$Unique_ID{BAS00005}
$Pretitle{}
$Title{The History of Major League Baseball:  Part 1}
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$Author{
Voigt, David Q.}
$Subject{History Histories Baseball Major League Leagues Majors Abner
Doubleday Knickerbocker Cartwright Knickerbockers National Association NL
Cincinnati Reds First Golden Age}
$Log{
1830s Ball Playing Woodcut*0000101.scf
1886 Atlantics & Athletics*0000201.scf
1869 Red Stockings*0000301.scf
1873 Boston Red Stockings*0000401.scf
1876 Chicago White Stockings*0000501.scf
1886 New York Giants (top)*0000601.scf
1886 New York Giants (bottom)*0000701.scf
Landis, Kenesaw Mountain (right) & Will Harridge*0026501.scf}

Total Baseball:  The History


The History of Major League Baseball:  Part 1

David Q. Voigt


An Evolving Game:  The Formative Years of Major League Baseball

     Deeply embedded in the folklore of American sports is the story of
baseball's supposed invention by a young West Point cadet, Abner Doubleday, in
the summer of 1839 at the village of Cooperstown, New York. The yarn
originated in 1907, in the final report of a committee commissioned by major
league executives to inquire into the origins of "America's National Game."
     The claim that the game was invented by the late Doubleday, who also won
enduring fame as a Union general in the Civil War, was based on the dubious
testimony of Abner Graves, a retired mining engineer. Indeed, Graves claimed
to have actually witnessed the long-ago event. The Graves account appealed to
committeeman Albert G. Spalding, a former star player and club owner, and
concurrently a famous sporting goods tycoon and a fervently patriotic
American. He persuaded his colleagues to accept the Doubleday invention
account without further ado. With the release of the final version of the
committee's report, the legend of baseball's immaculate conception began to
worm its way into American mythology.
     Ever since then, sports historians have repeatedly and futilely assailed
the Doubleday account, arguing that Abner Doubleday never visited Cooperstown
in 1839, that his diaries contain no reference to the game, and that the form
of baseball he supposedly invented far too closely resembled the game as it
was played in the early 1900s.
     Indeed, sports historians have marshaled impressive evidence showing that
American baseball, far from being an independent invention, evolved out of
various ball-and-stick games that had been played in many areas of the world
since the beginnings of recorded history. Among many suggested precursors of
baseball, a Russian ball-and-stick game called lapta was recently advanced by
propagandists in the last years of the Soviet empire. But in early America,
precursors of baseball included informal games of English origin such as
paddleball, trap ball, one-old-cat, rounders, and town ball. The latter was a
popular game in colonial New England and was played by adults and children
with a bat and ball on an open field. Moreover, printed references to "base
ball" in America date back to the eighteenth century. Among these accounts is
one of Albigence Waldo, a surgeon with Washington's troops at Valley Forge who
poetically told of soldiers batting balls and running bases in their free
time. And in the early 1820s, the grandfather of the late novelist Samuel
Hopkins Adams vividly recalled playing "base ball" on Mr. Mumford's pasture
lot. Similarly in 1834 Robin Carver's Book of Sports related that an American
version of rounders called "base" or "goal ball" was rivaling cricket in
popularity among Americans. Indeed, cricket played a role in the evolution of
organized baseball. From this British game came umpires and innings, and
early baseball writers like Henry Chadwick used cricket terminology such as
"batsman," "playing for the side," and "excellent field" in describing early
baseball games. Likewise, the pioneer baseball innovator Harry Wright, a
cricket professional turned baseball manager, drew heavily on his cricket
background in promoting baseball as a professional team sport in the United
States.
     As an evolutionary blend of informal bat-and-ball games and the formal
game of cricket, baseball needed no virgin birth to become a popular American
field sport. By the 1840s various forms of baseball vied for acceptance,
including the popular Massachusetts and New York versions of the game. The
Massachusetts game utilized an irregular four-sided field of play, with the
four bases located at fixed, asymmetrical distances from each other and the
"striker's," or batter's position away from the home base. "Scouts," or
fielders, put men out by fielding a batted ball on the fly or on the first
bounce, or by hitting a runner with a thrown ball. But this lively version of
the game was overshadowed in the late 1840s by the "New York game," a popular
version of which was devised by the members of the New York Knickerbocker
Club. Organized in 1845 by a band of aspiring gentlemen and baseball
enthusiasts, the Knickerbocker version was devised by one of their members,
Alexander J. Cartwright. Cartwright prescribed a diamond-shaped infield with
bases at ninety feet apart, a standard which has stood the test of time. The
pitching distance was set at forty-five feet from the home base, and a pitcher
was required to "pitch" a ball in a stiff-armed, underhanded fashion. The
three-strikes-are-out rule was adopted, and a batter could also be put out by
a fielder catching a batted ball in the air, or on the first bounce, or by
throwing a fielded ball to the first baseman before the runner arrived. Other
innovations included the nine-man team and three outs ending a team's batting
in their half of an inning. Thus Cartwright's version of baseball became the
basis of the game as presently played. Over the years, other innovations were
added, including the nine-inning standard for games, changes in the pitching
distance, and so on.
     Once it was published and propagated by the Knickerbockers, the "New York
game" was speedily adopted by other baseball clubs that sprang up in the New
York City area and in other towns and cities of antebellum America. In the
1850s the rise of baseball clubs and team competition helped to meet the
recreational needs of Americans who were caught up in an increasingly urban
and industrial society. By the 1860s one of every six Americans lived in
towns or cities, and by then newspapers were covering games and noting the
booming popularity of baseball. Mostly a northern and midwestern phenomenon,
baseball fever ran highest in the New York City area, where in the 1850s games
were being played "on every available green plot within a ten-mile circuit of
the city."  Spearheading the baseball boom were formally organized clubs with
officers, clubhouses and playing grounds. Among the many clubs, the
Knickerbockers sought to rule the game by posing as arbiters of play, rules,
and decorum. Since no leagues or playing schedules existed, formal games in
the 1850s were arranged by correspondence between club secretaries. The
lordly Knickerbockers resisted such overtures, preferring to play among
themselves, yet insisting on their preeminence over all other clubs. But the
dynamic American game was not to be bound by gentlemanly monopolists or by
arbitrary codes of amateurism. By the end of the 1850s, victories and the
prospect of gate receipts were becoming more important factors. As more clubs
embraced these goals, greater emphasis was placed on obtaining good players at
whatever affronts to amateur standards.
     In 1858 the Knickerbockers were dethroned as would-be overlords of
baseball by the newly organized National Association of Base Ball Players.
That year, representatives of twenty-five clubs formed the Association for the
ostensible purpose of codifying rules and establishing guidelines for
organized clubs and team competition. But the Association speedily
established itself as the new arbiter of the game. Among its early rulings
were the establishment of a pitcher's box and the standardization of the
nine-inning game. The Association also approved the practice of charging paid
admissions at games and that year saw 1,500 spectators pay 50 each to watch a
game played between Brooklyn and New York "all-star" teams. Although the
Association established no league or formal playing schedules, its authority
was accepted and it lasted until 1871, when it was replaced by a lame
organization called the National Association of Amateur Base Ball Players--to
differentiate it from the newly founded National Association of Professional
Base Ball Players. Meanwhile, by 1860 some sixty clubs had joined the first
National Association; mostly they came from the East and Midwest, but a
sprinkling of college teams was included. By then, the mounting hostilities
between the North and South account for the absence of southern clubs.
     American baseball's popularity was at high tide when the Civil War broke
out, but the South was excluded from major league baseball competition for
many years. Indeed, one of the smaller legacies of the war between the states
was major league baseball's east-west alignment of its franchises. And yet
the war, which claimed 600,000 American lives, also popularized the game in
all sections of the country, as soldiers in both armies played the game in
camps and in prison compounds. This infusion of interest in the game set the
stage for an even greater baseball boom which swept the North in the immediate
postwar era.
     Meanwhile, as the war raged toward its conclusion, baseball's popularity
diminished for a time on the northern home front. Still, strong teams like
the Brooklyn Excelsiors, the Brooklyn Eckfords, and the Brooklyn Atlantics
delighted fans by their spirited competition. At the time, pitcher Jim
Creighton of the Excelsiors became a popular hero by leading his team on a
victorious eastern tour in 1860. In 1862 and 1863 the Eckfords laid claim to
being America's best team, and the Brooklyn Atlantics, led by Dickey Pearce,
boasted consecutive unbeaten seasons in 1864 and 1865.
     The game's popularity among returning soldiers helped to inspire a major
baseball boom in post-Civil War America. By 1865 the game was widely touted
as America's "national game," and its growing popularity was evidenced by the
proliferation of organized clubs. In 1865, ninety-one clubs had joined the
Association; the following year membership swelled to nearly two hundred; and
1867 saw more than three hundred clubs enrolled, including more than a hundred
from midwestern towns and cities. At their own expense, the powerful
Washington Nationals embarked on an unprecedented midwestern tour in 1867;
they were beaten in one game by the previously unheralded Rockford (Illinois)
Forest City nine. Although the Nationals' tour suggested that some type of
organized competition was needed, it failed to produce such reforms as an
organized league or a fixed playing schedule. However, editor Frank Queen of
the New York Clipper, a popular sporting journal, hit upon the idea of giving
gold awards annually to the best team and the nine best players. But such
judgments were arbitrary and inadequate. Meanwhile, the style of play
continued to improve in the late 1860s. Pitchers became more than passive
servers as one of them, Arthur "Candy" Cummings, popularized a wrist-twisting,
curved-ball delivery. Moreover, fielders became more mobile, baserunners took
to sliding to avoid fielders' tags, and a rule change outlawed the
one-bounce-and-out catch.
     But baseball's dynamic postwar growth also confronted the shaky National
Association with vexing problems. Rampant commercialism was one of them. As
more clubs charged admission to games, many took to dividing receipts among
the players. This trend swelled the ranks of "professional" players, whose
presence posed a serious threat to the Association's amateur code. In 1863
Association leaders debated the problem, but vacillated by grudgingly allowing
professionals to retain their memberships. The following year the Association
defined a professional player as one who "plays base ball for money, place, or
emolument."  The definition embraced many players, some of whom drew straight
salaries, or shared gate receipts, or occupied jobs that were awarded as a
subterfuge to conceal their ball-playing activities. What's more, some of the
professionals were jumping their contracts for better offers from other clubs.
Dubbed "revolvers," they posed a major threat to the shaky authority of the
National Association.

The Cincinnati Reds of 1869

     By the late 1860s baseball was becoming more of a business, and playing
competitive baseball was becoming a recognized career. As baseball writer
Henry Chadwick observed in 1868, a new rank ordering among ball players was
evidenced by the makeup of the Brooklyn Atlantics club. At the top was the
club's elite professional team, followed by the club's amateur nine, with the
lowly "muffins," or third-rate players, at the bottom. As baseball clubs came
to be dominated by professional interests, some clubs financed their
operations by selling stock shares and becoming joint stock companies, while
others, which depended on shared gate receipts, operated as "cooperative
nines."
     Until 1869 the professional movement in baseball was mainly a covert
trend, but in that year the Cincinnati Red Stocking club boldly announced its
intention of fielding an all-salaried team which would compete against the top
teams in the land. This forthright move was the brainchild of club president
Aaron B. Champion, a Cincinnati businessman and local booster. The Reds were
not the first professional team, nor the first all-salaried team, nor the
first team to go undefeated over a season. But as the first openly announced
all-salaried team, the Reds, led by player-manager Harry Wright, who became
known as the "Father of Professional Baseball," toured the country in 1869,
winning some 60 games without a loss. The following year, the well-drilled
Reds won another 24 before losing in June to the host Brooklyn Atlantics by an
8-7 score in eleven innings. Although the Reds' effort was financially
unremunerative to its stockholders, who voted to return to amateur play after
the 1870 season, the experiment inspired an enduring myth that professional
baseball in America arose out of this episode. In truth the professional
movement was already strongly entrenched. But the Reds' example inspired
imitators and brought the smouldering amateur-professional controversy to a
head. Thus when the National Association, at its annual meeting in 1870,
sought to curb the professional movement, the professional delegates withdrew
and formed their own organization in March 1871. This successful coup stunned
the amateur National Association, which never recovered and died in 1874. It
also marked the beginning of major league baseball in America. From 1871 to
the present day, most changes in American baseball rules and style of play
would be inspired by the professional major leagues.

The First Major League:  The National Association of Professional
                         Base Ball Players

     America's first professional baseball league, the National Association of
Professional Base Ball Players, was also the first major league. In its ranks
were the strongest teams and the best players. The players controlled the
league and enjoyed full freedom of contract and movement. Financial support
came to those clubs whose stockholders or investors derived more prestige than
monetary rewards from their sponsorship. And in this artist-patron
relationship, player salaries had a higher priority than investor profits.
     The National Association was created by a single evening's work on March
17, 1871. Structurally the league resembled the old amateur National
Association, whose constitution was modified to serve professional interests
and whose playing rules were adopted. Admission to the professional league
required the payment of a ten-dollar entry fee, in stark contrast to the
multimillion-dollar price tag now placed on a major league franchise. Like
its predecessor, the professional National Association lacked a fixed schedule
of games; each team was expected to play each rival five times in a season,
with playing dates to be arranged by secretarial correspondence. The
championship pennant was awarded to the team with the most victories, and a
championship committee was empowered to rule on any disputed claims.
     Although the National Association dominated organized baseball in
1871-1875, its structural defects portended its coming demise. The player-run
organization wielded little control over players or teams. The easy admission
policy made for a chronic dropout problem as disenchanted teams found it easy
to turn their backs on ten dollars. Because of the absence of a fixed playing
schedule, few contending teams played their required quota of games. Disputes
over officiating stemmed from a reliance on volunteer umpires. Teams also
quarreled over ticket pricing and the division of gate receipts. Indeed, most
teams lost money, and such losses fueled the tension between players and
investors. Critics accused the player-controlled league of failing to
discipline players, especially the contract jumpers, drunkards, and alleged
game fixers. Unresolved problems like these sowed the seeds of the league's
eventual collapse, but while it lasted, the National Association also provided
spectators with a sprightly brand of baseball.

Campaigns of the National Association, 1871-1875

     The Association's 1871 campaign featured an exciting three-way battle
between the Chicago White Stockings, Philadelphia Athletics, and Harry
Wright's Boston Red Stockings. The Chicago team, which was housed in a new
7,000-seat wooden park and which boasted a $4,500 salaried star among its
players, set a fast pace until the city's tragic fire destroyed the park.
Forced to play their remaining games on the road, the White Stockings finished
third and dropped out of the league until 1874. At the season's end, the
Athletics and Red Stockings each had won 22 games, but the championship
committee awarded the pennant to the Athletics, who had fewer losses. Harry
Wright's plea that his Boston Reds had come closer to meeting their scheduled
obligations was disallowed. Thus in spite of continuing controversy and a
devastating fire, the National Association enjoyed an auspicious debut. Most
clubs profited, and only one dropped out of the race. At the Association's
annual meeting, the professionals tightened their hold on the league by
electing one of their own, Bob Ferguson of the Brooklyn Atlantics, to serve as
president.
     Eleven clubs entered the lists for the 1872 campaign, but hopes for a
wide-open race were crushed by Harry Wright's powerful Boston team, which
rolled to the championship on a 39-8 record. Stocked with stars like pitcher
Al Spalding, infielder Ross Barnes (whose bunting prowess permitted him to
take maximum advantage of the then-prevailing fair-foul hitting rule), and
shortstop George Wright, the Red Stockings won the first of four consecutive
pennants. They were the first of many powerful major league dynasties to
come--a phenomenon which, over the course of major league baseball history,
consistently made a mockery of the idea of competitive balance.
     With nine teams competing in 1873, the Reds won a second pennant by
staging a late-season drive to overtake the front-running Philadelphia
"Phillies," or "Whites."  Two Boston newcomers, catcher Jim White and
outfielder Jim O'Rourke, contributed to the Reds' 43-16 winning gait.
Although overall league revenues were disappointing, only one club dropped
from contention during the course of the season.
     In 1874, Wright's Reds posted a 52-18 record, to lap the New York Mutuals
by 7 1/2 games. That year Wright's team was the only one to play its full
schedule of games, an impressive feat considering that Wright's team, in
company with the Philadelphia Athletics, embarked upon a six-week baseball
tour of Britain in hopes of persuading English sportsmen to adopt America's
"national game."  Like this first baseball mission, the Association's 1874
season was a financial bust. Although only one club dropped out of the race,
accusations of gambling and fixed games clouded the league's reputation.
     The 1875 season was the last campaign of the National Association.
Thirteen teams entered the fray, but Boston's juggernaut, headed by Spalding,
Barnes, O'Rourke, White, and George Wright, buried all rivals. With four
Boston men topping the league's hitters, the Reds posted a 71-8 record to
finish 15 games up on their nearest pursuers. Of the thirteen contenders,
seven failed to finish the 1875 season.
     Now in full disarray, the sullied National Association reeled under
problems of competitive imbalance, financial losses, and excessive player
freedom. The time was ripe for a reformist coup, and a new breed of club
directors, headed by William A. Hulbert of the Chicago White Stockings, moved
to raise a rival major league that would better serve the interests of the
club owners.
     But the pioneering National Association was by no means a failure. For
all its weaknesses, the Association had popularized professional baseball.
Supporters like Henry Chadwick, the innovative sportswriter who now wore the
title of "Father of Base Ball," publicized the league by his coverage of games
and by his statistics-laden guidebooks. Chadwick's game coverage provided
detailed accounts of games with box scores, including a lasting version which
he devised in 1876. Such coverage enhanced the game's popularity and inspired
widespread coverage by leading newspapers. Chadwick also served on the
Association's rules committee, which approved a pitching change that allowed
the underhanded pitchers to utilize wrist-snapping curveballs. But Chadwick's
quixotic proposal to make baseball a ten-man game failed.
     The Association's most solid innovator was Harry Wright, who set high
standards for professional promotion. Wright's Boston payroll was baseball's
highest until the early 1880s. As Boston's manager, Wright presided over a
$35,000 annual budget and dealt creatively with such problems as proper
groundskeeping, equipment design and procurement, advertising, and the
recruiting and training of players. Wright's mastery paid off in his team's
astonishing success. He was honored in these years as the "Father of
Professional Base Ball," and his envious colleagues also referred to the
National Association as "Harry Wright's League."

The First Stable Major League:  The National League, 1876-1879

     President William A. Hulbert of the Chicago White Stockings was the
driving force behind the coup that dethroned the National Association.
Determined to field a strong team in Chicago, Hulbert in 1875 signed Boston
pitcher Al Spalding to play with Chicago the following season, along with
three other Boston stars:  Ross Barnes, Jim White, and Cal McVey. Hulbert
also signed Adrian Anson of the Athletics, who later became Chicago's longtime
player-manager and the first major league hitter to notch over 3,000 hits.
     Fearing possible reprisals from the player-run National Association,
Hulbert moved to create a new league run by business-minded club investors.
Backed by representatives from the St. Louis, Louisville, and Cincinnati
clubs, Hulbert met with representatives of several eastern clubs--New York,
Philadelphia, Boston, and Hartford--in February 1876. Out of this meeting
came the National League of Professional Base Ball Clubs. The first permanent
major league embraced Hulbert's thirteen-point plan of organization. In
keeping with its title, the league emphasized the interests of member clubs
over those of the players. Admitted as members were well-financed,
joint-stock company clubs, each of which paid annual dues of $100 which were
used to finance the league administrative body's handling of disputes,
recordkeeping, and officiating fees. The latter expense went for a staff of
umpires, each to be paid $5 a game.
     The eight charter clubs of the new National League were aligned on an
east-west basis, and each team was granted a monopoly over its territory. For
the 1876 season, each team agreed to play each rival ten times, with expulsion
from the league the penalty for failing to do so. Adopting a high moral
stance, NL leaders ordered member clubs to ban gambling, liquor sales, and
Sunday games, and to draw up tightly written contracts aimed at preventing
players from "revolving."  For the players this was tough medicine, but with
the strongest teams enrolled in the new league, there was little to do but
submit. Indeed, the National Association never survived the NL coup and
collapsed in 1876.
     As the "Father of the National League," Hulbert presided over its
fortunes from 1877 until his death in 1882. However, this most powerful of NL
presidents to date owed much to his chief lieutenant, Al Spalding, who retired
from the field to become the NL's most powerful advocate and defender. As a
reward for his loyal support, Spalding's fledgling sporting goods company
received the contract to supply the league's balls and to publish its annual
guidebook. Beginning in 1877, Chadwick became the perennial editor of the
league's official Spalding Guide.
     Although its debut was auspicious, the NL's first four campaigns were
marred by flagging profits, a major scandal, and opposition from a strong
rival in the International Association. In 1876 Spalding pitched and managed
the Chicago White Stockings to a 52-14 record, topping their closest pursuer
by six games. Because of this runaway, attendance tailed off, prompting two
teams, the Philadelphia Athletics and New York Mutuals, to forgo playing their
final games in the west. For this breach of rules, Hulbert expelled the pair,
thereby depriving the NL of franchises in the populous Philadelphia and New
York areas until 1883. However, Hulbert made no effort to replace the two;
hence only six teams took the field in 1877, the year the NL adopted a formal
schedule of games. Spalding's decision to quit pitching that year dashed
Chicago's hopes, but Louisville's hopes ran high until late in the season,
when Wright's Boston Reds overtook them and won by seven games. But
revelations that gamblers had bribed four Louisville players to lose key games
marred Boston's victory. Faced with a major crisis, Hulbert responded by
banishing the four players (Jim Devlin, George Hall, William Craver, and Al
Nichols) for life. In the wake of the scandal, Louisville dropped from the
league, followed by Hartford and St. Louis. To replace them, Indianapolis,
Milwaukee, and Providence clubs joined the league. Meanwhile the NL also
faced strong competition from the rival International Association. A loose
league of mostly cooperative (gate-receipt-sharing) teams, the International
Association threat prompted NL leaders to form a "League Alliance" of
independent teams. By paying fees of ten dollars a year, League Alliance
teams won the right to play exhibitions with NL teams, and the NL also pledged
to honor their territorial rights and player contracts.
     The hard-pressed NL suffered another profitless season in 1878, with
Boston winning a second pennant by four games over Cincinnati. Still
challenged by the International Association, the NL retaliated by raiding the
circuit's teams and playing rosters. Over the winter of 1878-1879, Syracuse
and Buffalo were persuaded to quit the Association for memberships in the NL,
while Milwaukee and Indianapolis were dropped from the NL. Troy and Cleveland
were also admitted to bring the number of NL teams back to its original eight.
Such tactics undermined the International Association, which fielded an
enfeebled minor league called the National Association in 1879.
     In returning to an eight-team format in 1879, NL teams imposed rigid
austerity measures. Among them, salaries were slashed and players compelled
to buy their own uniforms and share the costs of meals. Moreover, player
mobility was limited by the adherence to a reserve clause in player contracts.
Limited to five players per team in 1879, by 1883 the reserve system was
applied to most player contracts. Thereafter the reserve clause became a
major bone of contention between owners and players. Meanwhile Providence won
the 1879 pennant race; managed by George Wright and paced by John M. Ward's
pitching, the Providence Grays won by 5 games over Wright's Boston Reds.


Major League Baseball's Golden Age, 1880-1889

     As the decade of the 1880s dawned, major league baseball was only a pale
reflection of the enormously popular spectacle that it would soon become. In
1880 the NL reigned supreme, but the league's financial performance was
dismal. Thus far no NL club had matched the profits of Wright's 1875 Boston
Reds, player salaries barely exceeded those of the 1869 Cincinnati Reds,
annual membership changes underscored the league's instability, and the NL was
unrepresented in the populous New York and Philadelphia areas.
     At this point, however, a powerful stimulus came from the nation's
booming economic and urban growth, and professional baseball expanded
vigorously. The first to prosper was the NL, but its rising fortunes inspired
rivals like the American Association (AA), which was recognized as a major
league under the 1883 National Agreement. The following year another rival,
the Union Association, vied for major league status, but the NL and AA joined
forces to crush the pretender and maintain the dual major league system. The
dual major league system lasted from 1883 to 1891, when it was replaced by a
single major league. But in its heyday the dual major league system, with its
annual World Series competition between the two leagues, proved to be popular
and profitable. By 1889 leading clubs from both circuits counted annual
profits of over $100,000. While most of the profits went to club owners,
player salaries increased, averaging $2,000 a season, with a few stars getting
as much as $5,000. Such gains by players were modest enough, but club owners
still sought to limit player salaries. In opposing salary ceilings, players
banded together under the Brotherhood of Professional Base Ball Players, which
also opposed the unwritten reserve clause, unreasonable fines, and the sale of
players from one club to another. In this decade the NL's Chicago team
received $10,000 apiece from the sale of "King" Kelly and John Clarkson to the
Boston club.
     The prosperity of the major league game was further evidenced by the
expanded seasonal playing schedule. From 84 games a season in 1880 the NL
increased its schedule to 132 games by 1889, while the AA upped its seasonal
schedule to 140 games in 1889. To accommodate growing numbers of fans,
including the 2 million who attended major league games in 1889, clubs erected
new wooden parks with double-decked stands. To serve them, concessionaire
Harry M. Stevens introduced the now classic baseball lunch of hot dogs, soda
pop, and peanuts. And to sate the public's hunger for baseball news, daily
newspapers expanded their coverage of games, and two weekly journals devoted
to baseball--Sporting Life and The Sporting News--sprang to vigorous life in
this decade. Moreover, at the peak of baseball's popularity, Spalding
dispatched, in 1888-1889, two major league squads on a world tour in hopes of
spreading the American game to other lands.
     If Spalding's mission fell short of its goal abroad, at home the
professional game was spreading to all corners of the land. In 1889 some 15
minor leagues were operating. Under the National Agreement of 1883, and its
subsequent revisions, minor leagues were recognized as a part of organized
baseball. Territorial rights and player rosters of such teams were protected
by the major leagues. But black players and teams were increasingly excluded
from organized baseball. In the past, gentlemen's agreements barred black
teams from the amateur National Association and the professional National
Association. At this time a few blacks played briefly in the major AA and in
some minor leagues, but the presence of the segregated Negro league in
Pennsylvania, in 1889, plus the existence of all-black independent
professional teams, signaled the trend toward segregation of black players
from organized baseball. Not until 1946 would the color barrier be lifted.
     In this dynamic golden age, professional baseball's maturation as a field
sport was speeded by a rash of rule changes. In 1881 the pitching distance
was extended to fifty feet; in 1884 overhand pitching was legalized; in 1887 a
uniform strike zone was established; in 1888 the three-strikes rule and in
1889 the four-balls rule were permanently adopted. These and other changes in
playing rules resulted from pragmatic experiments by major league rules
committees, whose constant tinkerings kept the game in a state of flux. Some
short-lived changes, like the 1887 rule scoring bases on balls as hits and
employing a modified four-strike rule, aimed at correcting the
pitching-batting imbalance. But these quixotic rules inflated batting
averages and produced sixteen .400 hitters before they were discarded at the
close of the 1887 season.

NL Campaigns of the 1880s

     As the sole major league in 1880, the NL saw its fortunes rise with those
of the Chicago dynasty. Winners of three consecutive pennants over the years
1880-1882, the Chicago team was led by player-manager Cap Anson, a popular
hero and the leading hitter of the nineteenth century. Fielding a nucleus of
stars, including colorful Mike "King" Kelly, pitchers Larry Corcoran and Fred
Goldsmith, and catcher Frank "Silver" Flint, Chicago topped Providence by 15
games in 1880, by nine games in 1881, and by three games in 1882. In an
unofficial postseason encounter with the rival American Association's
Cincinnati champs, the two teams split a pair of games before AA officials
canceled this 1882 harbinger of the World Series.
     The rise of the AA threatened the dominant NL, which was left leaderless
by Hulbert's death in 1882. At Spalding's suggestion, A.G. Mills was elected
president. That fall the NL strengthened its position by dropping Troy and
Worcester and planting teams in New York and Philadelphia. The NL playing
schedule was increased to 98 games.
     In the hotly contested 1883 race, Boston ended Chicago's reign by edging
Anson's team by four games. That fall Mills ended the AA war by negotiating
the National Agreement of 1883, which conceded major league status to the
rival AA. Under the agreement, the AA adopted the reserve clause, the two
leagues ceased raiding each other's players, and postseason World Series play
between the two leagues was accepted. The agreement provided for major league
control over lower levels of professional baseball by recognizing the
territorial rights of minor league signatories. With frequent changes, this
National Agreement remained in force until the American Association war of
1891.
     In 1884 the two major leagues faced competition from another major league
aspirant. To combat this Union Association incursion, the NL and AA extended
reserve coverage to all players and upped their playing schedules to 112
games. The surfeit of major league games contributed to lower attendance for
all three embattled leagues, but the Union Association suffered more and was
driven out. Least damaged was the NL, whose sprightly 1884 campaign saw
pitcher Charles "Old Hoss" Radbourn employ the new rule legalizing overhand
pitching with telling effect. Radbourn won 60 games to lead Providence to 10
1/2-game victory over runner-up Boston. And in the first officially
sanctioned World Series, Radbourn defeated the AA champion Mets in three
straight games.
     The following year Anson's White Stockings regained the heights as they
won the first of two consecutive pennants. With ace pitcher John Clarkson
winning 53 games, Chicago held off the New York Giants by two games to land
the 1885 NL pennant. The Giants' surge owed to a piece of skullduggery by its
owner. Having acquired a financial interest in the AA New York Mets, the
Giants plucked ace pitcher Tim Keefe from them, and Keefe won 32 games for the
Giants in 1885. Such trickery by the NL now had AA leaders wary of their
rival, but in the World Series of 1885 AA prestige rose when the St. Louis
Browns tied the powerful Chicagoans, and it soared further in 1886, when the
Browns defeated Chicago in the $15,000 winner-take-all World Series of that
year. The loss blighted Chicago's gritty 2 1/2-game victory over Detroit in
the 1886 NL campaign. Following the loss, Spalding sold King Kelly to Boston
for $10,000. The sale electrified baseball fans, but it also signaled the end
of the Chicago dynasty.
     In the memorable 1887 campaign, Detroit won the pennant by 3 1/2 games
over the Philadelphia Phillies. Wildly inflated batting averages resulted
from rule changes that modified the third-strike rule and scored bases on
balls as hits. Detroit feasted under the new rules as Sam Thompson and the
"big four" of Dan Brouthers, Jack Rowe, Hardy Richardson, and Jim White keyed
a league-leading .343 (.299 when adjusted for that year's counting of walks as
hits) team batting average. In World Series play, Detroit thrashed the
Browns, winning ten of the fifteen games. That fall the rules committee
scuttled the average-inflating rules and the NL increased its playing schedule
to 132 games.
     As Detroit faded, the New York Giants captured the next two NL pennants.
Managed by Jim Mutrie and captained by John Ward, the well-balanced Giants
defeated Chicago by 9 games and humbled the Browns in the 1888 World Series.
The following year the Giants repeated, edging Boston by a single game and
then trouncing the Brooklyn Bridegrooms in the World Series.
     The profitable 1889 season marked the passing of the first golden age in
major baseball history. Over the next two seasons the NL fought two costly
interleague wars that overshadowed the pennant races. In 1890, as the NL
battled the serious challenge of the Players League, the Brooklyn Bridegrooms,
who were enticed to jump the AA for the NL, won by 6 1/2 games over Anson's
Chicago Colts. And in 1891, as the NL battled the AA, manager Frank Selee's
Boston Beaneaters defeated Chicago by 3 1/2 games. By then the interleague
wars had ended with the NL the victor in both frays. Thus as the 1892 season
dawned, the NL once again reigned supreme over major league baseball.

Rival Major Leagues of the 1880s:  American and Union Associations and
                                   Players League

     The NL's most formidable nineteenth-century rival, the American
Association of Base Ball Clubs, was organized by promoters who opposed the
NL's monopoly. In wooing prospective clubs, the AA promoters saw an
opportunity:  New York, Philadelphia, Cincinnati, and St. Louis were good
baseball cities that were not represented in the league. They also
established a basic 25 admission price and allowed member clubs the option of
selling booze and playing Sunday games. To entice good players, the AA
promoters rejected the NL's reserve clause; and to ensure orderly play, a
salaried corps of umpires was hired--an innovation soon imitated by the NL.
     In its maiden season of 1882, the AA's six teams (Cincinnati, Louisville,
St. Louis, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, and Baltimore) prospered. All six
finished the season, with Cincinnati winning the pennant by 11 1/2 games over
Philadelphia. Emergent stars of the AA included pitcher Will White and second
baseman Bid McPhee of Cincinnati, first baseman Charles Comiskey of St. Louis,
and outfielder Pete Browning and pitcher Tony Mullane of Louisville among the
contenders.
     In 1883 the AA expanded to eight clubs by adding Columbus and the New
York Mets. By opposing the NL's reserve clause, the AA lured a number of
disgruntled NL players into its ranks. Thus strengthened, the AA staged
another profitable campaign, which saw the Philadelphia Athletics edge the St.
Louis Browns by a single game. The AA's sprightly season prompted the NL to
accommodate its rival. That fall NL president Mills and AA president Denny
McKnight negotiated the National Agreement of 1883, which recognized the AA as
a major league and instituted World Series play between the two leagues. For
its part, the AA adopted the reserve clause.
     The agreement between the NL and AA was barely concluded when a new
league made a bid for major league recognition. The rival Union Association
of Base Ball Clubs was organized in Pittsburgh in the fall of 1883. To entice
players from the established majors, the UA leaders proclaimed their
opposition to the reserve clause. A few major league players jumped to the
new league, but most remained with the clubs out of fear of blacklisting, or
in some cases because they were bought off by salary increases. With mostly
unknown players in their ranks, the eight-team UA commenced playing a 128-game
schedule in 1884. From the start the league suffered from unbalanced funding
and talent distribution. The UA's principal backer, Henry V. Lucas, poured
most of his money into his St. Louis Maroons, a team which won its first
twenty-one games and made a shambles of the pennant race. Plagued by
financial losses, only five charter teams survived the campaign.
Nevertheless, the UA drained attendance from the established
majors--especially the AA, which unwisely expanded to counter the threat.
In the fall of 1884, the UA folded when Lucas accepted an offer to enroll
his St. Louis Maroons in the NL.
     The collapse of the UA left the dual major league system intact, but
relations between the NL and AA were strained. AA leaders accused their NL
allies of duplicity for persuading the AA to expand to twelve teams to counter
the UA's incursion. As a result the AA suffered heavier financial losses in
its 1884 campaign, which the New York Mets won by 6 1/2 games over Columbus.
The Mets' victory was soured by their loss to Providence in the first
officially sanctioned World Series. But even more damaging to the AA was the
revelation the Mets had come under the ownership of the NL New York
Giants. Moreover, AA suspicions of NL duplicity were heightened by the UA
peace settlement which brought the St. Louis Maroons into the NL, where they
competed directly with the AA's St. Louis Browns.
     As it turned out, the Maroons were no match for the Browns, whose
profitable formula of cheap baseball, liquor sales, sideshows, Sunday games,
and winning baseball was making a folk hero of the Browns' colorful president,
Chris Von der Ahe. Beginning in 1885, player-manager Charles Comiskey led his
team to four consecutive AA pennants. In 1885 the Browns won by 16 games over
Cincinnati; in 1886, by 12 over Pittsburgh; in 1887, by 14 over Cincinnati;
and in 1888, by 6 1/2 over a beefed-up Brooklyn team. Star players like
infielder Arlie Latham, outfielder Tip O'Neill, and pitchers Dave Foutz and
Bob Caruthers paced the Browns to the first three pennants. Then, when Von
der Ahe sold Foutz and Caruthers to Brooklyn in 1888, Comiskey came up with
pitcher Silver King, whose 45 victories helped land a fourth consecutive
pennant. In World Series play the Browns tied Chicago in 1885 and defeated
Anson's team in 1886. But the team was drubbed by Detroit in 1887 and by the
Giants in 1888.
     Bitter rivalry between the Browns and Brooklyn Bridegrooms dominated the
1889 race, which ended with the Bridegrooms on top of the Browns by 2 games.
But the Bridegrooms lost to the Giants in World Series play. Over the winter
the St. Louis and Brooklyn factions battled over the choice of a new AA
president, and in the stormy aftermath Brooklyn and Cincinnati joined the
National League. The loss of these clubs, together with the loss of key
players to the newly organized Players' League, crippled the AA. Forced to
field weak teams in 1890, the AA ran a poor third to the NL and the Players'
League. The AA's dismal race was won by Louisville, which only the year
before had finished dead last in the AA with a 27-111 record.

The Players League War of 1890

     The Players League of 1890 arose out of the long smoldering hostilities
between major league players and owners, dating back to the NL seizure of
power in 1876. Under NL control, players lost money and freedom of movement,
and were subjected to harsh disciplinary codes backed by threats of expulsion
and blacklisting. To the list of player grievances was added the reserve
clause in player contracts, which players viewed as a device for lowering
salaries and a denial of one's right to sell his services to the highest
bidder. For their part, owners credited the clause for stabilizing teams and
increasing profits. Although legal challenges sustained the players'
position, such victories were too limited to overturn the reserve clause. Nor
were players helped when rival leagues attacked the clause because the AA soon
embraced the clause and the UA was driven out of business. Frustrated on
these fronts, in 1885 the players resorted to collective action by forming the
Brotherhood of Professional Base Ball Players. Initially organized as a
benevolent association, the Brotherhood, under the leadership of star player
and lawyer John Ward, became a collective-bargaining agency by 1887. In
confronting the major league owners, the Brotherhood sought redress on such
matters as the reserve clause, the sale of players, and the threatened salary
ceiling, known as the Brush classification plan.
     In 1888 protracted negotiations between the Brotherhood and the owners
broke down when the NL owners refused to budge on the salary ceiling issue,
which had been accepted by the AA as part of the National Agreement. When the
owners rejected Ward's ultimatum on the key issues, the Brotherhood moved to
field a rival major league in 1890. With most of the best players in the
fold, the Players' League attracted financial backers who accepted Ward's plan
of sharing profits and power with the players. In 1890 the eight-team PL
opened play with well-stocked teams in every NL city except Cincinnati.
     Faced with a head-to-head battle for survival, the NL relied upon its war
committee headed by Spalding. Spalding met the PL head-on by scheduling games
on the same dates as PL teams, bribing PL players to jump ranks, initiating
costly lawsuits over the reserve clause, lowering ticket prices, cajoling
press support by threats to withdraw advertising, and raiding the AA and minor
league rosters for players. Loyal managers like Anson, Wright, Bill
McGunnigle, and Jim Mutrie persuaded good players to stay with the NL. Roster
raids on AA teams lured stars like Billy Hamilton and Tommy Tucker; and
promising rookies like pitchers Kid Nichols and Cy Young, infielder Bobby Lowe
and outfielder Jess Burkett beefed up the NL teams.
     Although beaten in the courts and at the turnstiles by the PL, which
finished its season with Mike Kelly's Boston team beating out Ward's Brooklyn
team by 6 1/2 games, the PL's financial losses were too much for its backers
to bear. In the fall of 1890, the disenchanted PL backers broke ranks and
sued for peace. Magnanimous in victory, Spalding imposed no reprisals on PL
players, but he gave no ground on the key issues. With the NL girding for war
with the AA in the upcoming 1891 season, the salary ceiling implementation was
delayed until the latest struggle was over.
     The collapse of the PL afforded little relief for the stricken AA. In
1891 all-out war erupted between the NL and AA over the return of players and
the relocation of franchises. When the AA's weak Cincinnati club folded, its
popular manager Mike Kelly joined the Boston AA team, but after a few days he
joined the Boston Nationals. With Kelly gone, the Boston AA team won the
pennant by 8 1/2 games over the Browns, but Boston fans flocked to watch Kelly
captain the Boston Nationals to the NL pennant.
     The 1891 season was the last for the AA. That fall four AA clubs, St.
Louis, Louisville, Baltimore and Washington, quit the dying circuit to join
the expanded twelve-club National League.


The "Big League":  The National League, 1892-1899

     The defeat of the AA in 1891 saddled the NL with a $130,000 debt, which
was incurred by buying out four of the defeated circuit's clubs. The
remaining four AA teams--Baltimore, Louisville, St. Louis, and
Washington--were added to the NL to form the twelve-club National League and
American Association of Professional Base Ball Clubs. From 1892 to 1899 this
monopolistic "big league" represented major league baseball. Enthralled by
their newly created baseball "trust," the league's owners styled themselves as
magnates presiding over a million-dollar entertainment industry. The magnates
fully expected their monopoly league to produce unprecedented cash and glory.
But such dreams were dashed by external factors, including a chronic national
recession, the 1898 war with Spain, and the league's competitive imbalance.
Eight seasons of play under the twelve-club format underscored its imbalance.
With Boston, Baltimore, and Brooklyn winning all the races, fans in other
cities lost interest. As profits dwindled, owners imposed a $2,400 ceiling on
player salaries and battled one another over the division of gate receipts.
Lacking strong leadership, each individual owner ran his club like a feudal
fiefdom. Indeed, the blustering antics of the owners often upstaged players
in newspaper accounts of this time. Some magnates hatched grandiose schemes
aimed at making the monopoly league work more efficiently. Thus Andrew
Freedman of the Giants advocated the annual pooling and redistribution of
players and profits, provided that the "strongest and most lucrative
franchises" got the best players. And another, Cincinnati owner John T.
Brush, proposed harsh disciplinary measures aimed at curbing rowdy players,
while also experimenting with minor league farm systems as a cheap source of
talent.
     Indeed, owner infighting over these and other issues damaged the big
league's image, but the biggest threat to the league's credibility was the
"syndicate" issue. The term "syndicatism" used at this time referred to
interlocking club ownership schemes. Following bitter debate in 1898, two
such interlocking directorates were approved by the owners. One of these
schemes permitted owner Frank Robison of the Cleveland and St. Louis teams to
transfer his best players to St. Louis; the other allowed owners Ferdinand
Abell and Harry Vonderhorst of the Brooklyn and Baltimore teams to stock the
Brooklyn team with the pick of those two squads. These operations made a
farce of the 1899 pennant race and prompted the NL to return to an eight-club
format in 1900; the cutback was accomplished by dropping Cleveland, Baltimore,
Washington, and St. Louis from the NL.
     The return to the eight-club format ended eight wayward seasons of major
league baseball played under one unwieldy league format. Nevertheless, major
league baseball continued to mature in the 1890s. Surprisingly enough, there
were no franchise changes in these years. In 1898 the 154-game playing
schedule was introduced, a format which dominated until 1961. And in 1893 a
major change in playing rules fixed the pitching distance at 60'6" from home
plate and also replaced the pitching box with a rubber slab atop a mound.
This permanent change was introduced that year to correct the pitching-batting
imbalance, a desirable goal which to this day remains elusive. The immediate
effect of the lengthened pitching distance was not to give a mild boost to
batting averages, but to send them soaring.
     Thus in 1894 the Phillies posted a .349 team batting average, with the
four-man outfield of Ed Delahanty, Sam Thompson, Billy Hamilton, and Tuck
Turner combining for a .400-plus batting average. Sluggers also prospered, as
Thompson hit 129 homers in this era, and Washington outfielder Buck Freeman
hit 25 homers in 1899; both these records endured for twenty years. (Later
recounts gave the career record to Roger Connor and the single season mark to
Ned Williamson who had 27 tainted homers in 1884.)  It took pitchers several
seasons to adapt to the increased distance, but they did so by developing
curves, changeups, and ball-doctoring trick deliveries to go with their
fastballs. Meanwhile two offensive styles vied for acceptance in this era.
For a brief time the "manly slugging" style feasted on pitchers, but the
"scientific style" mastered by the Baltimore and Boston teams, which stressed
bunting, stealing, sacrificing, and the hit-and-run, became the dominant
offensive style of the next twenty years.
     At this time other rule changes allowed player substitutions, established
the infield fly rule, treated foul bunts as strikes, defined sacrifice flies
and bunts, and introduced the pentagon-shaped home plate. On the playing
fields, players wore stylized uniforms and most sported gloves, with catchers
employing the big "Decker" mitt and wearing masks and chest protectors. When
in action, teams played heady ball, using signals to trigger offensive and
defensive movements. Defensively, infielders aligned themselves to turn
double plays and outfielders coordinated their play by using backups, cutoffs
and relays. Offensively, bunting, sacrificing, sliding, stealing, and
hit-and-run plays were familiar tactics. But when teams like the Baltimore
Orioles and Cleveland Spiders augmented their play with roughhouse tactics
like spiking and jostling runners, baiting umpires, and bench jockeying, this
"rowdy" brand of ball stirred the ire of reformers like Indianapolis owner
John Brush. But hard-nosed baseball survived its critics, as did Sunday
baseball. Despite fervent opposition from Sabbatarians, Sunday games were
permitted by local option, although eastern cities held out against such games
for twenty years. By then, major league clubs had outgrown the wooden parks
of this era. A spate of ballpark fires late in this era inspired tougher
safety codes that soon prompted the replacement of the vulnerable old wooden
parks with concrete-and-steel edifices.

Big League Campaigns:  The NL, 1892-1899

     During the big league's eight-year existence, pennant monopolizing was
the rule as only Boston, Baltimore, and Brooklyn teams won pennants. Managed
by Frank Selee, the powerful Boston Beaneaters won back-to-back pennants in
1892-1893 and in 1897-1898. Paced by pitcher Kid Nichols (who won 297 games
in this decade), Boston won the 1892 race played under a split-season format.
Boston easily won the first half, but lost the second half by 3 games to
manager Pat Tebeau's Cleveland Spiders, whose ace pitcher was the great Cy
Young. In the postseason playoff, after the two teams played a scoreless tie,
Boston swept the rest of the games to land the 1892 pennant.
     In 1893 the unprofitable split-season format was dropped and the pitching
distance was increased to 60'6". In a campaign marked by heavy hitting,
Boston won by 5 games over Pittsburgh. Pittsburgh's Frank Killen won 34 games
to lead hurlers, and outfielder Billy Hamilton batted .380. The following
year saw Boston fall to the Baltimore Orioles, who rebounded from an
eighth-place finish in 1893 to win the first of three consecutive pennants.
Although plagued by poor pitching, the offense-minded Orioles batted .343,
with every regular topping the .300 mark at the plate. Future Hall of Famers
on this star-studded team included Dan Brouthers, Hugh Jennings, John McGraw,
Joe Kelley, Willie Keeler, and Wilbert Robinson. The Orioles won the 1894
pennant by 3 games over the Giants, but lost the first postseason Temple Cup
Series, played between the first- and second-place finishers. In this
inaugural Temple Cup Series, manager John Ward's Giants swept the Orioles in
four straight games.
     The following year manager Ned Hanlon's Orioles repeated as NL champions
by edging the Cleveland Spiders by 3 games. A .324 team batting average and a
brilliant 54-14 home won-loss record keyed the 1895 Orioles. But once again
the Orioles failed in Temple Cup play, this time falling to the Spiders by
four games to one. In 1896 the Orioles won a third consecutive NL pennant by
9 1/2 games over the Spiders and swept their rivals in postseason Temple Cup
play.
     Bolstered by newcomers Billy Hamilton, Chick Stahl, and Jimmy Collins,
Boston regained the heights in 1897-1898. Nichols won 30 games as the 1897
Beaneaters edged the Orioles by 2 games. But the Orioles won the postseason
Temple Cup four games to one, the last year of this unremunerative and "shabby
spectacle" which, one observer said, no more resembled the old World Series
than a "crabapple does . . . a pippin."
     Boston repeated in 1898, in a baseball campaign overshadowed by the
Spanish-American War, beating the Orioles by 6 games. But by then the
unprofitable "big league" was in its last throes. In a race marred by
ludicrous syndicate ventures, in 1899 the Brooklyn Superbas won by 8 games
over Boston. A syndicate team, the Superbas were managed by Hanlon, who
stocked the Brooklyn team with the best players from the Brooklyn and
Baltimore rosters. A similar venture that season had Robison's St.
Louis-Cleveland syndicate loading the St. Louis team with the pick of these
two clubs. But Robison's venture failed miserably as St. Louis finished fifth
while the Cleveland team's 20-134 record was the worst by any major league
team playing a 154-game schedule.
     In the aftermath of the 1899 campaign, the owners scuttled the
twelve-club big league and cut back to eight teams. Baltimore, Cleveland,
Washington, and Louisville were dropped at a cost of $100,000, a buyout shared
by the eight surviving teams. Born in debt, the monopoly big league died in
debt, but the dawning twentieth century soon saw major league baseball
prospering under a revived dual league format.


Major League Baseball's Silver Age, 1903-1920

The American League War, 1900-1902

     The American League's struggle for major league recognition began in
1900, a propitious time for such an incursion. The NL owners had recently
shed four teams, which left many unemployed players and some promising
territories. Moreover, NL owners were distracted by an abortive attempt by
other outsiders to revive the American Association, and by the NL's prosperous
season of 1900. With a hefty boost from the nation's booming economy, most NL
teams made money that year. In a close race the Brooklyn Superbas repeated as
NL champs by beating a strong Pittsburgh team by 4 1/2 games.
     Such distractions favored the cause of the American League schemers.
Prior to 1900, the newly proclaimed American League had operated as the
Western League, a strong minor league based in the Midwest. Since 1894 the
Western League's president, the able, dictatorial, and hard-drinking Byron
"Ban" Johnson, had dreamed of making his circuit into a major league. To this
end he had battled with NL owners over the drafting of his league's players, a
practice which underscored his league's inferior status. Johnson's
opportunity to press toward his goal came in 1899, when the NL cut back to
eight teams. With the backing of lieutenants like Charles Comiskey and Connie
Mack, Johnson renamed his circuit the American League, his clubs snapped up
surplus NL players, and Comiskey moved his team to Chicago, where his White
Stockings boldly confronted the NL's Cubs. With solid financial backing and a
new ballpark, Comiskey's team of major league castoffs and promising
youngsters captured the first AL pennant in a profitable campaign.
     Emboldened by the AL's successful 1900 campaign, Johnson took note of the
expiring National Agreement and unilaterally proclaimed the AL to be a major
league. This 1901 declaration formally opened the American League war, and
Johnson's promoters commenced hostilities by invading the NL's Philadelphia
and Boston territories and occupying the former NL sites of Baltimore,
Washington, Cleveland, and Detroit. To stock their teams, Johnson's
financiers offered higher salaries to NL players, and in 1901 over a hundred
NL players snapped at the bait. The jumpers included a bevy of stars, among
them Cy Young, Clark Griffith, Jimmy Collins, and Nap Lajoie. Then, in a
hotly contested and profitable pennant race, Comiskey's Chicago team edged
Boston by 4 games to capture the 1901 AL pennant.
     The timing of the AL's assault was excellent. In 1901-1902 the
leaderless NL owners were locked in a bitter struggle over the choice of a
league president. Two factions, one headed by owner Andrew Freedman of the
Giants and the other by Spalding, battled to a standstill. In 1902 a
temporary Control Commission headed the NL, which finally elected Henry Clay
Pulliam as its president. In a complicated settlement the controversial
Freedman sold his New York Giants interests for $125,000, on the condition
that one of his cronies be permitted to plant an AL franchise in New York in
1903. By then, the AL had concluded another profitable season. With more NL
players joining AL ranks, Connie Mack's Philadelphia Athletics landed the 1902
AL pennant by beating the Browns by 5 games.
     In the fall of 1902, with most war-weary NL owners favoring a return to
the dual major league structure, the NL sued for peace with the AL. Early in
1903 Johnson and Comiskey met with Pulliam and Cincinnati owner August "Garry"
Herrmann and negotiated the National Agreement of 1903. Under its terms, the
NL and AL would operate as separate but equal major leagues, bound by common
playing rules, harmonized playing schedules, and mutually recognized
territories and player contracts. The player contract accord restored the
reserve clause and ended the AL's roster raids. The agreement also allowed an
AL franchise to be located in New York, which Johnson secured by moving the
financially shaky Baltimore Orioles to Manhattan, where in time the team
prospered as the New York Yankees. Among other points, the Agreement
reclassified the minor leagues and set new rules for the drafting of minor
league players. Indeed, in this era minor league baseball grew lustily,
reaching an all-time peak in 1913, when 46 leagues started the season. But if
the National Agreement stimulated the growth of organized baseball, it did
little to empower major league players. Major league players were denied
representation on the controlling National Commission, and over the years
1902-1913 two attempts by players to organize unions were beaten down. And if
the National Agreement included no salary ceiling plank, the Agreement
unequivocally embraced the reserve clause and asserted the right of the
National Commission to control baseball "by its own decrees . . . enforcing
them without the aid of law, and making it answerable to no power outside
its own."
     The power to enforce these baseball laws came via a master stroke when
the negotiators created a three-member National Commission charged with
enforcing the National Agreement and keeping peace between the rival major
leagues. As earlier demonstrated by the uneasy coexistence that marked the
dual major league system of the 1880s, some such high-level executive and
judicial body was needed to settle disputes between two independent and highly
competitive major leagues. It was a challenge that the National Commission
successfully met for seventeen years.
     Heading the National Commission were league presidents Johnson and
Pulliam and Cincinnati magnate Garry Herrmann, who served as the Commission's
permanent chairman. On the face of it, this gave the NL two votes, but
Johnson and Herrmann were close friends. Together they served during the
lifetime of the National Commission, while four relatively weak presidents
represented the NL, whose owners feared to empower any president. By contrast
Johnson reigned as the most powerful president in major league history. As
the AL's entrenched "czar," Johnson used his powers to safeguard his league
against any NL treachery. In defending his league, Johnson personally held
all AL franchise leases, ruled on ownership changes, fixed playing schedules,
set basic admission prices, and imposed his standards on owners and players.
Inevitably such powers incurred enmities among AL owners, but until the Black
Sox Scandal of 1919, Johnson's domination of the AL held firm.
     Over the years 1903-1920, with Herrmann's support, Johnson dominated the
National Commission. In those years the Commission functioned as baseball's
Supreme Court, settling disputes between clubs (mostly involving rights to
player services), supporting the interests of club owners, disciplining
players, defending umpires, fending off Federal League interlopers, defusing a
players' union threat, and overseeing relations with the minor leagues. But
the most important achievement of the National Commission was its profitable
administration of the revived World Series. Initially revived in 1903, the
World Series got off to a shaky start when the Giants refused to play the AL
champion in 1904. But in 1905 the two leagues adopted a new World Series
format that placed the conduct of the classic under the control of the
National Commission. With 10 percent of World Series revenues set aside for
financing National Commission activities, the Commission faced a stern test.
By capable administration the Commission met the challenge and the annual
World Series became a profitable and permanent part of each major league
season. By 1910 profits from World Series games had increased tenfold over
those of 1905. But the Commission was responsible for any World Series
chicanery; thus the rigged World Series of 1919 precipitated the downfall of
the National Commission.

Peace and Prosperity:  1903-1920

     By reviving the dual major league system with World Series play, the
framers of the National Agreement harked back to the successful format of the
golden 1880s. To that profitable format was added a National Commission
charged with keeping the peace between the two major leagues. The combination
launched the major leagues on a stable course which produced no franchise
changes for the next fifty years. In the 1903-1919 era the pattern was set
and the two major leagues enjoyed a silver age of popularity and prosperity.
In these years the popularity of the national pastime was buoyed by rising
attendance, increased media coverage including motion pictures, and the
ever-popular song, "Take Me Out to the Ball Game," introduced in 1908. The
game's increasing popularity swelled annual profits, but as always these were
unevenly distributed. In these years attendance at major league games
increased steadily; from 4.7 million in 1903, attendance rose to 10 million in
1911, before falling under the impact of the Federal League incursion and the
nation's involvement in the First World War. To house the growing numbers of
fans, durable ballparks constructed of concrete and steel were built during
the construction boom of 1909-1911. Capable of housing 30,000 or more fans,
these parks served until the post-World War Two construction boom. At this
time increasing profits boosted player salaries. By 1910 annual salaries
ranged from $900 to $12,000, and by 1915 salaries of superstars like Ty Cobb,
Tris Speaker, and Walter Johnson approached $20,000.
     In this era stability also characterized the style of play. Only a few
rule changes were made. Among them, a rule limited the height of pitching
mounds to fifteen inches above the baseline level, the infield fly rule was
invoked, a foul bunt on a third strike was ruled a strikeout, and earned run
averages by pitchers were included in annual records. On the playing fields
teams employed the deadball style of play that resembled the "scientific game"
of the 1890s. With new balls seldom being introduced into games, pitchers
took command, using a variety of deliveries including spitballs and defacing
balls with other foreign substances. In this era, earned run averages of 3.00
or below were seasonal norms, and seasonal batting averages, now affected by
bigger parks and improved gloves, hovered around the .250 mark. Offensively,
teams relied heavily on bunts, hit-and-run tactics, and base stealing to
produce a few runs which power pitchers protected. Not surprisingly, pitching
masters like Cy Young, Walter Johnson, Christy Mathewson, Grover Cleveland
Alexander, Eddie Plank, and spitball artist Ed Walsh sparkled among the
leading stars of this era. But pitted against these dominant hurlers were
some of the greatest hitters of all time. The masters of the deadball offense
included Detroit's Ty Cobb, who won thirteen AL batting titles while scoring
runs and stealing bases at unprecedented rates, and Pittsburgh's Honus Wagner,
who won eight NL batting titles and stole 722 bases. Other hitting stars
included Eddie Collins, Tris Speaker, Nap Lajoie, Sam Crawford, and the
ill-fated Joe Jackson. The decline of the "deadball style" was foreshadowed
by the 1910 introduction of the cork-centered ball. When widely used later in
the era, it ended the conservative style of offensive play. The
transformation was signaled in 1919, when Babe Ruth of the Red Sox hit 29
homers to set a new seasonal homer mark.
     By 1919 the stability of the silver age had been undermined by a series
of disturbing events. In 1913 interlopers launched the Federal League and vied
for major league recognition. That fall President James Gilmore lined up
enough wealthy backers to plant Federal League teams in Chicago, Baltimore,
Buffalo, Pittsburgh, Indianapolis, Brooklyn, St. Louis, and Kansas City. Over
the next two seasons, the "Feds" took to raiding major league rosters with
offers of higher salaries. The surfeit of games in 1914 and 1915 lowered major
league revenues, but the Federal League invaders suffered more. There were two
Federal League campaigns; Indianapolis won the 1914 pennant and Chicago took
honors in 1915. The 1915 season was the last gasp of the Feds. Staggered by
financial losses, the Feds surrendered when the established majors paid $5
million in compensation and awarded major league franchises to two Federal
owners. But an antitrust suit pressed by dissident Baltimore owners against
the majors eventually reached the U.S. Supreme Court. In 1922, Justice Oliver
Wendell Holmes, speaking for a unanimous court, dismissed the suit and judged
major league baseball to be mainly a sport and not a commonly accepted form of
interstate commerce. But the 1922 decision did not end the controversy, and
the major leagues would have to defend the reserve clause against future
attacks in the courts and in the Congress of the United States. Nevertheless
the FL challenge was the last full-scale incursion by a rival major league
against the established majors.
     Soon after the Federal League war, major league baseball faced another
crisis brought on by America's entry into World War One. In supporting the
nation's total war effort, dozens of major league players entered the armed
services, and clubs staged patriotic displays, donating money and equipment to
troops. For all that, in 1918 the provost marshal ruled major league baseball
to be nonessential to the war effort, but his ruling permitted the majors to
play a shortened 1918 campaign. That year attendance sank to 3 million,
prompting tremulous owners to vote to shorten the 1919 playing schedule.
However, to their surprise the war ended, and the attenuated 1919 campaign
attracted 6.5 million fans. Caught short by this unexpected boom, officials
sought to recoup money by upping the World Series schedule to a
best-of-nine-games format.
     As it turned out the expanded 1919 World Series precipitated the final
crisis that ended the commissioner system. Embittered over their low
salaries, eight Chicago White Sox players accepted bribes from gamblers to
throw the World Series to the NL champion Cincinnati Reds. When revelations
of this "Black Sox Scandal" came to light, it destroyed the National
Commission and ended the old National Agreement. Chairman Herrmann resigned
early in 1920, and that fall Federal Judge Kenesaw M. Landis was named the
game's sole commissioner, an action confirmed by the new National Agreement of
1921. As the autocratic Landis defused the Black Sox Scandal by barring the
eight accused Chicago players from organized baseball for life, the major
league game lurched into a new golden age of cash and glory.

Deadball Dynasties:  The American League, 1903-1920

     Over the years 1903-1920, Ban Johnson's "great American League" surpassed
its NL rival in attendance and also took an enduring lead over its rival in
World Series victories. However, such dominance was not a result of the
league's competitive balance; indeed, this dream was never realized in any era
of major league history until the early 1980s. In this early phase of AL
history, four teams--Boston, Philadelphia, Chicago, and Detroit--dominated all
AL pennant races.
     The first of the AL minidynasties, the Boston Pilgrims relied in 1903 on
the pitching of Cy Young, Bill Dinneen, and Tom Hughes to trample the
Philadelphia Athletics by 14 1/2 games and then go on to win the first modern
World Series over Pittsburgh. The following year Boston repeated, winning a
close race by 1 1/2 games over the New York Highlanders. That year manager
John McGraw of the Giants refused to meet the Pilgrims in World Series play,
but the controversy was resolved over the winter of 1904 with the
establishment of a permanent World Series format.
     In 1905 manager Connie Mack's Philadelphia Athletics got 87 victories
from the pitching corps of Rube Waddell, Eddie Plank, Andy Coakley and Chief
Bender, to edge the White Sox by 2 games. But with league-leading pitcher
Waddell sidelined by an injury, the A's fell to the Giants in the World
Series. As the A's faded in 1906, the most impotent of all pennant winners,
the weak-hitting Chicago White Sox, won a close race by 3 games over the
Highlanders. In winning, the White Sox batted .230 and scored a mere 570
runs. Yet in World Series play against the Cubs, whose 116 victories were the
most ever by a team playing a 154-game schedule, the White Sox prevailed,
winning four of the six games.
     The next three AL pennants were captured by the Detroit Tigers, the
league's most formidable dynasty to date. Managed by Hugh Jennings and
powered by outfielders Sam Crawford and Ty Cobb, the latter the Georgia
sensation who won the first of a record nine consecutive AL batting titles,
the 1907 Tigers defeated Mack's Athletics by 1 1/2 games. The following year
the Tigers eked out a half-game win over player-manager Nap Lajoie's Cleveland
team, and in 1909 the Tigers held off the Athletics by 3 1/2 games. But in
World Series action the Tigers resembled kittens. In 1907 and again in 1908
they fell to the Cubs, and in 1909 they lost to the Pirates.
     Those three consecutive World Series losses infuriated AL president
Johnson, but four straight AL victories over the years 1910-1913 restored the
aplomb of the portly czar. In 1910 Mack's revamped Athletics, newly located
in Shibe Park, used the pitching of Plank, Bender, Jack Coombs, and Cy Morgan,
and the offensive and defensive skills of his "$100,000 infield" of Stuffy
McInnis, Eddie Collins, Jack Barry, and Frank "Home Run" Baker, to lap the
Yankees by 14 1/2 games and topple the Cubs in the World Series. The
following year the A's repeated; this time they crushed the Tigers by 13 1/2
games and then beat the Giants in World Series play.
     Mack's A's faded to third in 1912, but the renamed Boston Red Sox, now
playing in their new Fenway Park, breezed to a 14-game win over the Senators.
"Smokey Joe" Wood's 34-5 pitching and Tris Speaker's .383 batting led the Red
Sox, who followed their league win with a victory over the Giants in the World
Series. With this latest Series, the AL took a lead in this fall competition,
which they hold to this day.
     The Federal League war was beginning when Mack led his resurgent A's to a
6 1/2-game win over the Senators and another victory over the Giants in the
1913 World Series. In 1914 the Mackmen captured their fourth AL pennant in
five years as they outran the Red Sox by 8 1/2 games, but then they lost the
World Series to the sweeping "miracle" Boston Braves who had come from last
place on July 4 to take the NL flag. That fall, racked by heavy financial
losses incurred by the Federal League war, Mack sought to recoup by selling
some of his stars. As a result, Mack's emasculated A's spent the next seven
seasons in the AL cellar.
     As the A's collapsed, the Red Sox and White Sox, both strengthened by
player purchases from Mack, monopolized the next five AL races. By purchasing
Jack Barry from Mack and snapping up minor league pitcher Babe Ruth, whom Mack
had passed over, Boston was the first to cash in. The Red Sox won the 1915
pennant by 2 1/2 games over the Tigers and went on to trounce the Phillies in
World Series action. In this the last year of the Federal League war, Boston
was one of only seven major league clubs to show a profit. But with the Feds
out of the way in 1916, prosperity returned to the major leagues. Despite
dealing Speaker to Cleveland, where his .386 batting ended Cobb's skein of
nine straight AL batting titles, the Red Sox repeated. Ruth's 23 pitching
victories led Boston to a 2-game victory over the White Sox and 5-game victory
over the Dodgers in the World Series.
     America's entry into the First World War in 1917 sent major league
attendance plummeting as manager Clarence "Pants" Rowland drove his White Sox
to a 9-game win over Boston. Shine-ball pitcher Eddie Cicotte's 28 victories
led all AL hurlers, and Eddie Collins, Joe Jackson, and Happy Felsch supplied
the power as the White Sox capped their victory with a win over the Giants in
the World Series. But major league profits were low in 1917, and they touched
rock bottom the following year, when the war effort forced the majors to cut
their playing schedules to 128 games. The Red Sox rebounded to win the 1918
campaign by 2 1/2 games over Cleveland. And by drubbing the Cubs in the World
Series, the Red Sox notched their fifth World Series title in as many tries.
However, at this point the Red Sox fell victim to their impecunious owner,
Harry Frazee, whose player sales soon divested the team of its ablest stars,
including Ruth. As the Red Sox faded, so did their record of World Series
triumphs. To this day Red Sox fans are still waiting for a sixth World Series
victory.
     Boston's collapse opened the way for the powerful White Sox to win the
shortened 1919 race by 3 1/2 games over the surging Cleveland Indians. In the
wake of the White Sox victory came the sordid World Series of 1919, which saw
eight Chicago players conspire with gamblers to throw the extended Series to
the Cincinnati Reds. In 1920 the much-publicized revelations of that piece of
skullduggery forced owner Charles Comiskey to suspend his eight Black Sox
players in the last week of the red-hot 1920 pennant campaign.
     Stripped of their stars, the White Sox finished second, a game ahead of
the Yankees and two games behind the victorious Cleveland Indians. The gritty
Indians lost their star shortstop Ray Chapman when he was fatally beaned by
pitcher Carl Mays of the Yankees. To the present day, this remains the only
fatality in major league history that was the direct result of a playing field
accident. In the memorable World Series of 1920, Cleveland and Brooklyn were
tied at two games apiece when Indian second-sacker Bill Wambsganss busted a
promising Dodger rally by pulling off the first and only unassisted triple
play in World Series history. And in that same game Indian outfielder Elmer
Smith hit the first World Series grand-slam homerun. Such heroics, plus three
pitching victories by Stan Coveleski, boosted the Indians to a
five-games-to-two triumph in the 1920 fall classic. Cleveland's victory also
ended the Boston, Philadelphia, Chicago pennant monopoly of the AL's deadball
era, while Ruth's 59 homers as a Yankee in 1920 heralded the incoming
"big-bang" style of play that would characterize the coming decade of the
1920s.

Deadball Dynasties:  The National League, 1901-1920

     A similar pattern of competitive imbalance also marked the NL campaigns
of the silver age. In this era three NL mini-dynasties--those of Pittsburgh,
Chicago, and New York--monopolized the first 14 NL campaigns. Moreover, even
as outsiders rose up to win three consecutive pennants over the years
1914-1916, the Giants and Cubs came back to win pennants in 1917-1918 before
yielding to the Reds and Dodgers in this era's final two campaigns. Of the
three monopolists, the Giants were the most dominating team. Under manager
John McGraw, "the Napoleonic genius" who jumped the AL in 1902 to skipper the
moribund Giants, the New Yorkers won six pennants, finished second eight
times, and suffered only one losing season.
     In 1901 the first of this dynastic trio, the Pittsburgh Pirates, won the
first of three consecutive NL pennants. Pittsburgh's rise began in 1900, the
year the NL cut back to eight teams. When his Louisville team was dropped in
the NL's cutback, owner Barney Dreyfuss purchased the Pittsburgh club, which
he strengthened by adding Louisville stars Fred Clarke and Honus Wagner to his
Pirate team. Powered by player-manager Clarke and Wagner, and unscathed by
the disastrous roster raids by AL teams that were weakening his opponents,
Pittsburgh won the 1901 NL race by 7 1/2 games over the Phillies; they then
won the 1902 race by an awesome 27 1/2 games over runner-up Brooklyn, and
captured the 1903 flag by 6 1/2 games over the Giants. In each of these
campaigns, both Wagner and Clarke topped the .300 mark in batting. Moreover,
Wagner's .355 hitting won the 1903 batting title while outfielder Ginger
Beaumont's .357 batting won the 1902 batting title. The Pirate pitching staff
was fronted by Deacon Phillippe, who won 66 games in these years, and by Jack
Chesbro, who won 49 games in two seasons before jumping to the AL in 1903. In
postseasonal play, the 1903 Pirates lost the first modern World Series to the
Boston Red Sox.
     Pittsburgh sank to fourth place in 1904 as the Giants surfaced to win
consecutive pennants in 1904-1905. In 1904 the Giants won 106 games to beat
the runner-up Chicago Cubs by 13 games. Power pitching by "Iron Man" Joe
McGinnity (35-8), Christy Mathewson (33-12), and "Dummy" Taylor (21-15) paced
the light-hitting Giants to victory. But in the aftermath of the win, manager
McGraw refused to meet the AL champion Boston Pilgrims in World Series play.
That issue was resolved in 1905, the year McGraw drove his team to a 9-game
win over the Pirates and then to an easy conquest of the Philadelphia
Athletics in the World Series, with Mathewson tossing three shutouts.
     The following year, the Chicago Cubs emerged as the third NL dynasty of
the deadball era. Pennant-starved since 1886, the Chicagoans recouped with a
vengeance, winning an astonishing 530 games over the years 1906-1910. Such
mastery was good enough to land four pennants in those five years. Skippered
by player-manager Frank Chance, who, along with fellow infielders Johnny Evers
and Joe Tinker, is now immortalized in baseball folklore, the 1906 Cubs won
their record 116 games. Powered by Chance and third baseman Harry Steinfeldt,
and armed by Mordecai "Three-Finger" Brown's 26-6 pitching, this superb team
buried the Giants by 20 games, but lost the World Series to their hometown AL
rivals, the "hitless wonder" White Sox.
     The Cubs made it three victories in a row by winning in 1907-1908. The
1907 Cubs crushed Pittsburgh by 17 games, and in the unforgettable season of
1908, the Cubs edged the Giants by a single game. With two weeks remaining in
the 1908 season, the Giants, Cubs, and Pirates were locked in a close race.
Then, in a fateful encounter with the Cubs at the Polo Grounds, Fred Merkle of
the Giants blundered by failing to touch second base as his Giants were
scoring what looked like the winning run. In the stormy aftermath of this
play, Umpire Hank O'Day ruled Merkle out for failing to touch the base and
declared the game a tie because the swirling masses of Giant fans on the field
made resumption of play impossible. Later NL president Harry Pulliam
supported O'Day's decision and ruled that if necessary the game would be
replayed at the close of the season. As it turned out, this was necessary
because the Cubs and the Giants finished the season in a dead heat. To settle
the outcome, the controversial game was replayed on October 8 at the Polo
Grounds. The Cubs won the sudden-death game 4-2, as Brown outpitched
Mathewson. In baseball folklore the Giant defeat permanently stigmatized
"Bonehead" Fred Merkle as the blamesake of the Giants' defeat. As for the
Cubs, they took full advantage of their quirky victory by defeating the Tigers
for a second straight time in World Series action.
     In 1909 the Cubs won 104 games, with Brown pitching 27 victories. But
the Pirates won 110 that year to beat Chance's men by 6 1/2 games. Wagner led
the league in hitting, and pitchers Vic Willis and Howie Camnitz combined for
48 wins. In World Series action, the Pirates hung a third straight loss on
the AL champion Tigers. But the Cubs rebounded in 1910, winning 104 games for
a second straight year. This time it was enough to lap the Giants by 13, but
the Cubs then fell to the Athletics in the World Series.
     Over the years 1911-1913 the Giants dominated NL play. In winning three
consecutive pennants, they piled up 303 victories; pitchers Mathewson and Rube
Marquard accounted for 147 of these, while Giant hitters led the NL in batting
each year. But in World Series appearances McGraw's men repeatedly swooned,
losing to the Athletics in 1911 and 1913 and to the Red Sox in 1912.
     Over the years 1914-1916, a whiff of competitive balance settled over the
NL as three outsiders wrested pennants from the three dynasty teams. In 1914
the "miracle" Boston Braves stormed from 10 games back in mid-July to win 60
of their last 76 games; the surge was enough to crush the Giants by 10 1/2
games. The following year, the Philadelphia Phillies landed their first NL
pennant on the strength of 31 wins by pitcher Grover Cleveland Alexander and
24 homers by Gavvy Cravath. The Phillies beat out the Boston Braves by 7
games. And in 1916, manager Wilbert Robinson's Dodgers got 25 victories from
pitcher Ed Pfeffer as they edged the Phillies by 2 1/2 games. But this trio
of outsiders produced only one World Series victory, which came when the
Braves swept Mack's Athletics to win the 1914 classic. As for the other
interlopers, both the Phillies and Dodgers fell to the Boston Red Sox.
     Like the AL's, the NL's wartime campaigns of 1917-1918 were plagued by
poor attendance which caused some tremulous owners to sell players in hopes of
recouping losses. But the pennant monopolists held firm. The Giants won the
1917 race by 10 games over the Phillies, but then fell for a fourth straight
time in World Series play as the White Sox prevailed. And in 1918, after
winning the attenuated NL race by 10 1/2 games over the Giants, the Cubs bowed
to the Red Sox in the World Series.
     The deadball era was drawing to a close in 1919, which was the year that
manager Pat "Whiskey Face" Moran drove his Cincinnati Reds to their first NL
pennant. The Reds won by 9 games over the runner-up Giants as future Hall of
Fame outfielder Edd Roush batted .321 to lead the league. The Reds also won
the World Series, but the stench of the Black Sox Scandal sullied their
victory. As breaking news stories of that scandal overshadowed stories of the
1920 pennant race, in progress when the news broke, the Brooklyn Dodgers went
on to defeat the Giants by 7 games. But the Dodgers lost to an inspired
Cleveland Indians team in the World Series. In the atmosphere of gloom caused
by the Black Sox Scandal revelations, it was also apparent that the deadball
era of stylized baseball play was ending. But a new era was unfolding in the
1920s that would launch the major leagues into new uplands of cash and glory.