August 19 and October 8, 1957 are days that will live in baseball infamy. Those are the dates that the Giants and Dodgers announced they were leaving New York City for the greener pastures of California, moves that forever changed the landscape of the game. For the Dodgers in particular, it was the beginning of a phenomenon that saw baseball teams hold their clubs for ransom, pitting one city versus another in the hopes of getting a new stadium. The Dodgers' Brooklyn–Los Angeles move provoked a landmark controversy that set the terms for the stadium battles that go on today between government and professional franchises. Cities now had to assess not only the economic impact of losing a major league franchise, but also the emotional impact of losing a team on their loyal citizens.

Baseball franchise shifting began a few years earlier when the Braves, a poor stepchild to the Red Sox in Boston, packed up and left for Milwaukee. After drawing only 281,278 fans to Braves Field in 1952 (an average of fewer than 4,000 a game), majority team owner Lou Perini and his brothers began buying up the shares of the various other franchise stockholders in an attempt to become the team's sole owners. The Boston Braves already owned the baseball territorial rights to Milwaukee since they owned the minor league team there, and they had the right of refusal should the city pursue a major league franchise, which it was already aggressively doing. Perini promised the city he would not try and block their attempt to secure a club.