#baseball movement

[veloprosports-blog]

Baseball Analytics and Tracking - what you NEED to know to stay Relevant

Baseball Analytics are poised to change the game, as variables are able to tracked & related to performance, so to do realize what works.

There is a big difference between training athletes and developing them. There is an even bigger difference between taking an already good athlete and marketing their gains, compared to developing an athlete to be good.

[baseballsisco]

On This Day in Baseball History November 10, 1964: The Braves sign a twenty-five year lease to play in the newly constructed Atlanta Stadium. Now this was all fine and dandy except for one little minor detail. The Braves still played in Milwaukee. 

in 1962, the Braves were sold by Lou Perini to a group lead by William Bartholomay. Bartholomay almost immediately wanted to move the team to a new market that wasn’t crowded. While the Braves never had a losing season in Milwaukee and made an unprecedented amount of profits from deals with Milwaukee Country in the form of concessions and parking, the media market in Milwaukee was crowded. The Twins played almost 300 miles to the East with the Cubs and White Sox playing less than 100 miles to the South. The allure of playing in a new stadium in an up and coming area in a Sun Belt city such as Atlanta proved to hard to resist.

In comparing Atlanta to Milwaukee, the nearest teams to Atlanta were the Cincinnati Reds at nearly 400 miles to the north, almost 600 miles to the North east were the Washington Senators and 700 miles to the Northwest were the Kansas City A’s. Atlanta would be Major League Baseball’s Southeastern team until Baseball expanded into Florida in 1993. That was a massive territory that the Braves would have all to themselves. Cable TV in the form of Superstation TBS would take the Braves nationwide. But again, there was one slight problem. The Braves played in Milwaukee. 

A lawsuit was filed in the form of Wisconsin v. The Milwaukee Braves, 144 N.W.2d 1 (1966) and alleged that:

that the Braves and the other nine teams in the National League had conspired to deprive the city of Milwaukee of Major League Baseball, and, moreover, had agreed that no replacement team would be permitted for the city. As such, the complaint alleged, the defendants were in violation of the Wisconsin Antitrust Act.

To read a more detailed breakdown of the particulars of the case, I recommend you read Why Milwaukee Lost the Braves: Perspectives on Law and Culture From a Half-Century Later by J. Gordon Hylton from the Marquette University Law School Faculty blogpage. 

In the end, the Braves played their last season in Milwaukee in 1965. They started play at Atlanta in 1966 and the case came to an end in 1967. The city of Milwaukee would be given a second chance at Major League ball with the transplanted Milwaukee Brewers formerly known as the Seattle Pilots. They would play in the American League starting the 1970 season.

For Further Reading:

Why Milwaukee Lost the Braves: Perspectives on Law and Culture From a Half-Century Later by J. Gordon Hylton from the Marquette University Law School Faculty blogpage

Milwaukee Braves, 1953-1965 from the Wisconsin Historical Society

The Mayor Surrenders Atlanta by Jim Minter from Sports Illustrated dated July 12, 1965