Clipping:The NL meets with the PL
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| Date | Saturday, October 11, 1890 |
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| Text | [reporting the NL special meeting of 10/9] While the delegates were indulging in their discussion a request for a hearing was received from Mr. Allen W. Thurman, of Columbus, O., who represented the Columbus Club and had been for days busily engaged in acting as a mediator with a view to bringing about a conference between the National and Players' leagues. Mr. Thurman was admitted and made a long appeal for a conference and compromise. He had, he said, had a number of conferences with the Players' League officials and had gained their consent to a conference, if the League could be induced to appoint a committee to meet a similar committee of the Players' League. Mr. Thurman also outlined a plan for combining the three present major leagues into two leagues, upon which basis the Players' League people were at least willing to confer. Mr. Thurman's proposition for a conference was then discussed for hours by the League delegates. A decidedly hostile spirit towards compromise was shown at first by a majority of the League men, some of shoe who had suffered the most being most bitterly opposed to any deal whatever with the Players. The matter was discussed until 4 o'clock, when a recess was taken. The delegates came together again at 5 o'clock and consumed several more hours in discussion. Finally wiser counsels prevailed, and a big step was taken towards a solution of the base ball problem by the passage of the following resolution: Resolved, That Messrs. A. G. Spalding, John B. Day and C. H. Byrne constitute a conference committee of three to confer with a similar committee of the American Association to meet the committee which we have been advised has been appointed by the Players' League, consisting of Messrs. E. B. Talcott, Wendell Goodwin and A. L. Johnson, and said committee is hereby requested to report the result of such conference to this meeting at its earliest convenience. The delegates then adjourned until 10 o'clock to-day, when the report of the conference committee will be received. While the League was debating the appointment of a conference committee, a number of Players' League magnates were domiciled at the St. James' Hotel, one block up Broadway, awaiting the outcome. Those present were Johnson Talcott, Goodwin, Ward and the Wagner brothers. When notice was received that eh League had appointed a conference committee, a meeting was held, at which a conference committee consisting of Al Johnson, E. Talcott and Wendell Goodwin was appointed and the subject of compromise fully considered and a plan of action outlined. The committee then proceeded to the Fifth Avenue, and at 9 o'clock was closeted with the League committee in the famous Parlor F. whose walls, could they speak, would reveal many base ball secrets. Messrs. Spalding, Day and Byrne represented the League; Johnson, Talcott and Goodwin the Players' League, and Thurman, Barnie and Von der Ahe the American Association. The meeting organized by electing Mr. Thurman chairman and Mr. Byrne secretary. Mr. Thurman started the ball rolling by an eloquent speech, in which he demonstrated the absolute necessity of peace and a readjustment of the base ball business. He then, as a basis for reconstruction, proposed a consolidation of the existing three leagues into two stronger organizations. His scheme was to bunch the three leagues, leaving two clubs in Boston, Philadelphia, and perhaps Chicago, consolidate the duel clubs in New York, Brooklyn, Pittsburg, Cleveland and Chicago, and then regroup them into two organizations under new names; one organized to comprise Boston, new York, Brooklyn, Philadelphia, Pittsburg, Cleveland, Chicago and Cincinnati; the other to take in Boston, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington, or some other Eastern city, and Louisville, Chicago, Columbus and St. Louis. … [a long discussion follows over the names of the two leagues, and a tentative agreement about locating the clubs, with two-club cities to work it out between themselves] This was as far as the committee could go, as they had no power to bind their respective organizations to anything, the object of the meeting being merely to agree upon a general plan and report the same to their organizations for adoption or rejection and settlement of details. As neither the Players' League nor the American Association was fully or authoritatively represented, it was decided to defer any further consideration of the subject until the committees of those two organizations could confer with their respective bodies. Therefore it was decided to adjourn the conference until Oct. 22, at the Fifth Avenue Hotel. [A resolution follows where everyone agrees not to poach any players before Oct. 22.] |
| Source | Sporting Life |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
| Origin | Initial Hershberger Clippings |
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