St. Louis Browns to nearby Baltimore as the Orioles (a move Calvin had adamantly opposed) dampened the Senators' regional appeal, even though the Orioles of the 1950s were also mainstays in the American League's second division. Even before his uncle's death, Calvin had doubts about whether the Senators could survive in Washington. Not only was Griffith Stadium the smallest stadium in the majors, but the surrounding neighborhood had already gone to seed. At the 1956 World Series, Griffith, not even a year into his tenure as the Senators' president and majority owner, began preliminary talks with Los Angeles city and county officials about a potential transfer to the West Coast. Brooklyn Dodgers' owner Walter O'Malley, learning of Griffith's interest and thwarted by New York City officials in his plans to replace his decaying ballpark, Ebbets Field, soon supplanted Griffith as Los Angeles' prime target. The Senators also attracted other suitors: The Washington Post reported in the autumn of 1956 that the club's board of directors had received (and rejected) feelers from San Francisco, Louisville — and Minneapolis. The Senators still owned their home ballpark, but Washington was considering building a new, publicly financed facility in a location Griffith disliked, saying it was too far from the team's traditional fan base in the District's northwest suburbs. Under the plan, Griffith's main tenants, the Washington Redskins of the National Football League, would abandon Griffith Stadium for the new District of Columbia Stadium (which they did upon its completion in the fall of 1961). While the new facility was intended for the Senators as well, Griffith and the District could not agree on rental terms. By this time, it was an open secret that the Senators were a candidate for relocation. Like his uncle before him, Griffith had no income apart from the Senators. However, American League owners were reluctant to antagonize the United States Congress (and jeopardize baseball's exemption from antitrust laws) by moving the Senators out of town without a suitable succession plan. Indeed, Griffith himself publicly testified that he intended to keep the Senators in the capital as long as he could make ends meet. Even then, however Griffith had begun to seriously discuss moving his club to the Twin Cities of Minneapolis–Saint Paul in September 1959, but talks stalled. The area's hole card was Metropolitan Stadium in Bloomington, roughly halfway between Minneapolis and St. Paul. While it had opened