in 1956 for the Triple-A Minneapolis Millers, its real purpose was to attract a major league team to the Twin Cities. It had been built to major league specifications, and could easily be doubled in size to 40,000 seats in order to accommodate a major league team. Griffith had initially been skeptical of moving the Senators there because of Minnesota's harsh winters, but was sold on the area when the Senators played an exhibition against the Philadelphia Phillies shortly after the 1958 Major League Baseball All-Star Game. Years later, he offered another reason for moving to the state: "I’ll tell you why we came to Minnesota, it was when I found out you only had 15,000 blacks here. Black people don’t go to ball games, but they’ll fill up a rassling ring and put up such a chant it’ll scare you to death. It’s unbelievable. We came here because you’ve got good, hard-working, white people here.” At the same time, Twin Cities-based owners won a franchise in the new Continental League, which served in part to turn the spotlight on Griffith's financial struggles in Washington. However, when he sought permission to move there for the 1959 season, the other American League owners turned him down again. As the Senators' future was being debated off the field, the 1960 team enjoyed new on-field success thanks to its young talent base. Although it was still a below-.500 outfit (at 73–81), the Senators rose from eighth and last place to fifth in the league, and attendance exceeded 743,000. But when the 1960 season ended, Griffith was able to come to terms with Minnesota public officials. At the same time, the American League seemingly solved the potential antitrust issue (and helped to scuttle the Continental League) by voting to add two new teams for , including an expansion team in Washington that would take on the Senators' name. This cleared the way for Griffith to move his franchise to Minnesota. The new Senators started at square one with players discarded from the eight original AL teams; the club lost 100 games in 1961, and had only one winning season (in ). In 1972, it moved to Dallas–Fort Worth as the Texas Rangers. Meanwhile, Griffith took his young talent, along with the heritage of the 1901–60 Senators, to the Twin Cities. Minnesota (1961–1984) 1961–1970: Contenders and a championship Just five years after his uncle's death,