Clipping:Detroit threatens to jump to the Association; Detroit finances
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| Date | Wednesday, November 24, 1886 |
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| Text | When the League meeting adjourned and the delegates began to prepare to leave everybody thought the surprises of the past few days were ended, and that nothing further in League legislation would occur to disturb the base ball horizon, but last evening there fell a bomb into the principal rendezvous, Spalding's store, that has thrown the city into a state of excitement bordering on consternation. There were quite a number of base ball men gathered yesterday afternoon, when Watkins strolled in with the remark:--”Well, boys, we'll be against you next year.” “What?” “That's what I said. The Detroit Club will play with the American Association next year.” (I looked at Anson). “That's right, I guess, from all I can hear,” said he; and then the knights of the pencil present began to gather material for the announcement that has set the base ball world agog this morning. “It is all due to the adoption by the League of the guarantee system,” said Watkins,” and we do not propose to stand any such manifestly unfair ruling. We should be nice suckers, shouldn't we, to go to Boston or to Washington and put big money in their tr3easuries for $125. How much money do you suppose you would put in our treasury whey they played in Detroit? Nay, the Detroit Club has spent too much money in getting its club together to support four or five other clubs in the League at this stage of the game. If the League don't want us upon terms that we can make money under, we can go into the Association at almost our own terms, play a starring tour from the beginning to end of the season, and make dollars there to where we would make cents in the League. The Chicago Club could get rich under the guarantee system where Detroit would suffer. To my mind the adoption of the measure was a direct fling at Detroit, for it will hurt us more than it could possible have hurt any other club in the League. Why, if they wanted to ruin us they could hardly have used a more dangerous weapon than that amendment. Compared with other League clubs, Detroit is a small city, and the attendances there alone would not justify the maintenance of a first-class club. For ever five years Detroit has been trying to get together a good club—one that home people would help support, and one that would be an attraction in other cities. Now we have as good a club as there is anywhere, and a club that is, I think, the greatest attraction away from some of any club in the country. This summer we played [illegible] they would show that the other seven clubs made more money from our visits than from those from any other in the League. Now what do they do, when they have discovered how much of an attraction we are, but tell us we must support ourselves at home, while they will reap the benefits from our being an attraction away from home. But they counted without their hosts. We will be a card anywhere and will prove it before another season has passed. The whole transaction was the meanest piece of business that has ever been done in connection with base ball, and it has started a fight that will continue right along. I tell you the men that managed and helped that transaction will find plenty of fighting to do for some time to come.” ,,, Spalding, when interviewed, admitted that Detroit had made threats os seceding, but was disposed to regard it as a bluff. He said the adoption of the guarantee plan was due to the fact that the other clubs were tired of carrying along a club like Detroit, which ran its expense to enormous proportions in order to carry a club far beyond its ability to support, and with a salary list far beyond what good business judgment and common sense would justify. Spalding also thinks the Detroit Club entitled to no special consideration because it has always acted selfishly, to the detriment of the other League clubs. In support of this he cited the breaking up of the Buffalo Club, the purchase of Dunlap, which almost caused the disbandment of the St. Louis Club. Because of these acts the other League clubs did not feel like longer sacrificing their own interests for the benefit of the Detroit Club. The League's object, Mr. Spalding continued, is to make each club self-sustaining, and thus to put a curb upon extravagant business methods as Detroits. The Sporting Life November 24, 1886 President Stearns, when questioned on the subject, said: “Until the beginning of last season the Detroit team was not a very expensive one, not costing more than $20,000 for salaries for the season. The directors, thinking that a good team was bound to pay, and feeling that they would be protected by other League teams, put a team in the field last season at a cost of nearly $40,000, little dreaming that some of the Eastern clubs would try to reap the benefit of our enterprise. President Hulbert once declared that the percentage system was the bulwark of the League, for the reason that there would always be some weak clubs who would have to depend in a manner of some of the stronger ones.” The Sporting Life November 24, 1886 |
| Source | Sporting Life |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
| Origin | Initial Hershberger Clippings |
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