1953 Major League Baseball season

The 1953 Major League Baseball season was contested from April 13 to October 12, 1953. It marked the first relocation of an MLB franchise in fifty years, as the Boston Braves moved their NL franchise to Milwaukee, where they would play their home games at the new County Stadium. This was also the first regular season of the televised Major League Baseball Game of the Week, originally broadcast on ABC.

The New York Yankees won their fifth consecutive World Series championship, an MLB record.

Bracket
 

Awards and honors

 * Baseball Hall of Fame
 * Ed Barrow
 * Chief Bender
 * Tom Connolly
 * Dizzy Dean
 * Bill Klem
 * Al Simmons
 * Bobby Wallace
 * Harry Wright
 * MLB Most Valuable Player Award
 * Al Rosen (unanimous), Cleveland Indians, 3B
 * Roy Campanella, Brooklyn Dodgers, C
 * MLB Rookie of the Year Award
 * Harvey Kuenn, Detroit Tigers, SS
 * Jim Gilliam, Brooklyn Dodgers, 2B
 * The Sporting News Player of the Year Award
 * Al Rosen, Cleveland Indians
 * The Sporting News Pitcher of the Year Award
 * Bob Porterfield, Washington Senators
 * Warren Spahn, Milwaukee Braves
 * The Sporting News Manager of the Year Award
 * Casey Stengel, New York Yankees

Television coverage
ABC executive Edgar J. Scherick approached MLB with a Saturday Game of the Week. With fewer outlets than CBS or NBC, ABC needed paid programming (or "anything for bills" as Scherick put it). At first, ABC hesitated at the idea of a nationally televised regular season baseball program, but gave Scherick the green light to sign up teams. Prior to the Sports Broadcasting Act of 1961, antitrust laws only allowed the networks to make deals with individual teams instead of pooling rights directly from a central league authority. Unfortunately, only three (the Philadelphia Athletics, Cleveland Indians, and Chicago White Sox were interested. To make matters worse, Major League Baseball barred the Game of the Week from airing within fifty miles of any big-league city.

The All-Star Game and World Series aired exclusively on NBC.