Question: Missouri has the St. Louis Cardinals and the Kansas city Royals. Was there ever another Major League baseball team in the state?

Answer: Well ... sort of.

Modern baseball is defined as being from 1901 until now. There was a team named the St. Louis Browns that played for 52 years in this time frame. They finished dead last in the American league a mournful 10 times. Just to prove they were not entirely horrible, they finished next to last a dismal 13 times.

The Browns -- if nothing else -- were lovable. Incompetent hitters on opposing teams loved to play in St. Louis to fatten up their batting averages. When the Browns arrived in town as visitors the home team looked at it as a fun frolic on the beach -- complete with 90 pound weaklings to kick around.

And they were unique ... who in the Major Leagues would ever send a midget for a turn at bat. The Browns did! In 1951 a midget named Eddie Gaedel made his one plate appearance -- he walked. This must have been a big offensive surge for the Browns.

In 1945 they brought up from Memphis a wonderful athlete -- and admirable person -- named Pete Gray. Gray played in 77 games for the Browns. His batting average was .218, which wasn't bad for a Brownee. He managed to do it with just one arm. He had lost his right arm to an accident.

Pete must have looked really different out there amongst all those Brownees with two left feet.

The Browns had some good players over the years. They just happened to be in the worst possible place at the worst possible time.

They had a great player. His name was George Sisler. They called him "Gorgeous George." Sisler was a slick fielding first baseman, and a dynamite hitter who twice hit over .400. He is in the baseball Hall of Fame.

Sisler must have felt like an eagle leading a flock of floundering starlings to some remote corn field.

Surprisingly, the Browns won the American league pennant in 1944. it was a year in which a great many players were still away in military service.

And who were their National league opponents for the World Series? Why none other than the St. Louis Cardinals. It was an inner-city series that must have had all the interest for the west coast and the snooty eastern seaboard as a taffy pull in the church basement.

The Browns won the first game. Cardinal fans were thunderstruck! The Browns won one more game, but the Cardinals polished them off in six. It would have been quite an ignominy for the Cardinals to lose a World Series to the St. Louis Browns.

The Browns are now the Baltimore Orioles. But they are not lovable like they were in St. Louis.

Somewhere in that place we all want to go, Southeast Missouri State will win the National Football Championship. Mizzou will dominate the NCAA basketball tournaments. The New York Yankees will finish last in their division every year -- 75 games out of first place. George Steinbrenner will be their bat boy.

The St. Louis Browns and the St. Louis Cardinals will play every year in the World Series.