 He sold Griffith Stadium to the city of Washington and leased it back, leading to speculation that the team was planning to move, as the Braves, Browns and Athletics had done in the early 1950s, and the Giants and Dodgers would do later in the decade.After an early flirtation with San Francisco (with a "Triple A" Pacific Coast League team, the San Francisco Seals), by Griffith was courting Minneapolis–St.Paul in the Upper Midwest state of Minnesota, a prolonged process that resulted in his rejecting the Twin Cities' first offer before agreeing to relocate.