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The
History of the NABL
Ch. 3
Our
story on the history of the NABL continues with the creation of the
Continental League in July of 1959.
The Continental League was a proposed 8-team baseball league which never got
off the ground but still had significant impact on major league baseball,
and indirectly, the creation of the NABL over 30 years later. It is
generally accepted that Major League Baseball’s expansion in 1961-1962 was
in direct response to pressure from the Continental League.
The Continental was not proposed as an outlaw league, but rather the plan
was always to join Organized Baseball, not fight it.
As mentioned in earlier chapters, there were several different forces
driving baseball toward expansion during this time period:
·
The population of the U.S. had grown tremendously since the original teams
had been constituted at the turn of the century; there were more potential
fans and more potential players.
·
The postwar U.S. was affluent, with plenty of money to spend on leisure
activities.
·
The successful move of the Braves to Milwaukee showed baseball owners that
there was substantial money to be made in new markets.
·
Congress was pressuring Baseball to expand, threatening to take away the
treasured antitrust exemption if something was not done.
But Major League Baseball was resisting. As Bill Veeck said, “If the
baseball owners were running the United States, Kansas and Nebraska would
still be trying to get into the Union.”
The first legitimate attempt at expansion was made by the Pacific Coast
League, which went as far as being reclassified as ‘AAAA’. The Pacific Coast
dream died when the Giants and Dodgers moved west, taking the PCL’s two best
markets.
But the removal of New York’s two National League teams in 1958 led to a
reaction on the East Coast. A committee was formed to get NL baseball back
in New York City, led by a lawyer named William Shea (as in Shea Stadium).
Under pressure from Congress, Commissioner Ford Frick had made public the
criteria for the admission of expansion cities to the majors, such as
population, stadium capacity, etc. The wording of Frick’s announcement made
it clear he was thinking of baseball adding another league, not just
individual teams. William Shea got together with community leaders in the
other baseball-hungry towns and formed the Continental League. It was
formally announced on July 27, 1959 at a press conference in New York. Five
cities were represented, with another dozen seen as potential candidates.
The league needed a respected public figure to lead it, and they chose
Branch Rickey. With the Cardinals, Rickey had invented baseball’s farm
system. With the Dodgers, he had broken baseball’s color line. From there he
went to the Pittsburgh Pirates, laying the foundations for the team that
would soon be World Champions. In his 70’s, Rickey was still dynamic and
full of ideas. Rickey told the press that the Continentals would be ready in
a few years to compete with the AL & NL in a round-robin World Series.
The main problem for the Continental League was the same problem that
plagued the infancy of the NABL 30 years later; players. There were plenty
of baseball players in the country in the late 1950s, but they all belonged
to somebody. There was no free agency as we know it today, baseball’s
Reserve Clause meant that a players’ contract was automatically renewed
every year, forever, unless the club chose to release him from it. In March
1960, Rickey’s attempt to form a working agreement with the Class D Western
Carolina League was blocked by MLB. The only players available would be
amateurs or players already rejected by the system. Expansion advocates
sought to get a bill through Congress that would limit the number of players
a team could control to 80 (some teams controlled 400). The bill got amended
and revised, and in June 1960 it was sent back to committee, never to be
seen again.
After failing to reach indemnity agreements with the minor leagues whose
cities it would be invading (New York, Houston, Toronto, Denver,
Minneapolis- St. Paul, Dallas- Fort Worth, Atlanta and Buffalo), the
Continental League officially folding on August 2, 1960.
Major League Baseball, still under threat from Congress, expanded with four
teams, two for each league in the following years.
Some baseball historians have pointed out that the expansion teams generally
fared worse at the gate than established teams which moved to a new city.
For instance, of the first eight expansion teams, NY Mets, Houston, LA
Angels, Washington, KC Royals, San Diego, Montreal, and Seattle Pilots, only
Montreal was able to draw over 1,000,000 fans in is inaugural year.
These expansion clubs were saddled with the dregs of the established teams’
rosters, with no free agency to supplement their talent. The fans could
smell a loser and stayed away. Washington and Seattle left town in a cloud
of failure. Perhaps expanding with a whole new 8-team league would have been
better for baseball in the long run. If the PCL had been allowed to become
major, it would have started with an established fan base and some
established minor league stars. The Continental League would have given some
expansion cities the thrill of a pennant race and the anticipation of
getting closer to major league status each year.
Branch Rickey said, “It may seem illogical that you can’t get manpower for
four extra clubs but you can for eight. But eight teams can compete equally
while recognized as a third major league. Our new league would not pretend
to be major the first year. But by the end of the third year that would not
be unthinkable.” |
