Early overtures to entice one of the other six existing NL teams – the Cincinnati Reds, Philadelphia Phillies, and Pittsburgh Pirates were reportedly approached – were abandoned.
Representing the team owners at the announcement were Bob Howsam (Denver), Craig F. Cullinan Jr. (Houston), Wheelock Whitney Jr. (Minneapolis–St.
Paul), Dwight F. Davis, Jr., who was representing the group headed by Joan Whitney Payson (New York), and Jack Kent Cooke (Toronto).
Owners in each city had agreed to pay $50,000 to the league and committed to a capital investment of $2.5 million, not including stadium costs.
[6] Appearing in that capacity as a guest on the live CBS broadcast of What's My Line on Sunday, September 13, 1959, he pronounced the new league as "Inevitable as tomorrow morning.
The promise of expansion achieved the owners' desired effect; on August 2, 1960, the Continental League formally disbanded.
Baseball historians concur that even without the imminent threat of a third major league, Major League Baseball expansion would inevitably have happened due to such factors as pressure from Congress, the rapid growth of professional football, and the replacement of conservative long-tenured owners with younger businessmen who tended to be far more amenable to expansion.
Although Major League Baseball had succeeded in preventing the launch of an eight-team CL, it only did so by committing to eventually add eight franchises of its own.
Over the next two decades, Shea would become involved in efforts to secure second franchises for the New York metropolitan area in each of the other three major sports.
Buffalo, although it made efforts to lure an MLB team to then-new Pilot Field in the early 1990s, has not succeeded in bringing Major League Baseball back.