1. and 2. The obvious Missouri connections to this year's 10 teams in the MLB playoffs begin with the two franchises directly participating - the Kansas City's Royals and St. Louis' Cardinals. But the number of, and impact of, the historical connections are interesting as well. And one major historical event possibly changed the fate of four of the teams in this year's postseason festivities.
3. The Oakland A's were in Kansas City for 13 years before moving out west.
4. The Baltimore Orioles were previously known as the St. Louis Browns (more about this later).
5. Before Branch Rickey's fame with the Dodgers, he had already heavily impacted the game of baseball in his 30 plus years in St. Louis, both with the Browns and the Cardinals. He was a player, manager, and executive in the city during his long stint there. Branch was responsible for signing George Sisler, commanded Ty Cobb and Christy Mathewson in WWI, designing the famous Birds on the Bat uniform for the Cardinals, and is credited with inventing the modern day organized minor league farm system, which first spawned the Gashouse Gang success in the 1930's. When Branch executed his most famous baseball breakthrough, the signing of Jackie Robinson, he first had to sign him away from the Kansas City Monarchs (of the Negro Leagues), and assign him to the Dodgers affiliate - the Montreal "Royals". By the way, after leaving the Dodgers, Rickey became the General Manager for the Pittsburgh Pirates and later returned to the St. Louis Cardinals as a consultant. He died in Columbia Missouri after attempting his final speech as a newly elected member of the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame.
6. 7. 8. 9. - Perhaps one of the most profound impacts on all 4 of the California baseball franchises is what DIDN'T happen because of one of the country's most infamous historical events. Before California had any of their current major league baseball franchises, there was a vote of major lead owners scheduled to approve the move of what was to be California's first MLB team. In 1941, the American League gave tentative approval for an existing franchise to move to Los Angeles. The League even created a schedule for the following season that took into account transcontinental trips for games in Los Angeles. The final step was a vote of the existing American League owners to approve the move. The vote was scheduled for the week of November 8th, 1941. With the bombing of Pearl Harbor on November 7th, the owners decided that week that it was not a good time to make a move to the West Coast. So, the franchise involved in the voting move, the St. Louis Browns, remained in St. Louis until their later move to Baltimore, in 1954. It is interesting to consider the impact this move would have made to the subsequent California franchises starting in the 1950's. By the way, some St. Louis Brown fans/investors still owned stock in the Baltimore Orioles franchise until 1979, when new Orioles owner Edward Bennett Williams bought out the remaining shares, some which dated back to 1936.
