Milwaukee: Baseball's Green Bay?
I love The Hardball Times. Anyone who is a baseball fan and isn't reading the great work being done over at THT is really missing out on some wonderful insight into the game.
Moving back to Wisconsin after all these years has gotten me more interested in Wisconsin baseball. I pay as much attention to the Brewers these days as I did back when they had guys like Paul Molitor, Robin Yount, Gorman Thomas, and Teddy Higuera; in a few years the Brewers may replace the Padres as my National League rooting interest.
Anyway, since I've become more interested in Wisconsin baseball, I've begun to delve into the lore of the Milwaukee Braves. A recent post at THT posed an question that I didn't realize the full scope of until the end of the article. Indeed, what if the Braves had signed Willie Mays?
The premise is simple enough: the Braves had begun courting Mays, then a teenage star of the Negro League, in 1950. The Birmingham Barons controlled Mays' contract, and demanded a significant sum for the day - $15,000 - for his rights. The Braves balked, the Giants discovered him a short while later, and the rest is history.
But what if the Braves (then still in Boston) would have ponied up the cash? The baseball landscape would be completely different today.
At this point, I'm going to put up a cut so those interested can go read the article for themselves without me spoiling the outcome. If you're only marginally interest, look behind .
Consequences
- Willie Mays and Hank Aaron as teammates for nearly 20 years
- A Mays - Matthews - Aaron - Pafko Braves offensive core in the early 1950s
- A Spahn - Burdette - Antonelli Braves pitching core in the early 1950s
- No Bobby Thomson "Shot Heard 'Round the World" - the Dodgers win the 1951 NL pennant without need of a playoff series
- Another Yankees - Dodgers World Series meeting in 1951
- The Braves establish the first all-black outfield in history in 1954 (Billy Bruton - my favorite Brave, Mays, and Aaron)
- A much earlier Braves - Indians World Series meeting, this time in 1954 (and what a doozy)
- The Braves with four straight trips to the World Series in 1956, 1957, 1958, and 1959
- No Don Larson perfect game in the 1956 World Series
- Four MVPs for the Braves in the 1950s - Mays in 1954, Aaron in 1956 and 1957, and Eddie Mathews in 1959
- A Braves - Yankees World Series in 1964
- The Braves never move to Atlanta after 1965, instead becoming baseball's Green Bay
- The Kansas City Athletics move to Atlanta, not Oakland, in 1968 (Atlanta A's even sounds good)
- Milwaukee wins the NL West in 1969
- The Seattle Pilots stay in Seattle instead of moving to Milwaukee to become the Brewers
- Mays hits fewer than his 660 career homers because of County Stadium, and likewise...
- Aaron winds up with 710 career home runs in 1976, but then plays one more year to pass The Babe
Given that, and the fact that my grandpa was a Braves fan until they moved away (although he also was a Twins fan after the Senators moved to Minnesota), I might have grown up rooting for the Braves and the Twins, which would have probably given me an aneurysm in 1991.
Moving back to Wisconsin after all these years has gotten me more interested in Wisconsin baseball. I pay as much attention to the Brewers these days as I did back when they had guys like Paul Molitor, Robin Yount, Gorman Thomas, and Teddy Higuera; in a few years the Brewers may replace the Padres as my National League rooting interest.
Anyway, since I've become more interested in Wisconsin baseball, I've begun to delve into the lore of the Milwaukee Braves. A recent post at THT posed an question that I didn't realize the full scope of until the end of the article. Indeed, what if the Braves had signed Willie Mays?
The premise is simple enough: the Braves had begun courting Mays, then a teenage star of the Negro League, in 1950. The Birmingham Barons controlled Mays' contract, and demanded a significant sum for the day - $15,000 - for his rights. The Braves balked, the Giants discovered him a short while later, and the rest is history.
But what if the Braves (then still in Boston) would have ponied up the cash? The baseball landscape would be completely different today.
At this point, I'm going to put up a cut so those interested can go read the article for themselves without me spoiling the outcome. If you're only marginally interest, look behind .
Consequences
- Willie Mays and Hank Aaron as teammates for nearly 20 years
- A Mays - Matthews - Aaron - Pafko Braves offensive core in the early 1950s
- A Spahn - Burdette - Antonelli Braves pitching core in the early 1950s
- No Bobby Thomson "Shot Heard 'Round the World" - the Dodgers win the 1951 NL pennant without need of a playoff series
- Another Yankees - Dodgers World Series meeting in 1951
- The Braves establish the first all-black outfield in history in 1954 (Billy Bruton - my favorite Brave, Mays, and Aaron)
- A much earlier Braves - Indians World Series meeting, this time in 1954 (and what a doozy)
- The Braves with four straight trips to the World Series in 1956, 1957, 1958, and 1959
- No Don Larson perfect game in the 1956 World Series
- Four MVPs for the Braves in the 1950s - Mays in 1954, Aaron in 1956 and 1957, and Eddie Mathews in 1959
- A Braves - Yankees World Series in 1964
- The Braves never move to Atlanta after 1965, instead becoming baseball's Green Bay
- The Kansas City Athletics move to Atlanta, not Oakland, in 1968 (Atlanta A's even sounds good)
- Milwaukee wins the NL West in 1969
- The Seattle Pilots stay in Seattle instead of moving to Milwaukee to become the Brewers
- Mays hits fewer than his 660 career homers because of County Stadium, and likewise...
- Aaron winds up with 710 career home runs in 1976, but then plays one more year to pass The Babe
Given that, and the fact that my grandpa was a Braves fan until they moved away (although he also was a Twins fan after the Senators moved to Minnesota), I might have grown up rooting for the Braves and the Twins, which would have probably given me an aneurysm in 1991.