As of October 2024[update], there are only three living former St. Louis Browns players: Billy Hunter, Ed Mickelson, and Frank Saucier.

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.

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.

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.

[2] Pitcher Barney Pelty was a workhorse for the Browns, and a member of their starting rotation from 1904, when he pitched 31 complete games and 301 innings, through 1911.

O'Connor and coach Harry Howell tried to bribe the official scorer, a woman, to change the call to a hit – even offering to buy her a new wardrobe.

Four years later, Ball allowed the Cardinals to move out of dilapidated Robison Field and share Sportsman's Park with the Browns.

Rickey and owner Sam Breadon used the proceeds from the Robison Field sale to build baseball's first modern farm system.

The club was boasting the best players in franchise history, including future Hall of Famer George Sisler and an outfield trio of Ken Williams, Baby Doll Jacobson, and Jack Tobin, who batted .300 or better from 1919 to 1923 and in 1925.

Cardinals treasurer Bill DeWitt, Barnes' son-in-law, bought a minority stake in the Browns and became the team's general manager.

After interests in Los Angeles approached him about buying a stake in the team, he asked AL owners for permission to move there for the 1942 season.

However, in August, Barnes abruptly sold his stake in the team to minority owner and refrigeration magnate Richard Muckerman, who retained DeWitt as general manager.

[2] The 1945 season may be best remembered for the Browns' signing of utility outfielder Pete Gray, the only one-armed major league position player in history.

Under the circumstances, DeWitt was unable to reverse the slide, and was forced to sell any good prospects to the Red Sox or Tigers in order to pay the bills.

[2] In 1951, Bill Veeck, the colorful former owner of the Cleveland Indians, purchased the Browns from DeWitt, who stayed on as team vice president.

His most notorious stunt in St. Louis was held on August 19, 1951, when he ordered manager Zack Taylor to send Eddie Gaedel, a 3-foot 7-inch, 65-pound dwarf, to bat as a pinch hitter.

[9] The Browns won the game against the Philadelphia Athletics, whose venerable owner Connie Mack took part in the "Grandstand Managers" voting (against his own team).

Notably, Veeck inked former Cardinals great Dizzy Dean to a broadcasting contract and tapped Rogers Hornsby for a second stint as manager.

He also re-acquired former Browns fan favorite Vern Stephens and signed former Cardinals pitcher Harry Brecheen, both of whom had starred in the all-St. Louis World Series in 1944.

Veeck stripped Sportsman's Park of all Cardinals material and dressed it exclusively in Browns memorabilia, even moving his family to an apartment under the stands.

It initially appeared Veeck had won the war when Cardinals' owner Fred Saigh was charged with massive tax evasion late in 1952.

Saigh had intended all along to sell to any credible buyer who would keep the Cardinals in St. Louis, and was relieved when brewery president Gussie Busch jumped into the bidding with that in mind.

He was rebuffed by the other owners, still seething over the publicity stunts he pulled at the Browns home games, and also opposed proposals Veeck had made to pool revenues from broadcasting.

Under the plan, Veeck would remain as principal owner, but would sell half of his 80% stake to a group of Baltimore investors headed by Miles.

However, talk of a Los Angeles move may have been a bluff – many owners believed that travel and schedule considerations would make having only one franchise on the West Coast unsustainable.

Facing threats to cancel the franchise and having sold his only leverage (the renamed Busch Stadium), Veeck had little choice but to take the deal, and the sale was duly approved.

The St. Louis Browns were unique among 1950s baseball teams in that they moved eastward, not westward, and changed their name to make a deliberate break with their history.

In December 1954, General Manager Paul Richards traded 17 players to the New York Yankees, including most former Browns of note still on the Baltimore roster, dramatically changing the team.

[12][13] In August 1979, new owner Edward Bennett Williams bought back the shares Barnes had sold to the public in 1936, returning the franchise to private control and removing one of the last remaining links to the Browns era.

(On October 2, 1944, cartoonist Amadee drew the St. Louis Weatherbird in a Browns uniform, standing on its head, with the legend "And first in the American League!")