The National Pasttime? (A Fictional History of Baseball)

[SirFozzie]

The history of baseball can be traced back over 100 years. It's agreed by all reputable sources that the first truly professional baseball league formed on January 1st, 1903. 12 teams formed the Eastern League, the first professional baseball league.

Eastern League - Inaugural Franchises

Northern League
Boston Bulldogs (Boston, MA)
Buffalo Blizzards (Buffalo, NY)
Dover Demons (Dover, DE)
New York Lancers (New York City, NY)
Philadelphia Liberty (Philadelphia, PA)
Washington Statesmen (Washington, DC)

Central League
Baltimore Tiger Sharks (Baltimore, MD)
Columbus Gold Stars (Columbus, OH)
Detroit Iron (Detroit, MI)
Indianapolis Racers (Indianapolis, IN)
Raleigh Blue Sox (Raleigh, NC)
Richmond Terror (Richmond, VA)

[SirFozzie]

1903-1914: "The Eastern League Dominates Baseball, and the Central League Dominates the Northern League

The early days of baseball were dominated by the Central League. Out of the first 12 Eastern Series, the Central League Champions won 11 of them. There even was some talk about the Central League breaking away and picking up a couple Northern League teams and going seperate, although that was quickly squashed.

Only one player was formally elected to the Eastern League Hall of Fame in this period, that being Elvin "Fingers" Pace, who had been born on the island of Oahu in the Hawai'ian Territories, and had come to the mainland at an early age.

He was not a super pitcher (playing for the Philadelphia Liberty for most of his career), but as the figurehead of the team's five straight Northern League playoff opportunities, got elected when he retired in 1914.

The league had been steadily growing in popularity, with five teams drawing more then 1 million fans in a single season during the league's first decade, with the Washington Statesmen actually doing it four times (no other team had done it more then once).

But World War I had flared up overseas, and the first shots that would fracture Baseball in America were about to be fired...

The team of the first decade was the Detroit Iron. They made the playoffs 10 out of 12 times (although they only won the Central League title three times, finishing 2nd the other seven times), and won four Eastern League Championships.

[SirFozzie]

At the beginning of 1915, Industrialist Harvey Wilkins had attempted to buy the moribund New York Lancer franchise (the team had never drawn 600,000 fans in a single season). However, the franchise's owner, "Cheap" Charlie Davids, (called that because it was said that he would walk the stadium after each Lancer home game, looking for change that had been dropped) wouldn't sell the team.

Later in 1915, Wilkins then attempted to purchase the rights to operate the Buffalo Blizzards, and move them into Brooklyn, and the Eastern League's president, Thomas Jackson, blocked the sale, stating that the move would be an "infringement" of the Lancers territory.

It's long been stated that Wilkins and Jackson had personal disagreements, over a business deal gone sour, but this was a final straw for Wilkins. Wilks then started polling a number of his fellow newly made industrialists, who had derisively called the Eastern League "The Old Boys League", as the owners all traveled in the same social circles.

At first, the plan was to open a Coastal League in direct competition with the Eastern League, but after discussion, a second league, a Central League was proposed. They announced that the League would begin play in 1917.

Central League initial franchises
Chicago Tornadoes
St Louis Gateway
Dallas Stars
Birmingham Barons
Cincinnati Deacons
Kansas City Panthers
Evansville Aces
Milwaukee Knights

They immediately attempted to raid the Eastern League and sign some of their top players. For example, the owner of the Dallas Stars offered George "Big Thunder" Williams over $150,000 a year to break his contract with the Boston Bulldogs and play with the Stars, which was triple his salary.

The Northern League did not stand by idly while its best players were raided. They attempted to have the Central League disbanded, and when that failed, took the Central League to court over the player raids.

However, this would have an effect that no owner could forsee:

[SirFozzie]

The Powell Clause gets introduced to the game

In the 1916-1917 off season, Cecil Powell attempted to jump to the Evansville Aces from the Columbus Gold Stars. He was a good player, but it was obvious that he would not be able to break into the starting line up with the Gold Stars.

The team, owned by, Kenneth "Ohio Law" Donovan, sued both Powell and the Aces, stating that the contract that Powell had signed gave his registration over to the team. Despite his contract's expiration, the team pointed to the Reserve Clause in his contract that stated the team controlled his rights.

After several months of preliminary argument, with the 2nd District judge who heard the case agreeing that the power of the Reserve Clause bound Powell to the team, and an Appeals Court judge stating that the Reserve Clause kept players from making an honest living, the case made its way to the United States Supreme Court.

In a sharply divided, 5-4 opinion in the case of "Powell, Cecil v The Columbus Base Ball Club the Supreme Court ruled that players were not allowed to break their contracts. However, a player had the rights to seek free employment at any time if he had finished his contact with his previous team. The so-called Reserve Clause was ruled unconstitutional.

The Supreme Court decision struck down the "Reserve" clause that many teams had built in to their standard contract, calling it a restraint of trade. A team had the rights to keep a player from jumping their contract, however, when that contract expired, so did the team's right to control who the player played for.

However, the legal wrangling, and subsequent negotiations between the Eastern League and Central League delayed things greatly.

It was said at one point that the Eastern League had agreed to allow 4 of the Central League teams to join the Eastern League, but the negotiations of which teams that would be allowed to join, and the terms were never finalized. Baseball would never be under one authority ever again.

The Central League did not begin play until 1918, but they had already changed the world of Professional Baseball in America.

[korme]

OOTP?

[SirFozzie]

yup. Simmed agead a bit, and writing up the next bit.

[SirFozzie]

1917-1930: Equilibrium:

Now, with a Central League and free agency,the baseball players world had expanded, No longer could the Old Boys Network force them to take lower offers. There was a flurry of movement from team to team, and league to league.

Eastern League:

The Indianapolis Racers started strong, taking the Central Division (not to be confused with the Central League) title as well as Eastern League Championship in 1917, and 1919, but went into a decade long funk shortly there after.

Up North, it was the Blizzards reign over the Northern Division, they made the playoffs eight straight years, five times winning the Northern Division Championship series. One has to wonder if history would have been different if Harvey Wilkins had been allowed to purchase and move the team.

The Central Division champions had won 21 of the 27 Eastern League Series, but the game was booming.

The 20's saw the retirement of the most dominant pitcher in Eastern League history. Alan "Soup" Campbell was drafted in 1904 by the Boston Bulldogs. He quickly moved through the Bulldog system, being promoted to the big leagues at age 22, in 1907. He started the year with the Bulldogs, but wasn't great, going 6-11, with a 3.82 ERA.

At the trading deadline, he was shipped to the Detroit Iron, for a borderline major leaguer, and another player who never made the highest level of the game.

He played stronger the rest of the year, but was victimized by poor offense, going 5-7 with a 2.78 ERA.

Starting in 1908, he had 10 straight 20-win seasons (and 13 out of 14).

His 1915 season was voted the greatest season ever by a pitcher in the 1950's.. his record was good, 23-12, but when you put together the fact that he had a 1.31 ERA, in 41 starts. he pitched 342.1 Innings, only allowed 246 hits, and 42 walks, while striking out 235. 17 of his 41 starts were complete games, and he had 7 shutouts.

He was the most dominant post season pitcher the game may ever see, going 12-4 with a 1.33 ERA, in 20 Post Season starts.

While even in his mid 30's, he declined to enter the free agent market, even with teams from both leagues basically begging him to sign with their teams.

"Detroit's my home, and Boss McDavids (the owner of the Iron), has treated me like I was his son. I'd be a poor son if I left home just because someone wanted to pay me more.." he had claimed.

His final start in 1924 was pure Campbell, pitching a six hit shutout against the Indy Racers, and when he strained a hip muscle while warming up for his next start, the legend was complete.

He was a rare, unanimous pick for the hall of fame.

[SirFozzie]

Central League:

The Central League decided that they needed a playoff system, but didn't want to copy the Eastern League and just send the top two teams into the playoff. They instead did something that no professional league to this point had ever done.. they instituted a "split-season" schedule, dividing their season in to Spring And Summer Seasons.. the champions of each season would face off against each other in the Central Series for the title.

This way, they reasoned, teams wouldn't be out of the running for the playoffs midway through the season, and it would keep fan interest later in the season, but it would preserve the lucrative playoff system for the fans as well.

The league stuttered, with many free agents staying in the Eastern League for the first few seasons as they waited for the new league to verify it wasn't just a flash in the pan.

A couple Eastern League stars that would become Hall of Famers either were traded over or signed as free agents in attempts to spur fan interest, but by and large, they were older stars on the downside in their career.

The first true Central League Hall of Famer was little 150 pounder Joe "Lil Joe" Arnold, who had honed his skills way out in the barely civilized west. A Central League scout found him (rumor has it, that the scout, realizing Arnold's talent, smuggled him out of town via train right under the nose of an Eastern League scout who had heard about him), and signed him to the Central League Player contract.

Drafted by the Cincinnati Aces, Arnold played for them and the Evansville Aces through his career, and had over 2500 hits in his career, hitting .310 over the 14 years. Arnold was a prototype line drive hitter. He never really went big for homers (as he grew older, he had over a third of his 192 homeruns in the last three years of his career)

However, Arnold's story tragically ended in 1933, as he lost his life to an automobile accident on his way to an awards dinner. But to all Central League fans, Lil Joe had a big impact on the way the game is played.

[SirFozzie]

The end of the 20's and the 1930's saw the Central League's four early dynasties come to the fore, as the Kansas City Panthers (1925-26), St Louis Gateway (27, 28 and 29), Evansville Aces (30,31,32), Dallas Stars (33,34) and the Panthers again (35,36,37) all were repeat champions in this era.

The running joke was that a writer had promised his editor a league preview and had spent most of his advance on the demon rum. However, he came up with an easy plan. He just pulled the previous year's standings out from the newspaper's morgue, and resubmitted it as the year's preview. The punchline of the joke was not that it got past the editor's red pencil, but that it was pretty much correct!