Coming and Going

NEW YORK, NEW YORK & MILWAUKEE, WISCONSIN - This date in baseball provided hints of one franchise moving, and a city trying to bring another back. On January 27, 1956 the New York football Giants announced they would desert the Polo Grounds for Yankee Stadium for the upcoming season. This added to speculation that the baseball Giants wouldn't be long for the Polo Grounds either. The Associated Press reported that the baseball Giants were also contemplating a "move across the Harlem River" to Yankee Stadium by 1957. The baseball team ended up moving in 1958 but not across the Harlem River, across the continental United States to San Francisco where they remain to this day.

Ten years later on this date Milwaukee was trying to get the Braves back from Atlanta. The team hadn't played any games in Georgia yet, but they'd already left Wisconsin. According to UPI (United Press International) on January 27, 1966 Wisconsin Circuit Court Judge Elmer Roller stopped just short of ordering the league to expand to Milwaukee or bring the Braves back, but he said the league should do everything "within their scope" to get a team there.

As it turned out, the Braves stayed in Atlanta and the American League franchise Seattle Pilots left Puget Sound for Milwaukee in 1970 and changed their name to the Brewers. And the Polo Grounds, the ballpark was demolished in 1964.

Contributing sources:
United Press International, January 28, 1966
Associated Press, January 28, 1956
Giants history