Clipping:A rumor of the Players League
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| Date | Wednesday, September 11, 1889 |
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| Text | [from A. G. Ovens] While in Cleveland with the Hoosiers last month I hard a vague rumor in regard to a great scheme that a gentleman of that city was trying to work, by which he hopes to control the base ball market within the next sixty days. I chased the fleeing item for some time, but could not get close enough to it to locate the source from whence it came. It related to the intentions of the base ball “Brotherhood,” but no one seemed disposed to talk on the subject. Finally I concluded it was the idle dream of some visionary individual and dropped the matter. I did not think much more about it until last night, when I met a ball-player just from Cleveland, and as he appeared to be willing to talk I touched upon the alleged scheme of the Cleveland management. Had he heard of it? Well, yes, he had, but didn't care to say much about it. In the course of a long conversation, however, I learned that the Cleveland man who is supposed to be at the head of the business is Albert Johnson, who owns a street car line in that city. Mr. Johnson formerly lived in Indianapolis, and is a confirmed base ball crank. He has some money and an unlimited amount of nerve. The scheme will strike the average reader as rather a wild one, but my informant claims that it will be tried. As the story goes, Mr. Johnson has been working on the matter for some time, and has been ably assisted by John M. Ward. The great schemer's plan is to sign a contract with every ball player in the League and form a trust by which the base ball business is to be controlled. It is claimed that quite a number of the players have signed the agreement, and that Mr. Johnson is now in the East working on the scheme and securing more signatures. His plan is to get as many men to sign the agreement as possible, and when the managers of the present league clubs come to make terms with their players they will be informed that they have made other arrangements. This scheme contemplates the placing of clubs in Boston, New York, Brooklyn, Philadelphia, Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago and some other city yet to be selected. It is positively asserted that Ward and Johnson have been looking into this matter for several months and the latter has had an office in Cleveland, where he met the various players who went to that city. Ward seems to be acting in good faith and hopes to see the plan work out, but it is equally well known, so my informant says, that Johnson realizes that such a great scheme can never be carried through successfully, but he hopes to make something out of it by selling the releases of the players back to the clubs from which they jumped, the players being given a percentage of the purchase money. The Boston, New York, Chicago, Philadelphia and the players of all other big clubs are to be drawn into the trust, and it is said, that an effort will be made to get Comiskey and several more of the prominent players of the American Association into the scheme. The gentleman who gave me these facts, if they are facts, was in a position to know, and although I laughed at him and tried to show him how absurd such a move would be, he said he got his information from a source that could not be questioned. He maintained that, whether the scheme was ever carried through or not, it was now under consideration and would be attempted. Johnson left Cleveland some time in the early part of last week, and the gentleman who was in that city say that he is now in New York or Boston conferring with some of the leading Brotherhood men, and at the same time getting contracts with as many players as possible. This is said to be the mysterious business in which the Brotherhood has been engaged for several months. Mr. Johnson will probably find such an undertaking quite a risky business, but he is a man who has nerve enough to do anything to carry a point. Of course, the scheme will never work, and it only remains to be seen if it will be attempted. |
| Source | Sporting Life |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
| Origin | Initial Hershberger Clippings |
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