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Now for those of you who may be wondering what the Federal League was, here it is in a nutshell. Before the turn of the nineteenth century many so called “major leagues” came and went by the wayside. Leagues that bore such names as the American Association, the National Association, the Union Association and the Player’s League dotted the baseball landscape.
Come 1901 the first league to successfully rise up in competition to the well established National League was known as the American League, the same one that we enjoy today. Still, even after 1901, plans were drawn up for other major leagues, the vast majority never even getting its feet off the ground. Come 1913 there was yet another interloper onto the baseball canvas that was different from all the other abortive efforts that were tried.
What was different? Well, what talks? Money of course. This new league had substantial capital, enough even to draw off the major stars of the Senior and Junior circuits and it was - the Federal League.
But why discuss the Federal League at all? Well, when baseball mindlessly meandered into the worst strike in American sports history in 1994 - it costing us the World Series, the players entertained the notion of starting up their own league, the United League. Well baseball finally came to its senses (sort of) and everybody went back to work.
Well there was talk, again, of a possible third major league, this one called the United Baseball League or UBL.
There has been talk of going after star players and even highly rated minor leaguers to help give the circuit credibility. Whether it gets off the ground only time will tell, but it would be instructional if we examined the birth and death of the Federal League to see if history will repeat itself ... read on ...
In 1912, the magazine: “The Sporting Life” in its May 11th issue stated in regard to the infant United States League that:
“... if the league fails it will put to a finish for a time, to thoughts of battling the big fellows (the American and National Leagues). That sentiment lasted only a single year. The United States League died on the vine, yet on March 8th 1913, in the city of Indianapolis, the Federal League was born.
Was this another hare brained scheme due to failure as the U.S. and Colombian Leagues were? Well consider for a moment. Ban Johnson's American League was less than fifteen years old, yet was functioning as a vibrant league, so there was precedent.
Was there room in the United States for yet
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The no part of the equation was that the major leagues had added eight teams just twelve years earlier, so the Federal League’s timing was bad.
Still, back to 1913. John Power, who earlier had tried to launch the aforementioned Colombian League was elected president of the infant circuit. Unlike the American and National Leagues, the Federal League planned to be no part of the National Commission and its rules, it wished, rather, to be independent. Another interesting development was that it planned no player raids against the established leagues, but rather it would develop its own players.
Initially the league hoped, like its compatriots, to have an eight team league, but due to time constraints, was only able to launch six in its maiden season. The six cities represented were Chicago, Pittsburgh, Cleveland, St. Louis, Indianapolis, and Cincinnati. This would put it into competition with five major league and one minor league market. It also increased the number to three, the number of major league franchises in Chicago (White Sox and Cubs), and St. Louis (Cardinals and Browns). The Cincinnati club, due to financial difficulties was relocated to Covington Kentucky, but even that didn’t help. Before its maiden season had concluded, it would be competing with the American Association’s Blues in Kansas City.
As mentioned earlier, the Federal League vowed not to interfere with organized baseball (from this point on, the term “organized baseball” will be understood to stand for the National and American Leagues) player contracts, but, rather, would only sign “free agents.”
Unfortunately, what organized baseball and the Federal League considered “free agents” differed due to the infamous “reserve clause.” When three players were signed by the Pittsburgh Federal League franchise that organized baseball considered as “under obligation,” then organized baseball began to raid Federal League rosters.
The Chicago Cubs were the most aggressive offering contracts to a number of the Chicago Whales (or Chifeds ... take your pick) players.
Back then, baseball was not exempt from federal anti trust laws, yet developments within this “baseball war” would impact significantly on this matter. The first situation that impacted on this was Western Telegraphs refusal to allow Federal League scores to be put on its service. The Federal League dispatched one E. E. Gates to appear before the Interstate Commerce Commission. His bone of contention was that the Federal League had offered to pay for the service, yet was refused. Gates felt that organized baseball was behind this. He later met with a U.S government representative and encouraged him to introduce a resolution to Congress to investigate whether organized baseball had violated anti trust laws. Gates felt that baseball had acquired certain privileges that other businesses lacked and pointed this out. If organized baseball was found to have violated anti trust laws, they would be liable to triple damages, but, once again, more on that later.
August 2nd of this year occurred a development that would send tremors throughout baseball when Powers was forced to relinquish the league’s presidency and Chicago’s James Gilmore was elected president. One of his first accomplishments was enlisting the support of wealthy restauranteur, Charles Weeghman for the Chicago franchise.
He later induced oil magnates Harry Sinclair and Phil Ball to acquire the Newark (1914 ... 1915) and St. Louis franchises respectively, thus pouring in a not insignificant amount of capital into the new league. Meanwhile the Indianapolis entry won the inaugural Federal League pennant. Over the course of the league’s history they attempted to formulate a workable post season play off. One idea that came forth was challenging the World Series champions to another series. Organized baseball wanted no part of that idea.
Another idea was brought out of mothballs was to form an all star team from the remaining teams to challenge the Federal League champions to a series. Much as the AL and NL did in its infancy.