Baseball’s New Frontier: A History of Expansion, 1961–1998 by Fran Zimniuch (review)

Abstract

Reviewed by: Baseball’s New Frontier: A History of Expansion, 1961–1998 by Fran Zimniuch Matt Follett Fran Zimniuch. Baseball’s New Frontier: A History of Expansion, 1961–1998. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2013. 232 pp. Cloth, $19.99. Fran Zimniuch’s Baseball’s New Frontier: A History of Expansion, 1961–1998 traces how Major League Baseball’s fourteen expansion teams came into existence, from the California Angels and Washington Senators in 1961 through the Arizona Diamondbacks and Tampa Bay Devil Rays in 1998. While pertinent players, managers, team statistics, and records are provided in detail, the book lacks a fluid narrative and needs more analysis on why expansion occurred, especially given its stark comparison with the emerging National Football League. Baseball’s New Frontier will appeal to the layman baseball fan, but voracious readers and scholars will be disappointed with the lack of footnotes, index, and interviews with high-ranking Major League Baseball officials involved in the expansion process. Zimniuch begins the book with background information on the first major geographical shift in Major League Baseball. In a unanimous decision by National League owners, Walter O’Malley’s Brooklyn Dodgers and Horace Stoneham’s New York Giants moved to Los Angeles and San Francisco on May 28, 1957, respectively (19). O’Malley and Stoneham were presented with better stadium facilities and economic opportunities in Los Angeles and San Francisco than what was offered in Brooklyn and the Meadowlands. Chapter [End Page 158] 2, “The Continental League,” demonstrates how the fear of a third major league sparked expansion. After the Dodgers’ and Giants’ departure, New York City’s mayor, Robert Wagner, created the Mayor’s Baseball Committee to bring a major-league team back to New York. William Shea, a prominent New York attorney, led the commission, but Zimniuch argues it was Branch Rickey’s involvement as the potential Continental League commissioner that legitimized the rival league. With Rickey’s notoriety and the financial acumen of eight owners who committed $2.5 million and funded stadiums to hold 35,000 fans, the Continental League announced its plans for opening day on April 18, 1961 (33). Threatened by competition from a third major league, American League and National League owners offered four new teams to Los Angeles, Washington dc, Houston, and New York. As a result, the Continental League owners accepted the proposal and the league folded on August 2, 1960, before any games were played (36). Zimniuch then chronicles all of the expansion teams: California Angels and Washington Senators in 1961; Houston Colt .45s and New York Mets in 1962; Kansas City Royals, Seattle Pilots, San Diego Padres, and Montreal Expos in 1969; Seattle Mariners and Toronto Blue Jays in 1977; Colorado Rockies and Florida Marlins in 1993; and Arizona Diamondbacks and Tampa Bay Devil Rays in 1998. The analysis on the expansion teams is disappointing and redundant. Each chapter details the finances of the expansion draft, the players selected, a history of each team’s struggle for respectability, and long quotes from a player involved on the team, concluding with team highlights and a list of best players. However, sandwiched between the encyclopedic listings is a chapter on the abolition of the reserve clause. Chapter 6, “The Pendulum of Power Swings to the Players,” is the most valuable portion of the book because it analyzes how Curt Flood’s lawsuit changed Major League Baseball. Zimniuch presents the plight of the players nicely by highlighting previous lawsuits like Federal Baseball Club of Baltimore v. National League in 1922, Toolson v. New York Yankees in 1953, and Flood v. Kuhn in 1973. Curt Flood’s Supreme Court case resulted in arbitration for the players, and Zimniuch concludes his chapter by describing Andy Messersmith’s and Dave McNally’s fight on behalf of the players following Flood’s lawsuit. Messersmith and McNally, who pitched for the Los Angeles Dodgers and Montreal Expos, played the 1975 season without a signed contract. After the season ended, a three-person Major League Baseball arbitration panel decreed that players were only tied to their teams one year after their contracts expired. Consequently, as Zimniuch notes, the “decision rendered the reserve clause ineffective, ending the enormous...