1969 Major League Baseball season

The 1969 Major League Baseball season is the 69th since the initial co-existence of the American and National Leagues.

It was celebrated as the 100th anniversary of professional baseball, honoring the first professional touring baseball team, the Cincinnati Red Stockings. A special silhouetted batter logo was created by James Sherman to commemorate the anniversary, and is still used to this day. It has served as inspiration for logos for other sports leagues both in the United States and elsewherefact|date=November 2007—most notably the National Basketball Association, which used the silhouette of Jerry West to create their current logo, unveiled in 1971 as part of the 25th anniversary of their own founding.

It was the first season of what is now called the "Divisional Era," where each league of 12 teams was divided into two divisions. The winners of each division would compete against each other in a League Championship Series, initially best-of-five, to determine the pennant-holders who would face each other in the World Series.

In a year marked by the second expansion of the decade, the New York Mets and the Baltimore Orioles faced each other in the 1969 World Series. Having won the N.L. East Division with a league-best 100-62 record, and sweeping the N.L. West Division Champion Atlanta Braves in three games in the first National League Championship Series, the "Miracle Mets" became the first expansion team to win a pennant. They faced the A.L. East Division Champion Orioles, holders of the best record in baseball by far (109-53), who also swept the A.L. West Division Champion Minnesota Twins in three games in the first American League Championship Series. In one of the most incredible achievements in baseball history, the upstart Mets upset the heavily-favored Orioles and won the World Series title in five games, leading to bedlam on the field of Shea Stadium.

Expansion fever

After the addition of the Los Angeles (now California) Angels and Washington Senators to the American League in 1961, and the New York Mets and Houston Colt .45s (now Astros) to the National League in 1962, Major League Baseball called for a further four-team expansion at the 1967 Winter Meetings. However, there was a complication: Missouri Senator Stuart Symington was irate over the seemingly shady deal to permit Kansas City Athletics owner Charles O. Finley to move his team to Oakland, California, for the by|1968 season. This happened even though Finley had just signed a new deal to play at Municipal Stadium at A.L. president Joe Cronin's behest, and Jackson County, Missouri, had just issued public bonds to build a new stadium, the future Kauffman Stadium.

Symington drew up legislation to remove baseball's anti-trust exemption, and threatened to push it through if Kansas City did not get a new team. The Office of the Commissioner complied, and the American League agreed to put one of its new franchises in Kansas City. Ewing Kauffman won the bidding for the new franchise and named it the Kansas City Royals. The other A.L. team was awarded to Seattle, Washington. A consortium led by Dewey Soriano and William Daley, the latter of whom once tried to move the Cleveland Indians to Seattle, won the bidding for the Seattle franchise, and named it the Seattle Pilots.

In the National League, they gave one franchise to San Diego, California, and the other to Montreal, Quebec, resulting in the first Major League franchise built outside the United States. C. Arnholdt Smith, former owner of the AAA Pacific Coast League's San Diego Padres, won the bidding for the San Diego franchise and named it the San Diego Padres. Charles Bronfman, owner of Seagram, won the bidding for the Montreal franchise and named them the Montreal Expos. This was the final NL expansion until 1993.

As part of the expansion, each league was to be split into two divisions of six teams, and each league would have a new playoff level—the best-of-five American League and National League Championship Series. The teams were originally to be fielded in by|1971, but further pressure from Symington led to the expansion being hastened to take place in time for the 1969 season.

Both the Padres and Expos finished with 110 losses and at the bottom of their respective divisions. The Royals did better, finishing 69-93 and in fourth in the A.L. West. Even though the Pilots managed to avoid losing 100 games (they were 64-98, though last in the A.L. West), financial trouble would lead to a battle for team control, ending with bankruptcy and the sale of the team to Bud Selig and their move to Milwaukee for the by|1970 season. The legal fallout of the battle would lead eventually to the expansion for the by|1977 season.

MLB Statistical Leaders

Regular season standings

Postseason

ee also

*1969 in baseball

References