If you ask someone “who are the Browns?” they can likely come up with the obvious answer, the Cleveland Browns of the National Football League, one of the oldest teams around with a storied history. But there was a time when the color brown was a bit more popular in sports nomenclature.
In Baseball there were the St. Louis Browns. In fact there were numerous iterations of the St. Louis Browns: the future Cardinals and the future Orioles (both teams changed to birds, odd). Such monochrome names really lend their legacies to that first professional baseball club, the Cincinnati Red Stockings. As I wrote over here, teams in the earlier years of baseball didn’t really have much in the way of official names, but rather nicknames derived from uniform elements or some kind of regional connection. The Reds had amassed a good deal of popularity in a barn storming tour in which they thoroughly dominated. So in 1875 the Brown Stockings came about. The team lasted for three seasons before going belly up. There was a game fixing scandal with the Louisville Grays that sent both teams out of business.
But, as we all know, St. Louis is one heck of a baseball town, so baseball returned in 1882. This new team took up the old browns name and colors (I think they were brown). The team played in the American Association before that went defunct, where they had great success, establishing a rivalry with the Chicago White Stockings (the future Cubs, not White Sox, as confusing as that is) of the National League.
Just as a quick aside, I’ve mentioned four different baseball teams, and all of them derive their nicknames from a color element. It’s a good thing that teams started taking inspiration from birds and the like, otherwise we’d really be at a loss for ideas once all the good colors were taken.
The Browns joined the National League themselves after 1892, and played under that nickname until 1899, when they were the Perfectos, a name that was promptly changed to the Cardinals the very next year. And so ends the tale of those original St. Louis Browns.
The next St. Louis Browns appeared a scant two years later in 1902. This team was an American League team, formerly known as the Milwaukee Brewers. The early twentieth century was very tumultuous for baseball. There was the National League, which was the majors, then there were the minor leagues, including the American League. But in 1900, the American League declared itself equal to the National League and pulled out of their agreement. Following this, nearly all the AL teams folded or moved. The Brewers hung on for one terrible season before going off to St. Louis.
There’s no great mystery behind their name choice. The old Browns were now the Cardinals, and the
name was a tribute to the former team, and likely sought to rope in former Browns watchers as well. Though they officially were not a continuation of the franchise, they adopted the name, colors (brown), and the old stadium which they remodeled, becoming the third concrete and steel baseball park, Sportsman’s Park.
However, overtime the Cardinals strengthened their team while the Browns languished, and St. Louis progressively became more of a Cardinals town. The Browns won one pennant, but it happened in 1944 and most believed it a fluke, as most of the star baseball players had joined the armed forces.
1951 brought colorful owner Bill Veeck. He was a great showman who presided over a Browns team that was never more than mediocre. He attempted to raid the Cardinals cabinet of players, but ultimately failed, his final humiliation coming in his having to sell the competing franchise Sportsman’s Park. Veeck had made no friends around the league for his antics, and was blocked from moved the team on his own. So he had to sell the controlling interest of the team off. He did so to Baltimore investors, who were promptly cleared to move the team to Baltimore as Veeck had tried and failed to do.
That did it for the Browns, St. Louis or otherwise. Baltimore changed the team name to the Orioles, in honor of their old defunct team. They gutted the roster with massive trades, and left the old Browns records behind.
So there it is, floating out there in limbo. A team that once sent a 45 year old Satchel Paige to the mound, a team that sent 3’7” man to bat complete with a fractional number on his uniform, a team in which the owner moved his family to the stadium to live. Though the original Browns were a good team for a while, the St. Louis Browns, when remembered, will always be remembered as more of a joke, somewhere on par with the Washington Senators, or Washington Generals for that matter. There’s the old Cardinals, and the fifty year joke.
But hey, you have to hand it to them, not too many bad teams lasted as long as they did. And between the different teams, a St. Louis Browns legacy held on for a long long time. All the Browns teams eventually turned into good teams (though they’ve had their ups and downs) and St. Louis kept the more successful franchise and Veeck extended his pioneering influence to the White Sox and entered the hall of fame. So really, I think this is one limbo team where the only people who lost out were the poor souls trotted out to play for them.
