SWC75
Bored Historian
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FROM TURMOIL TO STABILITY
There are three kinds of rebels: Some rebel out of hatred for who has power. Some rebel out an ideal that power should be shared. And some rebel because they want power for themselves. Bryon Bancroft Johnson was a rebel of the third kind.
Of course, the third type of rebel can have some ideals of his own. Ban Johnson was disgusted with the way baseball was being run and played in the 1890’s. Bill James describes it as “Dirty. Very, very dirty….Players spiked one another, A first baseman would grab the belt of the baserunner to hold him back a half-second after the ball was hit. Players tripped one another as they rounded the bases. Fights broke out more days than not. Players shoved umpires, spat on them and punched them. Fans hurled insults and beer bottles at players of opposing teams. …It was hell to umpire in the 1890’s: it’s a wonder anyone would do it….The mess was preserved by a persistent myth that fans liked this kind of thing.”
Ban Johnson was one of the ones who didn’t and when he took over the Western League, a floundering minor league based in the Midwest in 1894. “Johnson recognized that the bad manners and frequent fistfights the National league permitted were restraining the public’s enthusiasm for the game. In combating these things, Johnson was high-handed, arbitrary, imperious and highly effective….Through an aggressive investment strategy, good public relations and a policy of acquiring the best players available and moving into the largest and most progressive cities, Johnson placed this league on the path toward becoming a second major league. This was announced in 1901, under the name of the American league and accomplished by 1903….As the American League quickly became not only a major league, but clearly the better of the two leagues in the eyes of the public, the National League was forced to follow suit and clean up its innings.” (Bill James)
The NL had also made a critical blunder that fell right into Johnson’s hands: they’d imposed a salary cap, not on teams but on player, of $2,400 a year, a low amount for a star, even in that era. Johnson was smart enough to let the market make the decisions and star players flocked to the new major league. Over 100 players jumped. Wikipedia: “Under a new National Agreement, the AL was formally recognized as the second major league. A three-man National Commission was set up, composed of both league presidents and Reds owner Garry Herrmann. Although Herrmann was nominal president of the commission, Johnson soon dominated the body. Johnson brooked no criticism, and made it very difficult for men he didn't like to buy into the league…Will Harridge, who succeeded to the AL presidency in 1931, summed up Johnson's legacy in the following terms: "He was the most brilliant man the game has ever known. He was more responsible for making baseball the national game than anyone in the history of the sport"
He’d been recommended for the post by Charles Comiskey, a former star of the St. Louis Browns during their great years in the 1880’s and Manager of the Cincinnati Reds, who resigned that post and bought the Western league’s Sioux City team and transferred it to St. Paul. He then moved it to Chicago for the 1900 season. When the National league dropped Washington, Baltimore, Cleveland, Louisville Johnson moved teams into those cities. He also moved teams into the National League Cities of Boston, Chicago, Philadelphia, and St. Louis. The only original Western League city was Detroit, whose Tigers actually date back to 1894.
Johnson shrewdly named some of his teams after nicknames previous National League teams had used in the same city. Comiskey’s team named itself the White Sox because the team now called the “Orphans” since Cap Anson retired, (they would become the Cubs in 1903) was originally called the “White Stockings” and men wore socks now, not stockings. Similarly the team known in 1900 as the Boston Beanbeaters, (they would become the Braves in 1912), started out as the Red Stockings. Johnson’s Boston team was originally the Americans but became the Red Sox, (in 1908). The National Association’s original Philadelphia team was the Athletics so the American League’s Philadelphia team took that name. The Baltimore team became the Orioles, the St, Louis team the Browns and the Washington the Senators because of the recent NL teams with the same names.
Meanwhile the National League was dealing with a problem what would resonate with modern fans: an owner they wanted to get rid of. Bill James describes Andrew Freedman as ”George Steinbrenner on Quaaludes, with a touch of Al Capone….a thug who skated on thin ice above an ocean of lunacy”. He had made a million as part of the Tammany Hall political machine and had not only political but organized crime connections. Like Steinbrenner, Freedman fired managers on a whim. Freeman also had a bit of Mark Cuban in him and was known to charge out on the field to argue with umpires. He controlled the police in New York and thus determined who would be removed from the ballpark and who could stay. Al Spalding called Freedman an "impossibility in baseball", demanding that Freedman retire from the game. Freedman refused.”
The salary cap had been Freedman’s idea. He also loved fining his players for everything imaginable in an effort to reduce their salaries. In one famous case, pitcher Amos Rusie was fined a total of $3,000 and threatened to sue the league. The other owners paid him the $3,000 to avoid the suit. John Montgomery Ward quit as the Giant’s manager the day Freedman bought the team in 1895 to take up his law practice, from which he battled Freedman as represented his former players.
Per an article on SBR’s website, “While not in the plutocrat class of a Vanderbilt, Rockefeller, or Carnegie, Freedman was truly wealthy with a personal fortune that was likely the equal of those of his fellow magnates put together“, which made getting rid of him all the harder. When he had totally alienated himself from his fellow owners, he decided the best revenge was to ruin the New York franchise by intentionally fielding non-competitive teams when he knew the league needed a strong team in New York. The other franchises depended on the share of the receipts they could get in games involving the new York tea, . After the Giants finished 42 games out of first place in 1899, Freedman announced “Baseball affairs in New York have been going just as I wished and expected them to go. I have given the club little attention and I would not give five cents for the best baseball player in the world to strengthen it.”
The other owners asked for peace in their battles with Freedman, who proposed two things that benefited the league immensely: the reduction from 12 to 8 teams and the end of syndicate ownership, meaning that an owner could only own stock in one team at a time. Freedman also demanded-and got- the pick of the players from the liquidated teams to restock his depleted franchise.
Freedman actually became friends with a former antagonist, John T. Brush, who owned the Reds. Together they worked up a scheme for controlling player salaries and ensuring competitive balance:
“As Brush envisioned it, the National League’s assets would be pooled into a holding company managed by a board of regents. Players and managers would be licensed by the board and assigned to various teams consistent with establishing competitive parity. Costs would be controlled by means of stringent salary caps and by the manufacture of baseball equipment by a Trust subsidiary. Apportioned profits to Trust shareholders would be meted out at season’s end.” This was opposed by Al Spalding and failed by a 4-4 vote.
The ban on syndicate ownership did not prevent Freedman from buying an interest in the new Baltimore Orioles team Ban Johnson had created for the American League. Nor did it prevent Freedman from transferring its best players to his Giants team. Some of them had been part of the original Baltimore Orioles teams who had dominated the mid-90’s: John McGraw and Joe Kelley, as well as some new stars like Joe McGinnity and Roger Bresnahan. John McGraw, who had chaffed under the harsh discipline of Ban Johnson, thus became the manager of the New York Giants, a post he would hold for 30 years.
There was no way Ban Johnson and Andrew Freedman were going to be able to co-exist and Johnson took advantage of Freedman’s denuding of the Orioles roster to get rid of him. “Taking advantage of league charter provisions activated by an ensuing Baltimore game forfeiture (for lack of players), Johnson promptly stripped Freedman of title to the franchise and placed the club under direct presidential control for the remainder of the season….The following spring, the American League, with new team ownership procured by Johnson, would transfer the Orioles to New York.“ That team eventually became the Yankees. Freedman lost interest in the Giants because he was given something more important to occupy his talents: building the New York City subway system. He sold the Giants to his new pal Brush, (who then sold the Reds), in 1902. He died in 1915 from a stroke after suffering a nervous breakdown. It pays to remain calm…
My reading on the subject has produced different assessments of when the American league because a “major league”. It’s said that it was classified as such in 1901 after being in a “special class” above other minor leagues, for the 1900 season, the first year it was called the American League. I have been unable to determine who made these decisions. Some authors treat the AL as a major league from its first year. others insisted it wasn’t a major until 1903, when the two leagues had ended their feud and created a “National Commission” to rule the game and an agreement was made for the AL and NL champs to play in a post season series for the overall championship. Most treat 1901 as its first year as a major league and so will I.
It’s interesting that the National Commission, (AKA the National Association),which Johnson dominated by the force of his personality, was also the organization, according to many writers, that first formalized the concept of major leagues and minor leagues, (which is why I don’t know who was doing the classifying of the AL in 1900 and 1901). “Ban Johnson had other designs for the NA. While the NA continues to this day, he saw it as a tool to end threats from smaller rivals who might someday want to expand in other territories and threaten his league's dominance.” The rebel didn’t want to deal with other rebels.
The Boston Americans met the Pittsburgh Pirates in the inaugural World Series in 1903. A You-tube poster has done a series of clips with his own, (monotonal) narration and some pictures of the various players he discusses. I particularly like the sharper shots of the players, especially the ones of the Americans in front of a screen protecting the stands. They almost look as if modern models were posing in the uniforms of the 1903 Boston Americans. It helps you connect to the players of this era:
In 1904, the Giants won the National league pennant and refused to meet the Americans, who had again won the Al pennant in the World Series. Both the Giants owner, John T. Brush and their manager, John McGraw, had a personal enmity for Ban Johnson and didn’t want to play the champions of his league. McGraw opened the 1905 season with a ceremony raining a flag proclaiming the 1904 Giants as “World’s Champions”. Brush and McGraw were also concerned that there were no set rules as to how the money form the series would be split up. “During the winter of 1904–05, however, feeling the sting of press criticism, Brush had a change of heart and proposed what came to be known as the "Brush Rules," under which the series were played subsequently. One rule was that player shares would come from a portion of the gate receipts for the first four games only. This was to discourage teams from "fixing" early games in order to prolong the series and make more money. Receipts for later games would be split among the two clubs and the National Commission, the governing body for the sport, which was able to cover much of its annual operating expense from World Series revenue. Most importantly, the now-official and compulsory World's Series matches were operated strictly by the National Commission itself, not by the participating clubs.”
A period of great turmoil would now give way to a long epoch of great stability in the game.
There are three kinds of rebels: Some rebel out of hatred for who has power. Some rebel out an ideal that power should be shared. And some rebel because they want power for themselves. Bryon Bancroft Johnson was a rebel of the third kind.
Of course, the third type of rebel can have some ideals of his own. Ban Johnson was disgusted with the way baseball was being run and played in the 1890’s. Bill James describes it as “Dirty. Very, very dirty….Players spiked one another, A first baseman would grab the belt of the baserunner to hold him back a half-second after the ball was hit. Players tripped one another as they rounded the bases. Fights broke out more days than not. Players shoved umpires, spat on them and punched them. Fans hurled insults and beer bottles at players of opposing teams. …It was hell to umpire in the 1890’s: it’s a wonder anyone would do it….The mess was preserved by a persistent myth that fans liked this kind of thing.”
Ban Johnson was one of the ones who didn’t and when he took over the Western League, a floundering minor league based in the Midwest in 1894. “Johnson recognized that the bad manners and frequent fistfights the National league permitted were restraining the public’s enthusiasm for the game. In combating these things, Johnson was high-handed, arbitrary, imperious and highly effective….Through an aggressive investment strategy, good public relations and a policy of acquiring the best players available and moving into the largest and most progressive cities, Johnson placed this league on the path toward becoming a second major league. This was announced in 1901, under the name of the American league and accomplished by 1903….As the American League quickly became not only a major league, but clearly the better of the two leagues in the eyes of the public, the National League was forced to follow suit and clean up its innings.” (Bill James)
The NL had also made a critical blunder that fell right into Johnson’s hands: they’d imposed a salary cap, not on teams but on player, of $2,400 a year, a low amount for a star, even in that era. Johnson was smart enough to let the market make the decisions and star players flocked to the new major league. Over 100 players jumped. Wikipedia: “Under a new National Agreement, the AL was formally recognized as the second major league. A three-man National Commission was set up, composed of both league presidents and Reds owner Garry Herrmann. Although Herrmann was nominal president of the commission, Johnson soon dominated the body. Johnson brooked no criticism, and made it very difficult for men he didn't like to buy into the league…Will Harridge, who succeeded to the AL presidency in 1931, summed up Johnson's legacy in the following terms: "He was the most brilliant man the game has ever known. He was more responsible for making baseball the national game than anyone in the history of the sport"
He’d been recommended for the post by Charles Comiskey, a former star of the St. Louis Browns during their great years in the 1880’s and Manager of the Cincinnati Reds, who resigned that post and bought the Western league’s Sioux City team and transferred it to St. Paul. He then moved it to Chicago for the 1900 season. When the National league dropped Washington, Baltimore, Cleveland, Louisville Johnson moved teams into those cities. He also moved teams into the National League Cities of Boston, Chicago, Philadelphia, and St. Louis. The only original Western League city was Detroit, whose Tigers actually date back to 1894.
Johnson shrewdly named some of his teams after nicknames previous National League teams had used in the same city. Comiskey’s team named itself the White Sox because the team now called the “Orphans” since Cap Anson retired, (they would become the Cubs in 1903) was originally called the “White Stockings” and men wore socks now, not stockings. Similarly the team known in 1900 as the Boston Beanbeaters, (they would become the Braves in 1912), started out as the Red Stockings. Johnson’s Boston team was originally the Americans but became the Red Sox, (in 1908). The National Association’s original Philadelphia team was the Athletics so the American League’s Philadelphia team took that name. The Baltimore team became the Orioles, the St, Louis team the Browns and the Washington the Senators because of the recent NL teams with the same names.
Meanwhile the National League was dealing with a problem what would resonate with modern fans: an owner they wanted to get rid of. Bill James describes Andrew Freedman as ”George Steinbrenner on Quaaludes, with a touch of Al Capone….a thug who skated on thin ice above an ocean of lunacy”. He had made a million as part of the Tammany Hall political machine and had not only political but organized crime connections. Like Steinbrenner, Freedman fired managers on a whim. Freeman also had a bit of Mark Cuban in him and was known to charge out on the field to argue with umpires. He controlled the police in New York and thus determined who would be removed from the ballpark and who could stay. Al Spalding called Freedman an "impossibility in baseball", demanding that Freedman retire from the game. Freedman refused.”
The salary cap had been Freedman’s idea. He also loved fining his players for everything imaginable in an effort to reduce their salaries. In one famous case, pitcher Amos Rusie was fined a total of $3,000 and threatened to sue the league. The other owners paid him the $3,000 to avoid the suit. John Montgomery Ward quit as the Giant’s manager the day Freedman bought the team in 1895 to take up his law practice, from which he battled Freedman as represented his former players.
Per an article on SBR’s website, “While not in the plutocrat class of a Vanderbilt, Rockefeller, or Carnegie, Freedman was truly wealthy with a personal fortune that was likely the equal of those of his fellow magnates put together“, which made getting rid of him all the harder. When he had totally alienated himself from his fellow owners, he decided the best revenge was to ruin the New York franchise by intentionally fielding non-competitive teams when he knew the league needed a strong team in New York. The other franchises depended on the share of the receipts they could get in games involving the new York tea, . After the Giants finished 42 games out of first place in 1899, Freedman announced “Baseball affairs in New York have been going just as I wished and expected them to go. I have given the club little attention and I would not give five cents for the best baseball player in the world to strengthen it.”
The other owners asked for peace in their battles with Freedman, who proposed two things that benefited the league immensely: the reduction from 12 to 8 teams and the end of syndicate ownership, meaning that an owner could only own stock in one team at a time. Freedman also demanded-and got- the pick of the players from the liquidated teams to restock his depleted franchise.
Freedman actually became friends with a former antagonist, John T. Brush, who owned the Reds. Together they worked up a scheme for controlling player salaries and ensuring competitive balance:
“As Brush envisioned it, the National League’s assets would be pooled into a holding company managed by a board of regents. Players and managers would be licensed by the board and assigned to various teams consistent with establishing competitive parity. Costs would be controlled by means of stringent salary caps and by the manufacture of baseball equipment by a Trust subsidiary. Apportioned profits to Trust shareholders would be meted out at season’s end.” This was opposed by Al Spalding and failed by a 4-4 vote.
The ban on syndicate ownership did not prevent Freedman from buying an interest in the new Baltimore Orioles team Ban Johnson had created for the American League. Nor did it prevent Freedman from transferring its best players to his Giants team. Some of them had been part of the original Baltimore Orioles teams who had dominated the mid-90’s: John McGraw and Joe Kelley, as well as some new stars like Joe McGinnity and Roger Bresnahan. John McGraw, who had chaffed under the harsh discipline of Ban Johnson, thus became the manager of the New York Giants, a post he would hold for 30 years.
There was no way Ban Johnson and Andrew Freedman were going to be able to co-exist and Johnson took advantage of Freedman’s denuding of the Orioles roster to get rid of him. “Taking advantage of league charter provisions activated by an ensuing Baltimore game forfeiture (for lack of players), Johnson promptly stripped Freedman of title to the franchise and placed the club under direct presidential control for the remainder of the season….The following spring, the American League, with new team ownership procured by Johnson, would transfer the Orioles to New York.“ That team eventually became the Yankees. Freedman lost interest in the Giants because he was given something more important to occupy his talents: building the New York City subway system. He sold the Giants to his new pal Brush, (who then sold the Reds), in 1902. He died in 1915 from a stroke after suffering a nervous breakdown. It pays to remain calm…
My reading on the subject has produced different assessments of when the American league because a “major league”. It’s said that it was classified as such in 1901 after being in a “special class” above other minor leagues, for the 1900 season, the first year it was called the American League. I have been unable to determine who made these decisions. Some authors treat the AL as a major league from its first year. others insisted it wasn’t a major until 1903, when the two leagues had ended their feud and created a “National Commission” to rule the game and an agreement was made for the AL and NL champs to play in a post season series for the overall championship. Most treat 1901 as its first year as a major league and so will I.
It’s interesting that the National Commission, (AKA the National Association),which Johnson dominated by the force of his personality, was also the organization, according to many writers, that first formalized the concept of major leagues and minor leagues, (which is why I don’t know who was doing the classifying of the AL in 1900 and 1901). “Ban Johnson had other designs for the NA. While the NA continues to this day, he saw it as a tool to end threats from smaller rivals who might someday want to expand in other territories and threaten his league's dominance.” The rebel didn’t want to deal with other rebels.
The Boston Americans met the Pittsburgh Pirates in the inaugural World Series in 1903. A You-tube poster has done a series of clips with his own, (monotonal) narration and some pictures of the various players he discusses. I particularly like the sharper shots of the players, especially the ones of the Americans in front of a screen protecting the stands. They almost look as if modern models were posing in the uniforms of the 1903 Boston Americans. It helps you connect to the players of this era:
In 1904, the Giants won the National league pennant and refused to meet the Americans, who had again won the Al pennant in the World Series. Both the Giants owner, John T. Brush and their manager, John McGraw, had a personal enmity for Ban Johnson and didn’t want to play the champions of his league. McGraw opened the 1905 season with a ceremony raining a flag proclaiming the 1904 Giants as “World’s Champions”. Brush and McGraw were also concerned that there were no set rules as to how the money form the series would be split up. “During the winter of 1904–05, however, feeling the sting of press criticism, Brush had a change of heart and proposed what came to be known as the "Brush Rules," under which the series were played subsequently. One rule was that player shares would come from a portion of the gate receipts for the first four games only. This was to discourage teams from "fixing" early games in order to prolong the series and make more money. Receipts for later games would be split among the two clubs and the National Commission, the governing body for the sport, which was able to cover much of its annual operating expense from World Series revenue. Most importantly, the now-official and compulsory World's Series matches were operated strictly by the National Commission itself, not by the participating clubs.”
A period of great turmoil would now give way to a long epoch of great stability in the game.
