The 1969 Seattle Pilots

Major League Baseball's One-Year Team

The Mariners were not Seattle’s first major league baseball team. In 1937, Seattle businessman Emil Sick bought the city’s failing Pacific Coast League team, the Indians, renamed them the Rainiers and constructed a new, state-of-the-art stadium. Over the next few decades, at least two teams—the Kansas City A’s and the Cleveland Indians—would consider relocating to Seattle, and both PCL president Dewey Soriano and Cleveland Indians owner William Daly lobbied to bring a major league team to the booming city. Their efforts paid off in 1967, when despite shrinking Rainiers attendance figures, Seattle was awarded the second of two American League expansion teams. For one season—1969—Sick’s Stadium became the home of the Seattle Pilots. From the earliest days of the franchise through their final move, this book tells the story of the first one-year team in the American or National League since 1901 (when, ironically, the Milwaukee Brewers left town after the AL’s first year of major-league status). After a concise discussion of Seattle’s amateur and minor league history, the main text provides a detailed account of the efforts to bring major league baseball to town, the first team draft, the 1969 spring training and regular season, the attempt to save the team, and finally the move to Milwaukee. Brief interviews with fourteen players round out the text. Tables including a team roster, final league standings, wins and losses and player stats are also provided.