St. Paul, MN

In the 1950s, both the Minneapolis Millers and St. Paul Saints were playing in older parks (Lexington Park in St. Paul and Nicollet Park in Minneapolis). Caught up in the excitement of westward expansion by MLB, both teams built new, and "expandable" stadiums, so they could entice a big league club to their city. In the case of this park, the stadium had a single decked grandstand, but it was constructed so that a second deck could be added easily. The residents of St. Paul made it clear that they would not support major league baseball if it was not played at Midway Stadium, going so far that Joseph Dillon, the Mayor, would not support the proposed Bloomington site that was being considered as a potential big league ballpark. In 1959, a group of fans said they would not support major league baseball unless half the games were played in St. Paul. All this proved for naught, as the larger Metropolitan Stadium was chosen as the new home of the Washington Senators, later christened Twins. Also, as anyone from the Bay Area knows, that thanks to baseball's territorial rules, only one team can play in a market, so the Millers and Saints were both displaced to the Seattle Rainers and Omaha Dodgers, respectively.

© 2016-17 Paul Healey.