St. Louis Browns

The St. Louis Browns were a Major League Baseball team that originated in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, as the Milwaukee Brewers. A charter member of the American League (AL), the Brewers moved to St. Louis, Missouri, after the 1901 season, where they played for 52 years as the St. Louis Browns.

After the 1953 season, the team moved to Baltimore, Maryland, where it became the Baltimore Orioles. The last two surviving former St. Louis Brown players, Ed Mickelson and Billy Hunter, died only six days apart on June 27 and July 3, 2025 respectively.

The St. Louis Browns had an overall win–loss record of 3,414–4,465–96 (.434) during their 52 years in St. Louis. They were the least successful of the eight charter members of the American League, winning only one pennant and finishing fifth or worse 40 times.

The St. Louis Browns are represented by two players in the National Baseball Hall of Fame, Bobby Wallace and George Sisler.

In the late 19th century, the team was formed as the Milwaukee Brewers in the Western League. For the 1900 season, the Western League was renamed the "American League", and in 1901, league president Ban Johnson declared it a major league.

The team was originally owned by Milwaukee lawyers Matthew and Henry Killilea. As a minor league team, the Brewers had usually fielded subpar teams until Connie Mack became manager in 1894. The Killileas were among the poorer owners in the league, and did not have the resources to take advantage of the large number of National League players transferring to the American League. Of the 100 frontline players who switched leagues, only three signed with the Brewers. When Mack transferred to the Philadelphia Athletics at Johnson's behest as manager and part-owner, one of the three players who jumped to the Brewers, Hugh Duffy, became player-manager.

Johnson knew the Brewers could not be viable in Milwaukee, and originally intended to move them to St. Louis, a larger market. At the time, St. Louis was the fourth-largest city in the nation, while Milwaukee was the 15th. However, Matthew Killilea persuaded Johnson to give the Brewers what amounted to a one-year trial in Milwaukee, saying that he would agree to move to St. Louis if the team didn't make a good account of itself that year. Due to a lack of talent, the Brewers made a wretched showing. They never recovered from an 0–5 start, and crumbled to last place for good on June 30. They finished 48–89, the worst record in baseball, 35.5 games behind the pennant-winning Chicago White Sox. The team had additionally struggled with extended absences from Killilea, who spent most of the season battling tuberculosis and died on July 27. Henry was forced to become operating head of the team.

Under the circumstances, a move to St. Louis seemed a foregone conclusion. At a league meeting in Chicago, the Killileas requested and received permission to move. Soon after moving, the team changed its name to the Browns, a reference to the original name of the St. Louis Cardinals, who were known from the 1880s until 1900 as the Brown Stockings. Johnson then set about finding local ownership for the team, and found it in a syndicate headed by an old friend from his days as a sportswriter, Kansas City carriage maker Robert Hedges, who moved to St. Louis soon after the purchase closed. Hedges became team secretary while ceding the presidency to St. Louis businessman Ralph Orthwein. However, Hedges was the undisputed head of the franchise long before taking the presidency himself in 1903. He built a new park on the site of the original Browns' former venue, Sportsman's Park.