The two teams who will face off Wednesday night in Game 1 of the World Series — the Texas Rangers and the San Francisco Giants — share two common traits.
Both franchises began in different cities where they play now and both over the course of their history in their new residences have had their bags packed and ready to move again.
The history of the Giants and the Rangers is a history of the sordid economic politics of the game.
The most ironic part of their connection? Both franchises, at one point or another, were close to moving to Tampa, Fla. — where the expansion Rays, after 12 years of existence, are fighting for economic survival in a terrible market.
The Giants were once the New York Giants, when the city also had the Yankees and Brooklyn Dodgers. Dodgers owner Walter O’Malley failed to get the new ballpark site he wanted in Brooklyn, so he went west and Giants owner Horace Stoneham followed him.
O’Malley was given a prime piece of Los Angeles real estate and on it built the baseball palace known as Dodger Stadium. He also built one of the most successful and lucrative franchises in the game.
Stoneham? He would wind up with one of the worst ballpark locations in baseball — Candlestick Park, built on a point in San Francisco that proved to have cold, foggy and brutally windy conditions.
The Giants have been on the brink of leaving town several times during their existence in San Francisco because of attendance and financial problems. They were heading for Toronto in 1976 when real estate baron Bob Lurie bought the team and kept it in the Bay Area — until he ran into a number of roadblocks to get a new ballpark built. Then Lurie had a deal to sell the franchise to a group of Tampa businessmen in 1992, but baseball squashed the deal. Peter McGowan then came through to buy the franchise and keep it in San Francisco. McGowan, thanks to Barry Bonds and competitive teams, was able to get a new ballpark built — one the Giants play in today.
The Rangers, as most Washington baseball fans know, were the second incarnation of the Washington Senators, the expansion team awarded to Washington after Calvin Griffith took his team to Minnesota. But after 10 years, owner Bob Short took a deal to move the franchise to the Dallas-Fort Worth area.
The franchise, under several different owners, struggled and was on the brink of leaving several times, including a 1988 deal to sell it to a Tampa-based group. Baseball stopped that move, and instead the franchise was bought in 1989 by a group headed by George W. Bush, who would use the franchise as a springboard to become governor of Texas.
Bush led the effort to develop the Ballpark in Arlington, which opened in 1994. The franchise, under owner Tom Hicks, fell into bankruptcy this year and was bought at a bankruptcy auction by a group led by Hall of Famer Nolan Ryan this summer.
Bankruptcy. Greed. Municipal extortions — your 2010 World Series teams.
Examiner columnist Thom Loverro is the co-host of “The Sports Fix” from noon to 2 p.m. Monday through Friday on ESPN 980 and espn980.com. Contact him at [email protected]
