Clipping:Brush's account of events leading up the sale
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| Date | Thursday, March 27, 1890 |
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| Text | [an interview of Brush] “There are two sides to this question,” continued Mr. Brush, “a sentimental side and a financial side. The pride we had in our club, the pride which exists in having our city represented in the National League, the desire to cater to the base-ball spirit of Indianapolis, backed by the warm assurances of support which had flooded us, were the motives which governed, but they are sentimental. When we came home [from the Cleveland meeting] a meeting of our directors was called, and we decided to take our players, whose loyalty had given us the right to assume the position we had up to this, into our confidence for consultation. We desired to know just how far, if at all, our policy had been in conflict with their interests, and a meeting was held when Glasscock, Denny, Bassett, Boyle, Rusie, Sommers and Burkett were present, and the situation was fully discussed, and they were invited to give their views and express themselves freely regarding the situation. They are all men of intelligence, fully posted, able to sum up the situation as accurately as any man connected with base-ball, and they were a unit in the opinion that the attempt to carry out the schedule adopted at Cleveland meant disaster to the League, and consequently ruin to themselves; for, with the League wrecked, their occupation as ball-players would be gone. They professed loyalty to Indianapolis, and went so far as to say that if it was our desire to stand up against the wishes of the League and attempt to play the schedule, that we would stand or fall together, but they were free to admit that they had no faith whatever in the success of the League under the schedule, and requested if, in our judgment, the salvation of the League depended upon our withdrawal and satisfactory arrangements could be made with the League, that in return for their loyalty to us we take such steps as might be deemed advisable to accomplish this result. The interests of the players to whom we owed our position, the sentiment that existed in the League in favor of eight clubs and our own judgment that there was nothing ahead but disaster, led us to take up the subject with the League committee, and during all the time that negotiations were pending with this committee we were in hopes that something might happen that would yet save us our position. “The players were asked to submit their terms, and the conditions for withdrawal were discussed by the committee at different times before the meeting in New York. At the latter meeting the matter was under consideration the greater part of two days and two nights before arrangements were finally completed. During all these conferences the committee has been fair and honorable in its negotiations, but the committee was appointed for the purpose of securing a reduction from ten to eight clubs, and we were fully convinced that it was the desire to carry out that mission. Knowing this, we did what prudent business men would do, who had the financial interests of the men who were dependent upon them in their charge. If to stay meant wreck and disaster then good business judgment demanded that we take such steps as might be necessary to protect the men who respectfully asked us to be as loyal to them as they had been to us. Proceeding upon this basis, with a hope all the while that some arrangements might be made by which we would be enabled to retain an active membership we took such steps as we deemed necessary to enable us to retire with the best credit possible to players and management if it became an absolute necessity. This is the financial or business side of the situation. |
| Source | Indianapolis Journal |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
| Origin | Initial Hershberger Clippings |
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