The Third Major League: The Federal League

Not many people are still around that have actually seen teams from the Federal League play. The Federal League was one of the few leagues that not only tried to become a major league – they actually succeeded. The Federal League didn’t feature unknown players but fielded teams that included many future Hall of Famers and well known players including Walter Johnson, Three Fingers Brown, Joe Tinker, Chief Bender and Hal Chase - all of who had been enticed to “jump” leagues in order to escape the Reserve Clause and to make more money.

In a nutshell the Reserve Clause allowed owners to control the rights to sign a player in perpetuity and the player was essentially forced to accept whatever salary the owners decided to bestow upon them. The only other options were to beg for a trade (which just passed the same issue onto a new owner) or to walk away from the game. The owners had the players over a barrel and both sides knew it. So, as you can imagine, the Reserve Clause was loathed by almost every ballplayer that understood it.

Between 1891 and 1913 the Reserve Clause was basically inviolable. Both of the Major Leagues and the minors had an agreement to honor the Reserve Clause so each other’s stock of players was off limits. At that time baseball was booming economically and many new investors were coming into the game. With them came new leagues, including the Columbia League which opened its gates in 1913 under the guidance of league president James A. Gilmore.

In its first year the Columbia League respected the Reserve Clause and played as a minor league club with teams in six cities and had undistinguished results. But then things changed.  In 1914 the Columbia League was reinvented as a major league under the name of the Federal League. The owners of Federal League teams decided that the reserve clause was not binding as it was merely an agreement, not a law. So, they began offering unheard of salaries to stars from the National and American Leagues as well as the minors, which allowed them to grab many of the top stars.

Needless to say many players followed the money. More competition for players meant better salaries and an escape from the hated reserve clause that kept owners in control of a player’s destiny. The Federal League established itself as a third major league, and historically has been treated as one, despite never gaining official recognition from its competitors.

The new league debuted in Baltimore on April 13, 1914 and fielded 8 teams; the Baltimore Terrapins, the Brooklyn Tip Tops, the Buffalo (NY) Blues, the Chicago Whales, the Kansas City Packers, the Indianapolis Hoosiers (became the Newark Peppers in 1915), the Pittsburgh Rebels (also called the Stogies) and the St. Louis Terriers. Its first season was hugely successful and created a lot of interest in the markets where the teams played.

That success enticed even more players from the AL and NL to “jump” leagues. But the games weren’t just being played on the field. The Federal League had bigger plans and not only tried to woo players from the established majors but they also made attempts to bring the minor leagues over to their side and to abandon the majors.

The 1915 Federal League season featured perhaps the most tightly contested pennant race in baseball history with the Chicago Whales beating out St. Louis by 1/1000 of a percentage point and defeating Pittsburgh by 4/1000ths of a point. They would go on to take the league championship.

The 1915 season was a watershed year for the league too. After two seasons of enduring raiding by the Federal League, the AL and NL wanted to make peace. The lure of financial gains and the possibility of being acknowledged as equals brought the owners of the Federal League to the table with Major League Baseball but it's unlikely that they expected the response that they received.

The established Major Leagues proposed to buy out the strongest of the Federal League teams, disband them and break up the Federal League.   While many of the best teams made out well financially, many smaller teams got little, or nothing at all in the settlement.

One of the teams that received nothing was Baltimore. It’s likely that the owner just wanted his share of the buyout that the other Federal League teams received but since he received nothing he sued organized baseball on the grounds that the buyout violated the Sherman Anti-trust act for interstate commerce. The case dragged through the court system before it ended up in the Supreme Court in 1922. The decision went against Baltimore’s owners and it set a precident that stands today; the court ruled that baseball was not traditional interstate commerce and thus MLB was exempt from anti-trust regulation.

Aside from baseball’s anti trust exemption there is one more concrete reminder of the Federal League’s presence in baseball today – a little stadium that is known as Wrigley Field.