For many years Kansas City was known as an excellent minor league city, though, attracting an old and respected franchise, albeit one that was on hard times. But it was a long and hard battle to get the Philadelphia Athletics to move west. Baseball was beginning to show some ferment with expansion or franchise shifts being discussed. In 1953 the St. Louis Browns moved to Baltimore; in 1954 the Boston Braves went to Milwaukee. In Philadelphia the Athletics had been around since 1901 and had won their first pennant in 1902. It had been 1931, however, since their last championship. They had been out of the second division only once since 1935.
