Clipping:An apparently serious proposal to merge the AA and PL
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| Date | Wednesday, December 11, 1889 |
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| Text | [reporting the AA special meeting 12/4/1889] The subject that the delegates were called to consider was that of amalgamation with the new Players' League. The situation was canvased in all its bearings, and in accordance with instructions from John M. Ward, a series of propositions were drawn up to be presented to the Players' League at its next meeting. Mr. Phelps and Mr. Thurman were the committee. The groundwork of the agreement was agreed upon, and Mr. Thurman will extend the notes he has taken and prepare the instrument in the proper legal form. In a work it provides for the admission of the St. Louis, Columbus and Louisville clubs into the Brotherhood. In Philadelphia the Athletics and the Brotherhood team will consolidate, and the new club will be known as the Athletics. The plants at the three first-named cities will be put into the new organization, and the owners of the present clubs will qualify in any proper sum that they will carry out their engagements. Sunday games will be done away with and each city will be allowed to regulate the prices of admission to its grounds. There was a disposition to hold out for Sunday games, and St. Louis and Columbus rebelled a bit at the proposed innovation, but, after a full canvass of the situation, it was agreed to waive Sunday game, for Johnny Ward placed that act as paramount for their admission to the Players' League. Further details were treated and an understanding reached that, after Mr. Thurman had properly prepared the document, President Phelps and himself should at once meet a committee of the Brotherhood and submit the proposition as agreed upon, when any necessary changes or alterations might be made. The Sporting Life December 11, 1889 Tim Keefe, the pitcher of the New York Club and secretary of the Base Ball Players' Brotherhood, was found at his place of business on Broadway to-day [12/6]. Tim had been thinking a great deal over that meeting of the American Association at Columbus on Wednesday, and had come to the conclusion that the Brotherhood had no use for the American Association. Said he:-- “I don't see what use the Association clubs would be to us. If we took them in we would only have to make a twelve-club league, and that would make so many tail-enders that the draw on the guarantee fund would be by far too great. For that reason I should certainly be against such a move. All the talk about consolidating the two organizations is being done by the American Association people, and not by the Brotherhood. You can put it down that there is nothing in it.” The Sporting Life December 11, 1889 [editorial matter] If the Association magnates were possessed of the craft and wisdom necessary to success in the base ball business they would never have proposed amalgamation at all, but would simply have remained apparently dormant, awaited the result of the League's test suit against the Players' League, and if that resulted disastrously to the latter and knocked the project out, stood prepared to jump in to take up the new League project itself and carry it out, thus once more putting itself into the base ball whirl. But what is the use of talking of wisdom in connection with Association magnates? Nothing but blunders could be expected of them even to the bitter end. The Sporting Life December 11, 1889 |
| Source | Sporting Life |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
| Origin | Initial Hershberger Clippings |
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