1953, the major leagues consisted of two eight-team leagues whose 16 teams were located in ten cities, all in the northeastern and midwestern United States: New York City had three teams and Boston, Chicago, Philadelphia, and St. Louis each had two teams. St. Louis was the southernmost and westernmost city with a major league team. The longest possible road trip, from Boston to St. Louis, took about 24 hours by railroad. After a half-century of stability, starting in the 1950s, teams began to move out of cities with multiple teams into cities that had not had them before. In three consecutive years from 1953 to 1955, three teams moved to new cities: the Boston Braves became the Milwaukee Braves, the St. Louis Browns became the Baltimore Orioles, and the Philadelphia Athletics became the Kansas City Athletics. The 1958 Major League Baseball season was perhaps the pivotal season in making Major League Baseball a nationwide league. Walter O'Malley, owner of the Brooklyn Dodgers, moved his team to Los Angeles, marking the first major league franchise on the West Coast. Called "perhaps the most influential owner of baseball's early expansion era," O'Malley appeared on the cover of Time as a result of his efforts to move baseball to a more nationwide sport O'Malley was also influential in persuading the rival New York Giants to move west to become the San Francisco Giants. The Giants were already suffering from slumping attendance records at their aging ballpark, the Polo Grounds. Had the Dodgers moved out west alone, the St. Louis Cardinals— away—would have been the closest NL team. The joint move made West Coast road trips economical for visiting teams. O'Malley invited San Francisco Mayor George Christopher to New York to meet with Giants owner Horace Stoneham. Stoneham was considering moving the Giants to Minnesota, but he was convinced to join O'Malley on the West Coast at the end of 1957. The meetings between Stoneham, Christopher and O'Malley occurred against the wishes of Ford Frick, the Commissioner of Baseball. The dual moves were successful for both franchises—and for MLB. The Dodgers set a single-game MLB attendance record in their first home appearance with 78,672 fans. In 1961, the first Washington Senators franchise moved to Minneapolis–St. Paul to become the Minnesota Twins. Two new teams were added to the American League at the same time: the Los Angeles Angels (who soon moved from downtown L.A.