Clipping:Spalding's plan to classify minor leagues; draft
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| Date | Sunday, July 21, 1889 |
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| Text | Clubs are not to be classified arbitrarily. There will be four classes of minor leagues and each minor league can apply for admission to that class in which they can pay the salaries and live. If a league is once classified and afterwards finds it cannot support itself in its classification it can be reclassified in a lower class, or if it finds that it can well afford to do so it can be admitted to a higher classification. There are to be four classifications. Class A will be permitted to pay salaries not to exceed $200 a month for a player or over $2,000 per month for a team. For the purpose of illustration, suppose we classify the present organization. Class A would include the International Association, Western Association, and California League. Class B, to pay not over $150 per man and $1,500 per team, would include the Atlantic Association and Tri-State League. Class C, to pay not over $100 per man and $1,000 per team, would include the Central State League and the Texas League. Class D would include the Middle States League, New York State League, Michigan State League, and Delaware State League. Leagues in this classification would not be permitted to pay their players more than $60 per month salary, or $600 per team. The price per league for protection under the National agreement would be as follows: Class A, $2,000; Class B, $1,000; Class C, $500; Class D, $250. This tax, understand, would be not on each club, but on each organization. Thus, a Class D club would pay $31.25 in an eight club league and $41.67 in a six club league, and if a player was taken from one of these clubs by a club in a higher classification the club would receive $125 for him, the player would receive $62.50, and the league from which he was taken would get $62.40. These figures would increase pro rata in the higher organizations. The major leagues would pay $1,500 for players taken from Class A leagues, of which half would go to the club, one-quarter to the player, and one-quarter to the league from which he was taken. The price for Class B would be $1,000, and for Class C players it would be $500. The major leagues would be permitted to take players from any of the minor leagues upon payment of the stipulated bonus. The Class A clubs would be permitted to take players from any league in a lower classification, and so on down the scale. It will thus be seen that the minor league clubs would be training schools for leagues of higher classification, and could not be robbed by each other, and when a player whom they had developed was taken by requisition to a higher class league they would receive a bonus for their trouble in developing him, and the player himself would receive a premium for his ability. There is one point in Mr. Spalding's scheme which must be carefully arranged else it will lead to endless trouble, and possibly spoil the whole plan. This matter was particularly called to my attention in a long argument with Mr. James O'Rourke of the New York club. That gentleman very ably dissected the scheme, so far as he knew it, and undertook to show that it would be opposed by the minor league clubs. One of his strongest points was the right that clubs in higher classifications and in the major leagues would have to take players from lower grade clubs, and trouble would be occasioned thereby. The strength of Mr. O'Rourke's argument was mainly due to Mr. Spalding's proposition that players could be taken on a week's notice. It is claimed that a minor league club might be winning the championship in its association by reason of the superiority of one or two of its players and some association of a higher class could swoop down upon them and take these players, and so knock the team out of its well-won honors. This objection could be met by a rule that would require at least a month's notice before a player can be taken from any club which holds the lead in any league, or, as has been suggested by The Tribune, it might be wise to prohibit the taking of any player until the season following that in which notice should be given that he was wanted. This matter will need to be given careful study in perfecting the details of the plan. |
| Source | Chicago Tribune |
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| Submitted by | Richard Hershberger |
| Origin | Initial Hershberger Clippings |
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