the starting pitcher, going just 1 inning and allowing 2 runs, before giving way to Rubén Gómez, who went 7 innings. But it would be Al Corwin who gave up a game-winning homer in the bottom of the 9th, to Preston Ward. Cal Hogue went the distance for the Pirates.

Willie Mays was still in the U.S. Army, despite the Korean War being over. He would return during the next season's Spring Training, and would remain on the Giants' roster until May 11, 1972.

* The Philadelphia Athletics beat the Washington Senators, 9-2 at Griffith Stadium in Washington. A year later, the A's would leave Philly. Six years after that, the Senators would also move, replaced by a new team. That team would also move, after 11 years.

* The Detroit Tigers beat the Cleveland Indians, 7-3 at Cleveland Municipal Stadium. Al Aber outpitched Bob Feller. Ray Boone, father of Bob, and grandfather of Bret and Aaron, hit a home run for the Tigers. Rookie Al Kaline went 0-for-3 with a walk.

* The Milwaukee Braves beat the Cincinnati Redlegs, 8-2 at Crosley Field in Cincinnati. This was the 1st of 6 seasons in which the Reds caved in to anti-Communist pressure, and dropped the "Reds" name, before realizing it was stupid, and reclaiming their name.

* And the Chicago Cubs beat their arch-rivals, the St. Louis Cardinals, 3-2 at Wrigley Field in Chicago. At least the Cardinals would still be in St. Louis the next season. Stan Musial went 2-for-5. For the Cubs, Ralph Kiner went 0-for-4, and rookie Ernie Banks went 0-for-3.

And it was the opening Sunday of the NFL season. These games were played:

* The New York Giants lost to the Los Angeles Rams, 21-7 at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum.

* The Baltimore Colts beat the Chicago Bears, 13-9 at Municipal Stadium in Baltimore. That facility was being converted into Memorial Stadium for the 1954 baseball season. It had been a 70,000-seat football stadium, a horseshoe with the open end at the south, and the baseball diamond in the northwest corner, into a 50,000-seat multipurpose stadium, a horseshoe with the open end at the north, and the diamond in the south end.

* The Detroit Lions beat the Pittsburgh Steelers, 38-21 at Briggs Stadium (later Tiger Stadium) in Detroit.

* The Washington Redskins beat the Chicago Cardinals, 24-13 at Comiskey Park in Chicago.

* The Cleveland Browns beat the Green Bay Packers, 27-0 at Milwaukee County Stadium.

* And the San Francisco 49ers beat the Philadelphia Eagles, 31-21 at Kezar Stadium in San Francisco.