Clipping:An accurate analysis of the Big Four situation
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| Date | Wednesday, October 7, 1885 |
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| Text | Discussion as to the legality of the Detroit-Buffalo deal still continues and many of our contemporaries fail to understand the modus operandi by which Detroit was deprived of the fruits of her strategic coup, although the matter does not seem difficult of comprehension. Buffalo was privileged to sell her stock to whom she pleased, and under the National Agreement, modified by the abrogation of the ten-day rule, Detroit secured control of the players in a legal manner, but at the Saratoga conference meeting a rule was adopted binding all the clubs of the League and American Association not to contract for players, at the time under engagement to such clubs, until Oct 20. Under this rule Detroit, although controlling the Buffalo Club, could not release Buffalo's players and transfer them to Detroit in the matter attempted, as, to the League, these clubs, although now under one control, were still separate and distinct organizations and located in different cities. A great deal of stress is laid upon the claim advanced by Detroit that the deal was made before the pledges exacted from the clubs by the Saratoga conference were promulgated, and that therefore the deal was legal. In another instance an American Association manager has been hauled over the coals pretty lively by his local constituents because he did not try to secure some of this material before he signed the pledge. In both cases one point has been overlooked. Each organization was bound to abide by the acts of its committee at Saratoga from the time such acts were adopted until approved or rejected in regular representative meeting. The League committee had full power from the League to act in its behalf, and the American Association committee was given such power at the Atlantic City special meeting. The pledge afterwards exacted by mail was supplementary to the formal notice given all clubs prohibiting the negotiation for players prior to Oct. 20. The pledge was merely exacted to make the matter more binding, as it were, and to make clubs particularly realize the importance of compliance with the notice. Had the pledge never been exacted the clubs would still have been bound to obey the rule passed at the conference, upon mere notification of such action, and President Young would have even in that case been justified in interfering, as he did, with the carrying out of the deal. Several cases of players released and signed since the Saratoga conference have been cited, but it is probable that the joint committee acted with a view to preventing just such transactions as the Detroit-Buffalo deal, whereby an entire team of valuable players could be gobbled up by one club to the exclusion of all others desirous of having at least an even chance of securing material to strengthen themselves, and not to interfere with unimportant individual cases. However, the rule will not undoubtedly be strictly construed, and while the release of players from League or American clubs is not preventable, the engagement of such released players until Oct. 20 is impossible, and if effected such contracts will not receive approval. The rule, however, only applies to League and American Association players, and players from outside organizations may be signed at will. |
| Source | Sporting Life |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
| Origin | Initial Hershberger Clippings |
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