Clipping:The instigation of the International Association; the League Alliance
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| Date | Sunday, January 21, 1877 |
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| Text | Seeing how low the standard of baseball was becoming, the secretary of the St. Louis Reds (Mr. Waite), desiring to rescue it from further degradation, addressed letters to all the leading non-League clubs in the country. Favorable responses were received. The movement was encouraged, and its success is fully assured. New York Sunday Mercury January 21, 1877 [see NYSM 2/25/1877 for the report of the founding convention.] [Spalding’s letter to those “semi-professional as he deemed most likely to consider it leisurely and with fairness” proposing the League Alliance:] There was considerable discussion at Cleveland, and I see there is still some going on in the papers, about the relations between the League and the clubs that are not members of it. Having always been well-treated by non-League Clubs, and having always taken an interest in them, I have given considerable attention to this subject, and have always urged a liberal and paternal policy toward such clubs by the League, believing such to be the interest of both classes. I think I may safely say that I found all the delegates at Cleveland disposed to do the suare thing by other clubs, and their legislation bears substantial evidence of that fact. The League “Address to the Public” contains good reasons why the general class of other clubs should not undertake the obligations of League membership, but the Convention legislates as far as it could to give other clubs the benefit of League membership, while imposing upon them none of the burdens. There are three things that all clubs which hire players require: 1. A uniform system of playing rules. 2. A tribunal to determine disputes between clubs. 3. Security against “revolving” of players. The first two the League has provided for all clubs that choose to accept them; as to the third, it is impossible for the League to do anything without the formal consent of the clubs interested. Since the Convention adjourned I have been talking with several members of outside clubs, as well as with officers of League clubs, and have been trying to devise some scheme that would cover this vital point, and have come to the conclusion that the inclosed form of agreement will accomplish the objects in view better than any other methods, for the following reasons: 1. It will secure you a system of playing rules that will doubtless be adopted by all the clubs in the country. 2. It will secure you a tribunal to determine disputes that is more liable to be impartial than one chosen from the clubs among whom the disputes may arise, and well fitted by long experience in base-ball, and by their responsible positions in the League, to pass judgment upon questions of such a character. 3. It will give you a far better security against “revolving” of your players than could be afforded you by any independent association, inasmuch as it employs the machinery of the League clubs to take notice of your contracts and your expulsions of players, leaving them no excuse for not complying with the terms of the new League law, prohibiting them from capturing your players. 4. It saves you the expense and inconvenience of instituting a central organization of your own, which it might be difficult for you to constitute so as to have the strength and reliability of the League. 5. It leaves each of your clubs entirely independent to manage its own affairs in its own way. 6. It would establish relations between the League and your clubs well calculated to advance the substantial interests of both. As various schemes have been proposed, I send you this one for your consideration, because I believe it to be the strongest and best, and, as I have already told you that I take a great deal of interest in this matter of the relations of the clubs to each other, I would like to know what you think of it. Yours, truly, A. G. Spalding. Chicago Tribune January 21, 1877 |
| Source | New York Sunday Mercury |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
| Origin | Initial Hershberger Clippings |
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