Clipping:Deacon White and Jack Rowe buy the Buffalo Club; Detroit's response; player sales
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| Date | Wednesday, December 26, 1888 |
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| Text | [from the Buffalo correspondent] ...James L. White and John C. Rowe will control the stock of the Buffalo Club, hold the highest offices in the gift of the organization, manage the team, captain it, play third base and short stop respectively, and by their work lead the bashful and retiring Bisons away to the front in the International League in 1889. The Sporting Life December 26, 1888 President Stearns, of the Detroit Club, was apprised of the action of the two members of his team. He said:--”Deacon White may have been elected president of the Buffalo Club, and he may have been elected president of the United States; but that will not enable him to play with the Buffalo Club, and he won't play there. He will go to Boston and rose will go to Pittsburg, or I will know the reason why. Only last Saturday I got a letter from Rowe, in which he said he would sign with Pittsburg, and at the latter's terms. These men know that they cannot play with the Buffalo Club, and the only construction that can be placed on their conduct is that they have determined to fight the reserve rule, and will carry the case into the courts. If they do so, they will find that they have bitten more than they can chew. I knew that neither of them will play in the buffalo Club unless they want to render themselves and the club liable to expulsion. The International League is one of the associations that signed the National Agreement. If Rowe and White insist on playing with the Buffalos it will be a violation of this agreement. The players will be blacklisted, and any team that plays against the Buffalos will lay itself liable to a like penalty. They can own the club and manage it jointly, but they cannot play until they have the consent of the representative of the stockholders of the old Detroit Club.” The Sporting Life December 26, 1888 In an interview with a reporter White said:--”We are not trying to break the reserve rule. The reserve rule is all right. It is the bulwark of the National game. What I protest against is the selling of a player without his knowledge or consent. I am quite willing to break up that custom. Whether we will take the matter into the courts I cannot say until the question arises. If it comes to a question of law, the courts will have to decide it. I don't think the League can afford to go into the courts to test the question of its right to sell a player's services and transfer him without his knowledge or consent. This alleged authority is all assumed. If Rowe and myself are driven to litigation, the result might be serious to the business of base ball as now conducted. If in law the Detroit Club can send me to Boston, it can also send me to New Zealand. According to the contract, I simply give the Detroit Club the right to reserve my play in Detroit, not in Boston. The reserve rule, to the extent I have set forth, is all right and should be respected, but it never contemplated the buying and selling of players.” … “If the National League warns the other clubs in the International Association that they cannot play with Buffalo because Buffalo is playing reserved men, and the other clubs then refuse to play with my team, I shall have a good case, my lawyer tells me, to sue the League for interfering with a business venture without right and conspiring to prevent me from earning a living. This is the first case where there has been a square chance to try the reserve sale law of the League, and I am confident that it will be broken, that is, if the League will fight. If they won't fight, and simply tell Detroit to give me my release, it will end the whole matter. If the League gets beaten it means the end of the reserve and sale laws forever, and they know it and may not make the fight. They have not ofight a man on the outside, so to speak, and cannot bluff me by saying that I cannot get a job anywhere else. I shall have the support of the Brotherhood in the matter, if I want it, and I shall make the fight to the death. My contract with the Detroit Club expired last November. I fulfilled my part of that contract to the letter. There was nothing said in that contract about letting them transfer me to any place they saw fit, and there is no law that allows a man who has a contract with me for one year to say what I shall do the next year.” The Sporting Life December 26, 1888 The Boston Globe’s special man in Detroit reports Jim White as saying: “If the National league warns the other clubs in the International league that they cannot play with Buffalo because Buffalo is playing reserved men, and the other clubs then refuse to play with my team, I shall have a good case, my lawyer tells me, to sue the league for interfering with a business venture without right and conspiring to prevent me from earning a living. This is the first case where there has been a square chance to try the reserve and sale law of the league, and I am confident that it will be broken, that is, if the league will fight. If they won’t fight, and simply tell Detroit to give me my release, it will end the whole matter. “If the league gets beaten it means the end of the reserve and sale laws forever, and they know it and may not make the fight. They have now to fight a man on the outside, so to speak, and cannot bluff me by saying that I cannot get a job anywhere else. I shall have the support of the brotherhood in the matter, if I want it, and I shall make the fight to the death. It is either the league or myself that must go to the wall this time, sure. I have bought the Buffalo club as a business venture, and expect to make money out of it and give the people as good a game as money will buy; that is, up to the salary limit.” Cleveland Plain Dealer December 21, 1888 |
| Source | Sporting Life |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
| Origin | Initial Hershberger Clippings |
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