While on a family vacation to Arizona, I managed to finish another book pertaining to the era which is the focus of this blog. It's titled
The Great Baseball Revolt: The Rise and Fall of the 1890s Players League by Robert Ross and published by the University of Nebraska Press.
By the late 1880s, labor relations in baseball reached its nadir. The owners of clubs held tight grip on the salaries and the destinies of the players, which limited the say players had pertaining to their freedom as employees.
The reserve clause ruled the business side of the game by this point. The reserve clause bound a player to his club for as long as the owner pleased, dictating salary, prohibiting a player from entertaining other contracts, and ensuring better profits for the owners. Owners ran the game, they controlled the business of it, the reserve clause infuriated the players, but that was hardly the only thing that drew their ire.
Owners kept salaries artificially low, through various means, the most hated and nefarious being the Brush Classification System. Devised by Indianapolis owner John Brush, it graded players on ability, physical health, and personal habits and determined their salaries as a result. By this time, the best players rarely made more than $2,500.00 a year. A fantastic salary for the era to be sure, but one contrived in the owners' favor.
The artificially capped salaries proved to be part of the problem. Sometimes players didn't get paid for their services, either due to the club's unwillingness or inability to pay. Owners figured ways to deduct salaries, from fines to deducting the laundering of uniforms from their pay.
In addition, woe betide the man who fell injured. Many instances saw players lamed on the field not receive pay while recuperating, what's worse is when they recovered, they didn't necessarily have a roster spot to return. Replacements sometimes supplanted those hurt, but the reserve clause still bound the man to his club. This placed a man in a payless, play-less purgatory.
The environment proved perfect for rebellion, and John Montgomery Ward led the revolt. Ward, a former pitcher and current shortstop for the New York Giants was more than one of the preeminent players of the era. Armed with a law degree from Columbia University, Ward had an intellectual capacity that matched his ability to hit or defend the middle of the infield. This combination, plus his disgust with the owners, made him the ideal leader for the Players League.
By 1890, the time proved right for the players to assert their rights. A new league to rival the National League and American Association made it's debut. The league had strong investors and most importantly, the best players in the nation (to include Louisville's Pete Browning).
However, three major leagues vied for the fans' hearts and-more importantly-their dollars. The talent pool in the American Association and the National League thinned as the ranks of the Players League swelled with the best players the nation had to offer.
Louisville won its solitary major league pennant in 1890, one year after an execrable 1889 campaign (which we'll discuss later). One can make a good argument that the dilution of talent in the major leagues helped to mightily contribute to its miraculous turnaround. All three leagues faced the brink, but it seemed the Players League had the upper hand.
With these advantages, the future looked promising for the players, but would they be able to fulfil the promise? How did the labor struggles in the national game figure in to the larger struggles in American labor as a result of the Industrial Revolution?
Robert Ross tackles these issues in his recent look at the Players League. The above topics are discussed, but most importantly, he links the player's struggle with the struggle of those in America's working class. As industrialization transformed America, the gulf between those who produced and those who profited widened by the day. The Gilded Age of America saw great wealth and crushing poverty. The disparities occurred in all industries, even baseball.
The players looked out for their interests, but really saw their struggle as one with them against the owners, and really didn't sympathize a great deal with the burgeoning struggle between capital and labor in general. While organized labor saw the players as kindred spirits in the fight, the Players League didn't exactly reciprocate.
However, the players weren't the only laborers whose livelihoods lay in the balance. Those who built the parks, made the equipment, and tended the fields all had a stake in the game. Unfortunately, many times in the founding of the Players League, the concern of those who ran the new league and its players proved myopic when it came to the logistical support of the game.
For those looking for page after page of diamond heroics, this won't satisfy you. For those looking at a strict monograph, you'll be pleased to a degree. But for people interested in the labor history of the game and the labor history of the United States, this is your book. It weaves a history of labor and baseball and does a good job of giving an overview of the situation facing the players at this point in the game's history and their attempt at redressing the inequities.
My biggest complaint is that it, like many baseball books treats the American Association as a bit of an afterthought. But that is more a personal pique rather than any real flaw with the book.
It's worth a look for anyone who wants to understand the era this blog covers or those who are interested in the game's difficult history regarding labor.
The biggest thing to realize about professional baseball, especially the finances of the game, there were never any "good old days" of apple pie, mom, and puppies when it came to capital and labor or how the behind the scenes deals enabled the action on the field.
Since the beginnings of professionalism, it's been a ruthless and many times heartless endeavor. Both sides want theirs and will do their best to get it, for the bulk of the game's history, the owners have mostly been on the winning side. But with the death of the reserve clause in 1976, the players' prospects have taken an obvious uptick as evidenced by player salaries (fully earned in this author's opinion).
The Great Baseball Revolt reminds us of this struggle and how important it is to the history of the game and our nation.
