Sixty Years And Counting

[Grandbudda]

The 1954 Baltimore Orioles season was the franchise's 54th season (it was founded as the Milwaukee Brewers in 1901, then played as the St. Louis Browns from 1902–53) but its first season as the Baltimore Orioles. The season involved the Orioles finishing 7th in the American League with a record of 54 wins and 100 losses, 57 games behind the AL champion Cleveland Indians in their first season in Baltimore. The team was managed by Jimmy Dykes, and played its home games at Baltimore's Memorial Stadium.

That was then and this is now !

In this dynasty recreation I'm going to take the helm as GM and build a dynasty in Baltimore. I chose the Orioles because they are in the first season of existence even though the St Louis Browns were their forerunner and therefore not an expansion team but still are a ground floor opportunity. I'm looking forward to this project and so here we go :

New Memorial Stadium was completed in the late spring/early summer of 1954 under the direction of the administration of Mayor, Thomas L.J. D'Alesandro, Jr. as the Orioles' first "big league" season progressed, at a cost of $6.5 million under a project which started with its expansion in 1950. Seating 31,000 at the time, the new stadium consisted of a single, horseshoe-shaped deck, with the open end facing north, and was designed to host football as well as baseball. A roofless upper deck was added later in 1953-1954 when the St. Louis Browns of the American League were announced in November 1953 to be moved to Baltimore and became the new major league version of the Baltimore Orioles, beginning play in April 1954 in the American League.

In 1953, when the St. Louis Browns of baseball's American League wanted to move to Baltimore, the nearby Washington Senators, led by Clark Griffith, objected to the potential encroachment on their market. Jerold Hoffberger helped ease the way for the move by making his National Bohemian beer a Senators sponsor. When Browns owner Bill Veeck was all but forced to sell the team, Hoffberger and attorney Clarence Miles put together a syndicate that bought the team for $2.5 million and moved it to Baltimore as the Orioles. Hoffberger age 35, became the Chairman of the Board and began to accumulate more and more shares of stock and control of the team in the coming years.

[darkcloud4579]

Good luck