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Journal Articles
The Legacy of the Players’ League: 1890 Chicago Pirates
During the late 1880s, professional baseball players became increasingly frustrated with the reserve clause, an outgrowth of the reserve rule established by National League (NL) owners in 1879. Arthur Soden, who served as a managing partner for the NL’s Boston Beaneaters, has been credited with creating the reserve rule. Soden and other NL owners argued […]
1919 White Sox: Epilogue (Offseason, 1919-20)
One day after the 1919 World Series ended, Chicago White Sox owner Charles Comiskey responded publicly to rumors that his team had intentionally thrown games to the Cincinnati Reds. “I believe my boys fought the battles of the recent world’s series on the level,” he told the Chicago Times, and he even offered a $10,000 […]
1899-1901 American League Winter Meetings: War on the Horizon
October 11-12, 1899 Great Northern Hotel, Chicago On October 11 and 12, 1899, the Western League held its annual meeting at Chicago’s Great Northern Hotel. After much discussion that was finally settled by a unanimous vote, the circuit chose a new name — the American League of Professional Baseball Clubs. Though some balked at the […]
1919 American League salaries
In Eight Men Out, author Eliot Asinof wrote about the 1919 Chicago White Sox: “Many players of less status got almost twice as much on other teams. … (Charles Comiskey’s) ballplayers were the best and were paid as poorly as the worst.” This passage sums up the entire foundation of Asinof’s thesis: Low salaries and […]
1919 White Sox: Prologue (Offseason, 1918-19)
It’s accepted wisdom today that the Chicago White Sox, in the final years of the Deadball Era, were on their way to becoming one of the greatest teams in baseball history. Led by Shoeless Joe Jackson, Eddie Collins, and Ray Schalk in the field and Eddie Cicotte, Lefty Williams, and Red Faber on the mound, […]
1919 White Sox: Introduction
On the western edge of Canada’s Yukon Territory, at the confluence of the Yukon and Klondike Rivers just across the border from Alaska, is an old mining town called Dawson City, population 1,300. At the turn of the twentieth century, Dawson City became the bustling center of the Klondike Gold Rush and drew the likes […]
Bare Hands and Kid Gloves: The Best Fielders, 1880-1899
SABR members have selected all-star fielding teams for each decade since 1900. Wary of the dangers lurking for the baseball researcher, they have not ventured into the poorly charted territory of the 19th century. But the urge to explore is irresistible to those willing to rush in where wise men fear to tread. The selections […]
Tom Loftus: The American League’s Forgotten Founding Father
In 1877, an auburn-haired 20-year-old from St. Louis, Missouri, took the field for George McManus’s St. Louis Brown Stockings. The career of baseballist Thomas Joseph “Tom” Loftus parallels the story of the first 35 years of pro ball. Born on November 15, 1856, Loftus was a minor- and major-league baseball player, team captain, scout, manager, […]