Teams That Moved: Browns to Orioles, Braves Three Times and the Athletics Three Times

By 4Baseball Staff · November 5, 2026 · 9 min read

Every major-league relocation from 1902 to the Athletics in 2025, with attendance and record figures for the year before and the year after, and the reasons clubs left Boston, St. Louis, Philadelphia and Washington.

For the first half of the twentieth century no major-league team moved. Sixteen clubs sat in ten cities from 1903 until 1953, and a fan born in 1910 could expect the same teams in the same ballparks for the rest of his life. Then the Boston Braves left for Milwaukee, and within twenty years the map of the sport had been redrawn. Most of the map as it exists today was drawn between 1953 and 1972, with a few changes after that.

This article goes through each relocation, roughly in order, with the numbers that sit behind the decision: the attendance in the last year at the old address and the first year at the new one, and the won-lost records that went with them. The franchises that moved most often are the Braves (Boston, Milwaukee, Atlanta) and the Athletics (Philadelphia, Kansas City, Oakland and West Sacramento), which is why the title counts them. The figures come from the historical record, which carries attendance by team and season.

A caution before the details. Attendance is only one of the reasons a team moves, and it is not always the main one. Ownership changes, stadium leases, television, a rival in the same city and the promise of a new park all enter in. The numbers describe what happened. They do not, by themselves, prove why.

The two moves before the modern era: 1902 and 1903

The first relocations happened in the American League's first years. The league began play in 1901 with a club in Milwaukee, the Brewers, who lasted one season there. In 1902 the franchise became the St. Louis Browns. This is the club that would later become the Baltimore Orioles, and it is why the modern Orioles trace their history to Milwaukee in 1901 and not to the National League Orioles of the 1890s.

The second early move came in 1903. The American League's Baltimore Orioles of 1901 and 1902 became the New York Highlanders, who were later renamed the Yankees. After that, the sport stood still for fifty years, with the same sixteen clubs in the same ten cities from 1903 through 1952.

1953: the Braves leave Boston

The Boston Braves played at Braves Field. In 1950 they drew 944,391 fans, in 1951 only 487,475, and in 1952 just 281,278 while finishing 64-89 and seventh. The club shared a city with the Red Sox, and by the early 1950s the Braves were losing the contest for Boston's fans.

In the spring of 1953 the club announced a move to Milwaukee, which had a new ballpark, County Stadium, and a long minor-league history. The first season there made the case. The Milwaukee Braves went 92-62, finished second, and drew 1,826,397 fans, more than six times the previous year's crowd in Boston. The next year they drew 2,131,388, and in 1957, when they won 95 games and the pennant, the figure was 2,215,404, the club's best in Milwaukee. They beat the Yankees in seven games that October for the World Series title. The move looked like the start of a new model: a smaller city, a new stadium and a crowd.

The honeymoon was shorter than it looked. By 1965 the Braves, 86-76 and fifth, drew only 555,584 at County Stadium in what proved to be the last season in Milwaukee, as the club prepared to move to Atlanta. The same franchise that had set an attendance record in Milwaukee was playing to near-empty stands twelve years later. The Braves are the clearest example in the historical record of how fast a novelty can fade.

1954: the Browns become the Orioles

The St. Louis Browns were the weaker of two clubs sharing Sportsman's Park with the Cardinals. They won one pennant in fifty-two seasons, in 1944, and lost the World Series to the Cardinals, four games to two, in a series played entirely in one ballpark. In 1953 the Browns finished 54-100, last in the American League, and drew 297,238 fans.

A Baltimore group bought the club and the American League approved the move to Baltimore for 1954. The club took the name Orioles, after the city's earlier teams, and played at Memorial Stadium. In that first season the Orioles went 54-100, exactly the Browns' record from a year before, and drew 1,060,910, about three and a half times the crowd. The results got better, if slowly. The club was 89-65 and second in 1960, won its first pennant in Baltimore in 1966, and swept the Dodgers in the World Series that year.

The Orioles are the best argument that a relocation can work. From 1966 through 1983 they won six pennants and three World Series (1966, 1970 and 1983), and in 1969 they won 109 games. If you want the club's own record, the Orioles team page carries it.

1955: the Athletics leave Philadelphia

The Philadelphia Athletics were a founding American League club, and in 1954 they finished 51-103 and drew 304,666 fans at a ballpark they shared with the Phillies. The family that had owned the club since 1901 sold it, and the new owner moved it to Kansas City for 1955.

The first season in Kansas City was an attendance success: 63-91, sixth place and 1,393,054 fans, more than four times the Philadelphia crowd. It was not a competitive success. In thirteen seasons the club never finished above sixth place and never won more than 74 games, attendance fell to 528,344 in 1965, and by 1967 the team was 62-99, last in a ten-team league. Missouri's senator Stuart Symington pressed the league to give the city a new team, and the Royals began play in 1969.

1958: the Dodgers and Giants go west

The most famous move of the era is the pair of departures from New York. After the 1957 season the Brooklyn Dodgers went to Los Angeles and the New York Giants to San Francisco, ending National League baseball in the nation's largest city for four years. The Dodgers drew 1,028,258 in their last Brooklyn season and 1,845,556 in the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum in 1958. The Giants drew 653,923 at the Polo Grounds in 1957 and 1,272,625 at Seals Stadium in 1958. The Dodgers were 84-70 and third in their last Brooklyn season and the Giants 69-85 and sixth, so the moves were not made from strength or weakness alone. The full story of the 1957 decision is covered in its own article, and the historical numbers above show why the owners expected a larger market.

1961 and 1972: Washington loses its team twice

Washington lost its original American League club twice, in different forms. The first Senators moved to Minnesota after the 1960 season and became the Twins, with attendance rising from 743,404 in Washington in 1960 to 1,256,723 at Metropolitan Stadium in 1961. They were a pennant winner in 1965, at 102-60.

The American League put an expansion club in Washington in 1961, also called the Senators. That team lost 100 games in its first season, going 61-100. It drew 597,287 in 1961 and 655,156 in 1971, and owner Bob Short moved it to Texas for 1972, where it became the Rangers. The last game in Washington, in September 1971, ended in a forfeit to the Yankees after fans rushed the field in the ninth inning. In Texas the Rangers went 54-100 in 1972 and drew 662,974 at Arlington Stadium. Washington went without a team until 2005.

1966: the Braves go to Atlanta

The Braves moved again, this time to Atlanta, a city with a new stadium and no major-league team. The 1966 Atlanta Braves went 85-77, drew 1,539,801 at Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium, and stayed in the National League. The early years were unspectacular. In 1967 the club was 77-85 and drew 1,389,222, though it won a division title in 1969. In 1993, in the middle of a run of division titles that began in 1991, the same stadium hosted the highest attendance in the franchise's history, 3,884,720.

The Braves' record over three cities is distinctive in its range. The franchise's World Series titles are 1914 (Boston), 1957 (Milwaukee), and 1995 and 2021 (Atlanta), so it has won in every one of its homes. The count in this article's title is loose: the Braves made two moves across three homes, and the Athletics made three moves across four.

1968: the Athletics go to Oakland

The Athletics lasted thirteen seasons in Kansas City. Their owner, Charles O. Finley, moved the club to Oakland for 1968, where it played at the Oakland Coliseum. Attendance rose from 726,639 in Kansas City in 1967 to 837,466 in 1968, a smaller jump than in most moves. Oakland was 82-80 in its first year and 88-74 in 1969.

The move paid off on the field. The Athletics won the American League West in 1971, 1972, 1973, 1974 and 1975 and took three straight World Series, in 1972, 1973 and 1974. In 1972 they won 93 games, and in 1974 they won 90. Few relocated franchises have had a better decade. Oakland as a destination, though, never became the attendance success that Baltimore did. Crowds stayed in the high hundreds of thousands in the seasons shown above, and the stadium question returned decades later.

1969 and 1970: the Pilots become the Brewers

The shortest relocation in the historical record is the Seattle Pilots, an expansion club that played only in 1969. They went 64-98, drew 677,944 at Sicks' Stadium and, short of money, were sold just before the 1970 season and moved to Milwaukee as the Brewers, who began play in 1970. Milwaukee had lost the Braves four years earlier and had a stadium waiting. Seattle went without a major-league team until 1977, when the Mariners began play.

2005: the Expos become the Nationals

The Montreal Expos were an expansion club in 1969 and the first Canadian major-league team. By the early 2000s attendance had fallen. In 2004 they went 67-95, drew 749,550 and played some home games in San Juan, Puerto Rico. After the season the team moved to Washington, where it became the Nationals, finishing 81-81 in 2005 and drawing 2,731,993 at R.F.K. Stadium. The Expos' own story is told in detail elsewhere.

2025: the Athletics in West Sacramento

The most recent move in the historical data is the Athletics' departure from Oakland. After the 2024 season, in which they went 69-93 and drew 922,286 fans, the club played 2025 at Sutter Health Park in West Sacramento, an arrangement made while a ballpark in Las Vegas was planned. The 2025 Athletics went 76-86 and drew 768,464. The franchise is listed in the historical record as the Athletics, with no city in the name. As of the 2025 season the long-term home was not settled, and readers should check official sources for the current arrangements.

The relocations in one table

What the numbers say, and what they do not

Look at the attendance in the first season after each move: it rose in Milwaukee (more than six times), Kansas City (more than four), Baltimore (about three and a half) and Minnesota (about 1.7 times). In Oakland the first-year rise was only about 15 percent. The pattern is as consistent as anything in the historical record.

What the numbers cannot tell you is whether the gain was permanent. The Braves show that it often was not. A new ballpark and a new team can draw a city's attention for a few years, but the same city that supported a team in 1957 did not in 1965. Baltimore's relocation was followed by good teams, and Kansas City's by poor ones, so a move is only a start.

Common questions

Which franchise has moved the most times? The Athletics, with three moves across four cities as of the 2025 season. The Braves and the Orioles, whose franchise began in Milwaukee, each made two.

Did the Orioles come from the old Baltimore Orioles? No. The modern Orioles are the former St. Louis Browns, who began in Milwaukee in 1901. The Baltimore Orioles of 1901 and 1902 became the Yankees.

Why did the Dodgers and Giants move together? The Giants' owner had been considering Minnesota, and Walter O'Malley's Dodgers needed a second National League club in California to make the trip workable. The details are in the linked article.

Has a team ever moved after one season? Yes, the Seattle Pilots played only the 1969 season.

Where to go next

Read when the Dodgers and Giants left New York for the biggest move of all and the Montreal Expos and the move to Washington for the most recent one before the Athletics. For how stadium design changed with the moves, see domed stadiums and the Astrodome, and for the figures used above, see how to read a box score. The Orioles and Braves team pages carry each club's current record.