A sparse crowd of just 3,174 are on hand to see the St Louis Browns final home game before they would ship off to Baltimore the following season. And as was the case for most of their tenure in the Gateway City, the Browns lost to the Chicago White Sox 2-1 for their 100th loss of the season.
From 1902 through 1953 the Browns won the American League pennant just once in 1944 when Major League baseball was depleted with most of it’s talent serving in World War II. During their 52 year reign in St Louis they finished last ten times and ending in the bottom half of the AL 42 times. 1953 was also the 8th time they endured 100 losses in a season.
And it didn’t help matters that during their time in St Louis that the Cardinals of the National League became one of the premier teams in the majors, drawing most of the attention in the city as well as the baseball fanbase as the Browns attracted only 306,728 fans for the 1953 season while the Cardinals almost tripled that (880,242).
-Ron A. Bolton
