One Baseball Tradition Ends, Another Continues

A few days ago I posted about the fact that all the teams then leading major league baseball's six divisions were pre-expansion (pre-1961) franchises. So much for that piece of trivia. The Anaheim Angels, one of the first two expansion franchises (est. 1961) caught up with the Oakland Athletics (descended from the Philadelphia Athletics, est. 1901) and went on to win the American League West title by beating the A's today.

For those few of you who might be interested: The other 1961 expansion team was the Washington Senators, a team that replaced the original American League Senators (1901-60), which moved to Minnesota for the 1961 season and has been there since, as the Twins. The expansion Senators lasted only 11 seasons (1961-71) and moved to Texas, as the Rangers. You may know all that, but did you know that there were two Washington Senators teams in the National League (1886-9 and 1892-9)? Which means that Washington is about to get its fifth baseball franchise.

How many chances do you get to show that you can support a baseball team? If your name is Washington, it seems that you get as many chances as you want.