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| Major Leagues: The Formation, Sometimes Absorption and Mostly Inevitable Demise of 18 Professional Baseball Organizations, 1871 to Present |
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| By David Pietrusza Foreward by Lee MacPhail |
| Foreword by Lee MacPhail As a former American League president, I can tell you how a major league is run. I can inform you about scheduling, assigning umpires, discipline and fines and about the 101 mundane details that go into operating a big league. What I cannot so effortlessly tell you is how a major league is formed. I came to the American League presidency three-quarters of a century after Ban Johnson and Connie Mack and John McGraw turned a fairly successful minor league into one of the two great majors. The struggle of these historic figures is well documented here, as are those of William Hulbert, Albert Spalding and Morgan Bulkeley in establishing the senior circuit, the National League. These are success stories, but most often the attempt has ended fruitlessly. So here, too, are such erstwhile circuits as the National Association, the American Association, the Mexican League and the Federal League. Those leagues lasted for a few seasons, but their longevity topped such flops as the Union Association, the Players’ League, and the United States and Global leagues. What David Pietrusza has done is to recount the story—for the first time—of how such enterprises are formed, how they succeed, why they failed, the men who made them, and the playing talent they showcased. But there’s more; it’s how the game developed from a loose consortium of teams in the National Association of the 1870s to the million—billion—dollar business of today. It’s all here: the initiation of the reserve clause, the weeding out of gambling by the National League, the building of Wrigley Field for the Federal League, the plight of the Mexican League jumpers, the expansion efforts of the 1960s, and the story of Branch Rickey’s and Bill Shea’s Continental League. Right now, there is even talk of forming a third major league; it is probably idle chatter, but someday there could be a genuine challenge to the organized structure of the game. If its organizers wish to learn the triumphs and tragedies, the victories and blunders, of those who have gone before, I recommend this volume to them. And the same goes for any serious scholar of the game. The various major leagues have formed the structure by which our great game has thrived. Their history is an integral part of our national game. |
| Contents Acknowledgments iv Foreword by Lee MacPhail vi Prologue xiii 1. The National Association 1 2. The National League 23 3. The International Association 47 4. The American Association 61 5. The Union Association 80 6. The Players’ League 99 7. Failed Beginnings—Part I 127 8. The American League 145 9. Failed Beginnings—Part II 183 10. The Federal League 209 11. The Continental League of 1921 253 12. The Mexican League 257 13. The Continental League 278 14. The Global League 301 Epilogue 319 Appendices 323 Bibliography 343 Index 349 |
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| Federal League Magnate Charles Weeghman, Owner of the Chicago Whales, Builder of Wrigley Field |
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| A limited number of copies of Major Leagues remain available for purchase. They make great gifts and will be personally autographed by the author. Email for details. |
| "This is a first class work in the comprehensive baseball history category and belongs on the shelf along with those impressive volumes of Harold Seymour and David Voigt. . ." —Society for American Baseball Research (SABR) Bibliography Committee Newsletter |
| Ban Takes Manhattan An Excerpt from Major Leagues: The Formation, Sometimes Absorption and Mostly Inevitable Demise of 18 Professional Baseball Organizations, 1871 to Present |
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| Other Excerpts: • 1877: The Spectre of Gambling • The Feds Go to Judge Landis • The Colonial League • The Continental League of 1921 • William A. Shea: Father of the Continental League |
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